The term is sometimes considered to be pejorative, through stereotypes about Eastern Europe being inferior (poorer, less developed) toWestern Europe; the termCentral and Eastern Europe is sometimes used for a more neutral grouping.[14][15][16][17][18]
Traditional cultural borders of Europe: usage recommendation by the Standing Committee on Geographical Names, Germany.[2]
Several definitions of Eastern Europe exist in the early 21st century, but they often lack precision and may be anachronistic. These definitions are debated across cultures and among experts, evenpolitical scientists,[19] as the term has a wide range ofgeopolitical, geographical, cultural, andsocioeconomic connotations. It has also been described as a "fuzzy" term, as the idea itself of Eastern Europe is in constant redefinition.[20] The solidification of the idea of an "Eastern Europe" dates back chiefly to the (French)Enlightenment.[20]
There are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region".[8] A relatedUnited Nations paper adds that "every assessment of spatial identities is essentially a social andcultural construct".[21]
Eastern Europe here is mainly equivalent to the European part of the formerSoviet Union.
Northern Europe
Western Europe
Central Europe
Southwest Europe
Southern Europe
Southeast Europe
While the eastern geographical boundaries of Europe are well defined, the boundary between Eastern andWestern Europe is not geographical but historical, religious and cultural, and is harder to designate.
In the west, however, the historical andcultural boundaries of "Eastern Europe" are subject to some overlap and, most importantly, have undergone historical fluctuations, which makes a precise definition of the western geographic boundaries of Eastern Europe and thegeographical midpoint of Europe somewhat difficult.
The earliest concept of Europe as a cultural sphere (instead of simply a geographic term) was formed byAlcuin of York during theCarolingian Renaissance of the 9th century, limited to the territories that practisedWestern Christianity at the time. "European" as a cultural term did not include many of the territories under the influence ofEastern Christianity until the early nineteenth century.[29]
The schism refers to the historical break of communion andtheology between the Eastern (Orthodox) and Western (Catholic) churches. Later developments meant that the divide was no longer solely between Catholic and Orthodox churches. From the 16th century, both Western and Eastern forms of Protestantism began to emerge in Europe.[36][37] Additionally, Eastern Catholic Churches began to spread in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries, following the establishment of theUkrainian Greek Catholic Church in 1596.[37][38][39][33] However, the concept of Eastern Catholicism itself predates this.[33]
Since the Great Schism of 1054, Europe has been divided betweenCatholic (and later additionallyProtestant) churches in the West, and theEastern Orthodox Christian (often incorrectly labelled "Greek Orthodox") churches in the east. The religious cleavage causes Eastern Orthodox countries to be often associated with Eastern Europe. A cleavage of this sort is, however, often problematic; for example,Greece is overwhelmingly Orthodox but is very rarely included in "Eastern Europe" for a variety of reasons, the most prominent being that Greece's history, for the most part, was more influenced by Mediterranean cultures and dynamics.[40]
Thefall of the Iron Curtain brought the end of the Cold War east–west division in Europe,[41] but this geopolitical concept is sometimes still used for quick reference by the media.[42] Another definition was used during the 40 years ofCold War between 1947 and 1989, and was more or less synonymous with the termsEastern Bloc andWarsaw Pact. A similar definition names the formerlycommunist Europeanstates outside the Soviet Union as Eastern Europe.[7]
Historians and social scientists generally view such definitions as outdated or relegated.[9][8][10][11][12][6][13]
In some media, "Central Europe" can thus partially overlap with "Eastern Europe" of the Cold War Era. The following countries are labelled Central European by some commentators, though others still consider them to be Eastern European.[53][54][55]
Some countries inSoutheast Europe can be considered part of Eastern Europe. Some of them can sometimes, albeit rarely, be characterized as belonging toSouthern Europe,[6] and some may also be included inCentral Europe.
