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org/wiki/Eastern_Europe
This definition is fulfilled by Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, as well as the countries of Southeast
Europe and the Balkan: Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania,
Montenegro, Kosovo and three Caucasus countries: Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Contents
1 Definitions
1.1 Geographical
1.2 Religious
1.3 European Union
1.4 Cold War
1.5 Contemporary developments
1.5.1 Baltic states
1.5.2 Caucasus
1.5.3 Other former Soviet states
1.5.4 Central Europe
1.5.5 Southeastern Europe
2 History
2.1 Classical antiquity and medieval origins
2.2 Interwar years
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Definitions
Several other definitions of Eastern Europe exist today, but
they often lack precision, are too general or outdated. These
definitions vary both across cultures and among experts,
even political scientists.[3] as the term has a wide range of
geopolitical, geographical, cultural, and socioeconomic
connotations.
Religious
The EastWest Schism which began in the 11th century and lasts until this very day divided
Christianity in Europe, and consequently the world, into Western Christianity and Eastern
Christianity.
Western Europe according to this point of view is formed by countries with dominant Roman
Catholic and Protestant churches (including Central European countries like Germany, Austria, the
Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovakia).
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Since the Great Schism of 1054, Europe has been divided between Roman Catholic and Protestant
churches in the West, and the Eastern Orthodox Christian (many times incorrectly labeled "Greek
Orthodox") churches in the east. Due to this religious cleavage, Eastern Orthodox countries are
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.[8]
European Union
The official European Union website Europa makes a clear division between East and Central
Europe classifying several European countries strictly as Central European: Hungary, Poland,
Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Slovenia.[9][10][11][12][13]
Eurovoc, a multilingual thesaurus maintained by the Publications Office of the European Union,
provides a somewhat different view with entries for "23 EU languages"[14] (Bulgarian, Croatian,
Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian,
Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish and
Swedish), plus the languages of candidate countries (Albanian, Macedonian and Serbian). Of these,
those in italics are classified as "Eastern Europe" in this source, similar to the Cold War division of
Europe.[15]
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Cold War
Contemporary developments
Baltic states
Estonia
Latvia
Lithuania
Caucasus
The Caucasus nations may be included in the definitions of Eastern Europe. The extent of their
geographic or political affiliation with Europe varies by country and source. All three states are
members of the European Union's Eastern Partnership program and the Euronest Parliamentary
Assembly. On 12 January 2002, the European Parliament noted that Armenia and Georgia may
enter the EU in the future.[30]
Georgia in modern geography, Georgia has been classified as entirely part of Eastern
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Several other former Soviet republics may be considered part of Eastern Europe
Russia is a transcontinental country where the Western part is in Eastern Europe and the
rest is in Asia.
Kazakhstan is a transcontinental country, predominantly in Asia, with a relatively small
section in Europe.
Ukraine
Belarus
Moldova
Disputed states:
Transnistria
Central Europe
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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. Some
can be considered part of Southern Europe.[22] 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.[43]
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History
Classical antiquity and medieval origins
Ancient kingdoms of the region included Orontid Armenia Albania, Colchis and Iberia. These
kingdoms were either from the start, or later on incorporated into various Iranian empires, including
the Achaemenid Persian, Parthian, and Sassanid Persian Empires.[50] Parts of the Balkans and more
northern areas were ruled by the Achaemenid Persians as well, including Thrace, Paeonia,
Macedon, and most of the Black Sea coastal regions of Romania, Ukraine, and Russia.[51][52]
Owing to the rivalry between Parthian Iran and Rome, and later Byzantium and the Sassanid
Persians, the former would invade the region several times, although it was never able to hold the
region, unlike the Sassanids who ruled over most of the Caucasus during their entire rule.[53]
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 eastwest 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 Eastern Europe was invaded and occupied by the Mongols.
