Eastern Europe

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Eastern Europe is a region lying in the Eastern part of Europe. The term is highly context-dependent and even volatile, as there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region".[1] A related UN paper adds that "every assessment of spatial identities is essentially a social and cultural construct".[2]

One prevailing 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 limited Ottoman influences.[2][3] Western advocates of this view include the OECD, the World Bank,[4] and US VP Joe Biden.[5]

Another definition, considered outdated by an increasing number of authors,[6][7][8][9] was created during the Cold War and used more or less synonymously with the term Eastern Bloc, including the countries that historically and geographically belong to Central Europe.[10] 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.

Definitions

CIA World Factbook classification:      Eastern Europe      Southeastern Europe      Transcontinental

Regions used for statistical processing purposes by the United Nations Statistics Division (Eastern Europe marked red):      Northern Europe      Western Europe      Eastern Europe      Southern Europe

Members of specific Divisions of the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names[11]:      Eastern Europe, Northern and Central Asia Division      East Central and South-East Europe Division

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. These definitions vary both across cultures and among experts, even political scientists, recently becoming more and more imprecise [12].

The Economist and other sources argue that "Eastern Europe" is a mala fides (consciously misleading and inaccurate) socio-economic and cultural stereotype routinely used by Western conservatives for post-Communist countries.[13][14] It is asserted that the double standard becomes apparent when a comparison between Western Europe and the more developed regions of "Eastern Europe" reveals broad similarity in indicators such as quality of life, budget deficit and corruption. In fact, a global quality of life index by International Living (2010) places four "Eastern European" countries in the top 30 with Hungary leading at the 20th place.[15] "[T]he term 'Eastern Europe' has become meaningless, both as a generic geographic or economic label."[16][17][18][19][20]

CIA

The CIA World Factbook[21] describes the following countries as located in:

• Central Europe: Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia
• Eastern Europe: Belarus, Estonia[22], 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.

UN

• The United Nations Statistics Division developed a selection of geographical regions and groupings of countries and areas, which are or may be used in compilation of statistics. In this collection, the following ten countries were classified as Eastern Europe[23][24]: 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[25]. 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[26]. 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.

1. Eastern Europe, Northern and Central Asia Division[11]: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Georgia, Russian Federation, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia and Uzbekistan.
2. East Central and South-East Europe Division[11]:Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Republic of Macedonia, Turkey, Ukraine.
3. Romano-Hellenic Division[11]: Fourteen countries[27] including Belgium, Cyprus, France, Greece, Holy See, Italy, Luxembourg, Monaco, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Romania, Moldova and Turkey.
4. Baltic Division[11]: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania

• Other agencies of the United Nations (like UNAIDS[28], UNHCR[29], ILO[30] or UNICEF[31]) divide Europe into different regions and variously assign various states to those regions.

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. European 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, 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.[32] Even if this geopolitical concept is still in use,[33] reference to European geographic and cultural regions is becoming acknowledged.[34]

The Baltic states

The Baltic states were occupied by the Soviet Union 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 Northern Europe (due to cultural reasons).[35][36]