In some media, "Southeast Europe" can thus partially overlap with "Eastern Europe" of the Cold War Era. The following countries are labelled Southeast European by some commentators, though others still consider them to be Eastern European.[63]
The following eleven countries are generally considered to be part of the Balkans by most definitions:
Additionally, although they have no territory on the Balkan Peninsula, the following countries are sometimes incorporated in the Balkans region, or Southeastern Europe, for cultural and historical affiliations:[65][66][67][68][69][70][71][64]
Cyprus (geographically inWest Asia, though often considered a part of Southeastern Europe)
Hungary (most often placed in Central Europe, sometimes considered part of Southeastern Europe and the Balkans)[72][65]
Moldova (usually grouped with the non-Baltic post-Soviet states, sometimes considered part of Southeastern Europe and the Balkans)[73][71]
TheEastern andWestern Roman Empire at the death of Theodosius I in 395. The Western Roman Empire fell in 476 while the Eastern lasted until 1453.
The earliest known distinctions between east and west in Europe originate in the history of theRoman Republic. As the Roman domain expanded, a cultural and linguistic division appeared. The mainlyGreek-speaking eastern provinces had formed the highly urbanizedHellenistic civilization. In contrast, the western territories largely adopted theLatin language. The cultural and linguistic division was eventually reinforced by the later political east–west division of theRoman Empire. The division between these two spheres deepened duringLate Antiquity and theMiddle Ages because of a number of events. TheWestern Roman Empire collapsed in the 5th century, marking the start of theEarly Middle Ages. By contrast, theEastern Roman Empire, called the "Byzantine Empire" in the West, had a survival strategy that kept it alive for another 1,000 years.[80]
During theOstsiedlung, towns founded underMagdeburg rights became centres of economic development andscattered German settlements were founded in parts of Eastern Europe.[82] Introduction of German town law is often seen as a second great step after introduction of Christianity at the turn of the first and the second millennia. The ensuing modernization of society and economy allowed the increased role played by the rulers ofBohemia andPoland.[83]
The conquest of the Byzantine Empire, the centre of theEastern Orthodox Church, by theOttoman Empire in the 15th century and the gradual fragmentation of theHoly Roman Empire (which had replaced the Frankish Empire) led to a change of the importance ofCatholic/Protestant vs.Eastern Orthodox concept in Europe. Armour points out thatCyrillic-alphabet use is not a strict determinant for Eastern Europe, where from Croatia to Poland and everywhere in between, the Latin alphabet is used.[84] Greece's status as the cradle of Western civilization and an integral part of the Western world in the political, cultural and economic spheres has led to it being nearly always classified as belonging not to Eastern but Southern or Western Europe.[85] During the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth centuries, Eastern Europe enjoyed a relatively highstandard of living. This period is also called the east-central European golden age of around 1600.[86] At the beginning of the 17th century,numeracy levels in eastern Europe were relatively low although regional differences existed. During the 18th century, the region began to catch up with western Europe but did not develop as rapidly. Areas with stronger female autonomy developed more quickly in terms of numeracy.[87]
Serfdom was a prevalent status of agricultural workers until the 19th century. It resembled slavery in terms of lack of freedom, with the distinction that the landowners could not buy and sell serfs separately from the specific plots of land to which they were permanently attached. The system emerged in the 14th and the 15th centuries while it was declining in Western Europe.[88] The climax came in the 17th and 18th century. The early 19th century saw its decline, marked especially by the abolition of serfdom in Russia in 1861. Emancipation meant that the ex-serfs paid for their freedom with annual cash payments to their former masters for decades. The system varied widely by country and was not as standardized as in Western Europe. Historians until the 20th century focused on master-serf economic and labor relations, portraying the serfs as slave-like, passive, and isolated, and 20th-century scholars downplayed the evils and emphasized the complexities.[89][90]
Lack of industrialization during the long nineteenth century
Before 1870 and to some extent untilWorld War I (the end of thelong nineteenth century), the industrialization that had started to develop in Northwestern andCentral Europe and theUnited States did not extend in any significant way to the rest of the world. Even in Eastern Europe, industrialization lagged far behind.Russia, for example, remained largely rural and agricultural, and its autocratic rulers kept the peasants largely in serfdom.[91]
A major result of World War I was the breakup of the Russian, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman Empires, as well as partial losses to the German Empire. A surge of ethnic nationalism created a series of new states in Eastern Europe, validated by theVersailles Treaty of 1919.Poland was reconstituted after thepartitions of the 1790s had divided it between Prussia, Austria, and Russia. New or renewed countries included Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine (which wassoon absorbed by the Soviet Union), Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. Austria and Hungary had much-reduced boundaries. The new states included sizeable ethnic minorities, which were to be protected according to theLeague of Nations minority protection regime.[92] Throughout Eastern Europe, ethnic Germans constituted by far the largest single ethnic minority.[93] In some areas, as in theSudetenland, regions ofPoland and parts ofSlovenia, German-speakers constituted the local majority, which created conflict regarding demands of self-determination.