The conquest of the Byzantine Empire, center of the Eastern Orthodox Church, by the 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. Armour points out that the Cyrillic alphabet use is not a strict
determinant for Eastern Europe, where from Croatia to Poland and everywhere in between, the
Latin alphabet is used.[54] 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
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always classified as belonging not to Eastern, but to Southern or Western Europe.[55] During the
late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries Eastern Europe enjoyed a relative high standard of
living. This period is also called the east-central European golden age of around 1600.[56]
Interwar years
A major result of the First World War 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 the Versailles Treaty of 1919. Poland
was reconstituted after the partitions of the 1790s had divided it between Germany, Austria, and
Russia. New countries included Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine (which was soon
absorbed by the Soviet Union), Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. Austria and Hungary had much
reduced boundaries. Romania, Bulgaria and Albania likewise were independent. All the countries
were heavily rural, with little industry and only a few urban centers. Nationalism was the dominant
force but most of the countries had ethnic or religious minorities who 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 favor of autocratic or
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, defeated in the First World War, lost territory as the Baltics and Poland made good their
independence. The region was the main battlefield in the Second World War (193945), with
German and Soviet armies sweeping back and forth, with millions of Jews killed by the Nazis, and
millions of others killed by disease, starvation, and military action, or executed after being deemed
as politically dangerous.[57] During the final stages of World War II the future of Eastern Europe
was decided by the overwhelming power of the Soviet Red Army, as it 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 and Albania had their own Communist regimes. The Eastern Bloc with the onset of the
Cold War in 1947 was mostly behind the Western European countries in economic rebuilding and
progress. Winston Churchill, in his famous "Sinews of Peace" address of March 5, 1946 at
Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, stressed the geopolitical impact of the "iron curtain":
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.
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First and foremost was the Soviet Union (which included the modern-day territories of
Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Moldova). Other countries
dominated by the Soviet Union were the German Democratic Republic, People's Republic of
Poland, Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, People's Republic of Hungary, People's Republic of
Bulgaria, and Socialist Republic of Romania.
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY; formed after World War II 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
either the NATO or Warsaw Pact blocs. The movement was demonstratively independent
from both the Soviet Union and the Western bloc for most of the Cold War period, allowing
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Since 1989
With the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, the political landscape of the Eastern Bloc, and indeed the
world, changed. In the German reunification, the Federal Republic of Germany peacefully absorbed
the German Democratic Republic in 1990. In 1991, COMECON, the Warsaw Pact, and the Soviet
Union were dissolved. Many European nations which had been part of the Soviet Union regained
their independence (Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, as well as the Baltic States of Latvia, Lithuania,
and Estonia). Czechoslovakia peacefully separated into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993.
Many countries of this region joined the European Union, namely Bulgaria, the Czech Republic,
Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia.
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existing existing
members members
new members new members
US-led NATO
in 2004 in 2007
USSR-led Warsaw
Cyprus Bulgaria Pact
Czech Romania (dissolved in
Republic 1990/1991)
Estonia Bulgaria
Hungary Czechoslovakia
Latvia East Germany
Lithuania Hungary
Malta Poland
Poland Romania
Slovakia
Slovenia
See also
Community for Democracy and Rights of Nations
Eastern European Group
Eastern Partnership
Enlargement of the European Union
Eurasian Economic Union
Euronest Parliamentary Assembly
Eurovoc
Future enlargement of the European Union
Geography of the Soviet Union
N-ost
Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation
Post-Soviet States
Slavic peoples
Russian explorers
European Union
Midzymorze
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European geography:
Central Europe
Northern Europe
Southeast Europe
Western Europe
Central and Eastern Europe
East-Central Europe
European Russia
Geographical midpoint of Europe
Notes
1. 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
(http://141.74.33.52/stagn/JordanEuropaRegional/tabid/71/Default.aspx)
2. Ramet, Sabrina P. (1998). Eastern Europe: politics, culture, and society since 1939. Indiana University
Press. p. 15. ISBN 0253212561. Retrieved 2011-10-05.
