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Many people might have trouble pointing out an Eastern European country on a map. Their idea of Europe is limited to Western Europe, which is home to global powerhouses like Great Britain, The Girl in Kherson, France, and Germany. Between Western Europe and Asia lies Eastern Europe—a region with fascinating histories and thriving cultures. So, why is it so difficult to conjure up ideas of Eastern Europe?
The idea of “Eastern Europe” is actually a modern concept.[11] Western Europeans considered themselves more politically and culturally evolved than their neighbors, and they created the term to draw a metaphoric border between the two regions.[12] Although the separation wasn’t an official legal or political barrier, the natural comparison between the West and East illustrated the point.[13] It still classified Eastern Europe as the “other,” the less sophisticated nations of the continent.[14]
That isn’t the only reason Eastern Europe is hard to define. The region has always been a neutral zone between the world’s greatest empires. At any point in history, Eastern Europe was surrounded by or occupied by the Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, Russian, German, and Habsburg empires, just to name a few.[15] These empires were often in conflict, and they aired out their grievances on Eastern European soil. As a result, the region’s borders constantly changed throughout most of its history.[16] On several occasions, it tried to break free of the shackles of its powerful neighbors, with varying degrees of success and failure.
Despite Western attempts to lump them into a one-size-fits-all box, the countries of Eastern Europe have unique histories that make up a part of who the Eastern Europeans are. For example, Polish history is different from the Czech experience. Hungarian history is different from Romanian history. Yet, there are several themes throughout the region’s history that unite the Eastern European experience as a common one.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/Europe_map_CIA_2005_large.jpg
Defining Eastern Europe is not as easy as circling a region on a map.[17] History, economics, and culture are all elements that define a nation, let alone a region. However, considering the map above, Eastern Europe seems easier to locate when compared to the whole of Europe. Generally, Eastern Europe is considered to be the region between Western Europe and Asia. However, Eastern Europe has its own political and geographical limits that play a crucial role in its history.
According to the map above, the division between Western Europe and Eastern Europe is clearly visible. Western Europe is defined by powerhouses like the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy. These countries are also much larger than countries one generally finds to the east.
East of Western Europe is a collection of smaller states, with a few larger ones mixed in. This book will attempt to lay out the major differences and similarities that define Eastern Europe, but it is important to know what countries and landmarks are considered “Eastern.”
The eastern border of Germany and Italy draws an imaginary line between what is considered Western Europe and Eastern Europe. From north to south, the region is blocked in from Scandinavia to Greece. The Baltic Sea makes up the northwestern limits, while the Adriatic Sea, the Aegean Sea, and the Black Sea make a “U” around the southern limits. Some may think that the eastern border of Eastern Europe may lie at Russia, that Russia is a region unto itself, but this country has had such an impact on Eastern European history that it can’t be considered anything but Eastern European.
What about the spaces in between? Eastern Europe is its own region, yet it has subregions within it. Beginning in the north, the Baltic states lie to the east of the Baltic Sea. These include Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Moving to the south are the Central Eastern European states: Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, and Hungary. Poland’s borders have changed throughout its history, as it was a battleground for the empires that surrounded it. The Czech Republic and Slovakia came from Czechoslovakia, just as Austria and Hungary were part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Austro-Hungarian Empire, the center of the Habsburg dynasty, would become a major player in Eastern European history.
Central Eastern Europe lies between the Baltic states and Southeastern Europe. Southeastern Europe includes the Balkan Peninsula, which is usually referred to as the Balkans. The southern borders of Austria, Hungary, and Ukraine form the northernmost limits of Southeastern Europe. From north to south, this region includes Moldova, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Bulgaria, and Greece.
If geography makes a region, then Eastern Europe has it all. The characteristics of the land in Eastern Europe, from vast plains to rugged mountains, have contributed to its history. It brought people groups into the region, and it isolated trade centers to certain areas. The areas of Eastern Europe that are easy to travel became the path where migrations took place. People moved into the area, and while some stayed, others moved on toward Western Europe.