Romania, Bulgaria and Albania likewise were independent. Many of the countries were still largely rural, with little industry and only a few urban centres. Nationalism was the dominant force, but most of the countries had ethnic or religious minorities, which felt threatened by majority elements. Nearly all became democratic in the 1920s, but all of them (except Czechoslovakia and Finland) gave up democracy during the depression years of the 1930s in favour of autocratic, strong-man or single-party states. The new states were unable to form stable military alliances and one by one were too weak to stand up against Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union, which took them over between 1938 and 1945.
Russia ended its participation in World War I in March 1918 and lost territory, as the Baltic countries and Poland became independent. The region was the main battlefield in the Second World War (1939–45), with the German and Soviet Armies sweeping back and forth; millions of Jews and others being killed by the Nazis inGeneralplan Ost; and millions of others killed by disease, starvation, and military action, or executed after being deemed as politically dangerous.[94] During the final stages of World War II, the future of Eastern Europe was decided by the overwhelming power of the Soviet Army, which swept the Germans aside. It did not reach Yugoslavia and Albania, however. Finland was free but forced to be neutral in the upcoming Cold War.
The region fell to Soviet control, and communist governments were imposed. Yugoslavia, Albania and later Romania had their own communist regimes independent of Moscow. TheEastern Bloc at the onset of the Cold War in 1947 was far behind the Western European countries in economic rebuilding and economic progress. Winston Churchill, in his well-known "Sinews of Peace" address of 5 March 1946, atWestminster College inFulton, Missouri, stressed the geopolitical impact of the "iron curtain":
Eastern Europe after 1945 usually meant all the European countries liberated from Nazi Germany and then occupied by the Soviet Army. It included theGerman Democratic Republic (also known as East Germany), formed by theSoviet occupation zone of Germany. All countries in Eastern Europe adopted communist modes of control by 1948. They were officially independent of the Soviet Union, but the practical extent of this independence was quite limited. Yugoslavia and Albania had Communist control that was independent of the Kremlin.
The communists had a natural reservoir of popularity in that they had destroyed the German invaders.[96] Their goal was to guarantee long-term working-class solidarity. The Soviet secret police, theNKVD, working in collaboration with local communists, created secret police forces using leadership trained in Moscow. This new secret police arrived to arrest political enemies according to prepared lists.[97] The national communists then took power in a gradualist manner and were backed by the Soviets in many, but not all, cases. For a while, co-operative non-communist parties were tolerated.[98] The communist governments nationalized private businesses, placed them under state ownership and monitored the media and the churches.[98] When dividing up government offices with coalition partners, the communists took control of the interior ministries, which controlled the local police.[99] They also took control of the mass media, especially radio,[100] as well as the education system.[101] They confiscated and redistributed farmland[102] and seized control of or replaced the organizations of civil society, such as church groups, sports, youth groups, trade unions, farmers' organizations, and civic organizations. In some countries, they engaged in large-scale ethnic cleansing by moving ethnic groups such as Germans, Poles, Ukrainians and Hungarians far away from where they had lived, often with high loss of life, and relocating them within the new post-war borders of their respective countries.[103]
Under Stalin's direct instructions, these nations rejected grants from the AmericanMarshall Plan. Instead, they joined theMolotov Plan, which later evolved into theComecon (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance). WhenNATO was created in 1949, most countries of Eastern Europe became members of the opposingWarsaw Pact, forming a geopolitical concept that became known as theEastern Bloc. This consisted of:
TheSocialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY; formed after World War II and before its later dismemberment) was not a member of theWarsaw Pact but was a founding member of theNon-Aligned Movement, an organization created in an attempt to avoid being assigned to either the NATO or Warsaw Pact blocs. The movement was demonstratively independent of both the Soviet Union and the Western bloc for most of the Cold War, which allowed Yugoslavia and its other members to act as a business and political mediator between the blocs.[104]