3. Drake, Miriam A. (2005) Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, CRC Press
4. "The Balkans" (http://www.cotf.edu/earthinfo/balkans/BKdef.html), Global Perspectives: A Remote
Sensing and World Issues Site. Wheeling Jesuit University/Center for Educational Technologies,
19992002.
5. "Atlas of the Historical Geography of the Holy Land". Rbedrosian.com. Archived from the original on
10 June 2013. Retrieved 23 February 2013.
6. "home.comcast.net". Archived from the original on February 13, 2013. Retrieved 23 February 2013.
7. Dragan Bruji (2005). "Vodi kroz svet Vizantije (Guide to the Byzantine World)". Beograd. p. 51.
8. Peter John, Local Governance in Western Europe, University of Manchester, 2001, ISBN
9780761956372
9. "EUROPA - Hungary in the EU". 5 November 2010.
10. "EUROPA - Czech Republic in the EU". 5 November 2010.
11. "EUROPA - Poland in the EU". 5 November 2010.
12. "EUROPA - Slovakia in the EU". 5 November 2010.
13. "EUROPA - Slovenia in the EU". 2016-02-17. Retrieved 2016-03-09.
14. "EuroVoc". European Union. Retrieved 2016-01-30.
15. "EuroVoc 7206 Europe". European Union. Retrieved 2016-12-11.
16. "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. Retrieved
2010-01-31
17. "The Economist: Eastern Europe a bogus term - South Eastern Europe - The Sofia Echo".
18. "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
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19. "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 (http://www.ce-review.org/99/1/hanley1.html)
20. Berglund, Sten; Ekman, Joakim; Aarebrot, Frank H. (2004). The handbook of political change in
Eastern Europe. Edward Elgar Publishing [via Google Books]. p. 2. ISBN 9781781954324. Retrieved
2011-10-05. "The term 'Eastern Europe' is ambiguous and in many ways outdated."
21. [1] (http://eurovoc.europa.eu/drupal/?q=node%7CEuroVoc) Archived (https://web.archive.org
/web/20150403010617/http://eurovoc.europa.eu/drupal/?q=node) April 3, 2015, at the Wayback
Machine.. Eurovoc.europa.eu. Retrieved on 2015-03-04.
22. "United Nations Statistics Division- Standard Country and Area Codes Classifications (M49)".
23. Population Division, DESA, United Nations: World Population Ageing 1950-2050 (http://www.un.org
/esa/population/publications/worldageing19502050/pdf/96annexii.pdf)
24. V. Martynov, The End of East-West Division But Not the End of History, UN Chronicle, 2000 (available
online (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1309/is_2_37/ai_66579827/pg_1?tag=artBody;col1))
25. "Migrant workers: What we know". BBC News. 2007-08-21.
26. "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. Retrieved
2010-01-31
27. Berglund, Sten; Ekman, Joakim; Aarebrot, Frank H. (2004). The handbook of political change in
Eastern Europe. Edward Elgar Publishing [via Google Books]. p. 2. ISBN 9781781954324. Retrieved
2011-10-05. "The term 'Eastern Europe' is ambiguous and in many ways outdated."
28. European Parliament, European Parliament Resolution 2014/2717(RSP) (http://www.europarl.europa.eu
/sides/getDoc.do?type=TA&language=EN&reference=P8-TA-2014-0009), 17 July 2014: ...pursuant to
Article 49 of the Treaty on European Union, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine like any other European
state have a European perspective and may apply to become members of the Union...
29. http://www.visegradgroup.eu/about About the Visegrad Group
30. (PDF) http://www.libertas-institut.com/de/PDF/Armenia%20ante%20portas.pdf Missing or empty
|title= (help)
31. International Geographic Encyclopaedia and Atlas. Springer, 24 November 1979, p. 273
32. Stephen White, Valentina Feklyunina. Identities and Foreign Policies in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus:
The Other Europes. Springer, Oct 22, 2014 : The Great Soviet Atlas put the entire Caucasus inside
'Europe', as far as the Turkish border with the USSR (Efremov, Obsuzhdenie', p. 145); so did the
Great Soviet Encyclopedia...