TheSocialist People's Republic of Albania broke with the Soviet Union in the early 1960s as a result of theSino-Soviet split and aligned itself instead with China. Albania formally left the Warsaw Pact in September 1968 after the suppression of thePrague Spring. When China established diplomatic relations with the United States in 1978, Albania also broke away from 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.[105]
With thefall of theIron Curtain in 1989, the political landscape of theEastern Bloc, and indeed the world, changed. In theGerman reunification, the Federal Republic of Germany peacefully absorbed the German Democratic Republic in 1990. In 1991,COMECON, theWarsaw Pact, and the Soviet Union were dissolved. Many European nations that had been part of the Soviet Union declared or regained their independence (Belarus,Moldova,Ukraine, as well as theBaltic States ofLatvia,Lithuania, andEstonia).Czechoslovakiapeacefully separated into theCzech Republic andSlovakia in 1993. Many countries of this region joined theEuropean Union, namelyBulgaria, the Czech Republic,Croatia, Estonia,Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania,Poland,Romania, Slovakia andSlovenia. The term "EU11 countries" refer to theCentral and Eastern European member states, including theBaltic states, that accessed in 2004 and after: in 2004 the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia, and the Slovak Republic; in 2007 Bulgaria, Romania; and in 2013 Croatia.
The economic changes were in harmony with the constitutional reforms: constitutional provisions on public finances can be identified and, in some countries, a separate chapter deals with public finances. Generally, they soon encountered the following problems: high inflation, high unemployment, low economic growth, and high government debt. By 2000 these economies were stabilized, and between 2004 and 2013 all of them joined the European Union. Most of the constitutions define directly or indirectly the economic system of the countries parallel to the democratic transition of the 1990s: free-market economy (sometimes complemented with the socially [and ecologically] oriented sector), economic development, or only economic rights are included as a ground for the economy.[106]
In the case of fiscal policy, the legislative, the executive and other state organs (Budget Council, Economic and Social Council) define and manage the budgeting. The average government debt in the countries is nearly 44%, but the deviation is great because the lowest figure is close to 10% but the highest is 97%. The trend shows that the sovereign debt ratio to GDP in most countries has been rising. Only three countries are affected by high government debt: Croatia, Hungary and Slovenia (over 70% of the GDP), while Slovakia and Poland fulfill the Maastricht requirement but only 10% below the threshold. The contribution to cover the finances for common needs is declared, the principle of just tax burden-sharing is supplemented sometimes with special aspects. Tax revenues expose typically 15–19 % of the GDP, and rates above 20% only rarely can be found.[106]
The state audit of the government budget and expenditures is an essential control element in public finances and an important part of the concept of checks and balances. The central banks are independent state institutions, which possess a monopoly on managing and implementing a state's or federation's monetary policy. Besides monetary policy, some of them even perform the supervision of the financial intermediary system. In the case of a price stability function, the inflation rate, in the examined area, relatively quickly dropped to below 5% by 2000. In monetary policy the differences are based on the euro-zone: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia use the common currency. The economies of this decade – similar to the previous one – show a moderate inflation. As a new phenomenon, a slight negative inflation (deflation) appeared in that decade in several countries (Croatia, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia), which demonstrates sensitivity regarding international developments. The majority of the constitutions determine the national currency, legal tender or monetary unit. The local currency exchange rate to the U.S. dollar shows that drastic interventions were not necessary. National wealth or assets are the property of the state or local governments and, as an exclusive property, the management and protection of them aim at serving the public interest.[106]
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