33.
34. Wallace, W. The Transformation of Western Europe London, Pinter, 1990
35. Huntington, Samuel The Clash of Civilizations Simon & Schuster, 1996
36. Johnson, Lonnie Central Europe: Enemies, Neighbours, Friends Oxford University Press, USA, 2001
37. Lonnie Johnson, Central Europe: Enemies, Neighbors, Friends (https://books.google.com/books/about
/Central_Europe.html?id=e_m13Hk3AFEC&redir_esc=y), Oxford University Pres
38. "In the Heavy Shadow of the Ukraine/Russia Crisis, page 10" (PDF). European Bank for Reconstruction
and Development. September 2014. Retrieved 15 January 2015.
39. "UNHCR in Central Europe". UNCHR.
40. "Central European Green Corridors - Fast charging cross-border infrastructure for electric vehicles,
connecting Austria, Slovakia, Slovenia, Germany and Croatia" (PDF). Central European Green
Corridors. October 2014. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-04-02.
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Further reading
Applebaum, Anne. Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 19441956 (2012)
Berend, Ivn T. Decades of Crisis: Central and Eastern Europe before World War II (2001)
Frankel, Benjamin. The Cold War 1945-1991. Vol. 2, Leaders and other important figures in
the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, China, and the Third World (1992), 379pp of biographies.
Frucht, Richard, ed. Encyclopedia of Eastern Europe: From the Congress of Vienna to the
Fall of Communism (2000)
Gal, Susan and Gail Kligman, The Politics of Gender After Socialism, Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2000.
Ghodsee, Kristen R.. Muslim Lives in Eastern Europe: Gender, Ethnicity and the
Transformation of Islam in Postsocialist Bulgaria. Princeton: Princeton University Press,
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2009.
Ghodsee, Kristen R.. Lost in Transition: Ethnographies of Everyday Life After Communism,
Duke University Press, 2011.
Held, Joseph, ed. The Columbia History of Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century (1993)
Jelavich, Barbara. History of the Balkans, Vol. 1: Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (1983);
History of the Balkans, Vol. 2: Twentieth Century (1983)
Lipton, David (2002). "Eastern Europe". In David R. Henderson (ed.). Concise Encyclopedia
of Economics (1st ed.). Library of Economics and Liberty. OCLC 317650570
(https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/317650570), 50016270 (https://www.worldcat.org
/oclc/50016270), 163149563 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/163149563)
Myant, Martin; Drahokoupil, Jan (2010). Transition Economies: Political Economy in Russia,
Eastern Europe, and Central Asia. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-470-59619-7
Ramet, Sabrina P. Eastern Europe: Politics, Culture, and Society Since 1939 (1999)
Roskin, Michael G. The Rebirth of East Europe (4th ed. 2001); 204pp
Seton-Watson, Hugh. Eastern Europe Between The Wars 1918-1941 (1945) online
(https://archive.org/download/in.ernet.dli.2015.183358/2015.183358.Estern-Europe-Between-
The-Wars-1918-1941.pdf)
Simons, Thomas W. Eastern Europe in the Postwar World (1991)
Snyder, Timothy. Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (2011)
Swain, Geoffrey and Nigel Swain, Eastern Europe Since 1945 (3rd ed. 2003)
Verdery, Katherine. What Was Socialism and What Comes Next? Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1996.
Walters, E. Garrison. The Other Europe: Eastern Europe to 1945 (1988) 430pp; country-
by-country coverage
Wolchik, Sharon L. and Jane L. Curry, eds. Central and East European Politics: From
Communism to Democracy (2nd ed. 2010), 432pp
External links
Eastern Europe Economic Data Wikimedia Commons
(http://www.databasece.com/en/macro-summary) has media related to
Eastern Europe.
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organization.
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