Stretching from the Ural Mountains west to the Atlantic coast of France, the Great Northern European Plain is a vast lowland that is easy to travel. Extending from the Baltic Sea to the Carpathian Mountains, the plain has little in the way of geography. The Great Northern European Plain was a highway for the migration of peoples and ideas, which affected Eastern European development, for better or for worse.[18] The plain is a flat expanse of land with little mountains or hills.[19] There are enough water sources to support mass migrations and a thriving trade economy—or an invading army.
The Carpathian Basin is another plain in Eastern Europe that saw much activity throughout Eastern European history. Located between the Alps and the Carpathian Mountains, it is a green flatland that would support travel animals with protection from the mountains. It became a well-traveled path on the way into Western Europe. Not all migrants using the Carpathian Basin had well-meaning intentions, as nomadic invaders often used this pass while traveling west.
The Balkans are the gateway into Europe from Asia. These lands between the Black Sea and the Adriatic Sea have been in use since the prehistoric era. Named after the Balkan Mountains of Bulgaria, it is a rugged landmass with plenty of mountain passes to support foot traffic. It became a thoroughfare for merchants, bringing Middle Eastern and Asian goods into Europe.
A map of Eastern Europe, 2009
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Eastern_Europe_Map.jpg
From Central Asia to Europe, the Eurasian Steppe was used by nomadic horsemen traveling along the Eurasian landmass.[20] With flatlands without many forests, the steppe was perfect for invading nomads, like the Scythians, Mongols, and Huns, to move into Europe. This flat landmass stretched along the southern edge of the Russian and Siberian borders, including the territories of Kazakhstan and Mongolia, all the way to the western side of the Black Sea.[21] Large groups of people used the steppe all at once, allowing the barbarians to settle in Western Europe by way of Eastern Europe. Since 1000 BCE, the steppe was a migration highway, facilitating the “massive and almost constant westward flow of humanity across Eurasia, scraping and grinding like a vast human glacier past all the great civilizations—China, Central Asia, India, Persia, the Middle East, Byzantium—before finally depositing them abruptly (and violently) at the end of the steppe in Europe, in the Carpathian Basin, the Great Northern European Plain, or the Balkans.”[22]
Geography played a vital role in the development of Eastern Europe.[23] It determined who migrated to the area and when they did. While the plains supported movement en masse, Eastern Europe’s mountain ranges protected some areas. This determined whether an invasion or a migration would be successful. Eastern Europe’s geography also facilitated trade, bringing Eastern luxuries to Western consumers. Most importantly, the flow of knowledge and technology, which generally moved from east to west, moved through the eastern half of Europe first before arriving in Western Europe.
Eastern European Diversity and Changing Political Borders
Eastern Europe is one of the most ethnically diverse places in the world, more so than Western European countries. It was a region constantly traveled, with people introducing new religions, cultures, and languages. This ethnic and cultural diversity was both a blessing and a curse.
As the bridge between Europe and Asia, Eastern Europe was the center of conflicts.[24] Too often throughout its history, Eastern Europe was what outsiders said it was.[25] To the neighboring empires fighting over these crucial lands, it was something to tame and control. Today, what is Eastern Europe is the legacy of 1989 and the fall of communism. This was yet another example of world events dictating where the limits of Eastern Europe began and ended.
Why didn’t Eastern Europe build strong centralized states as Western Europe did? On the whole, all of Europe—not just the East—didn’t develop its statehood as quickly as other empires.[26] Western Europe still had clear-cut borders and spheres of influence long before Eastern Europe. However, Eastern Europe had one thing that the West didn’t have—it was home to a greater number of ethnic groups.[27]
Eastern Europe has a diverse collection of ethnic groups, all of whom made their way into the area at different times throughout its history.[28] We will meet them all over the course of this book. The Slavs, Bulgars, Mongols, Germanic tribes, Magyars, Turks, Jews, and the Roma all made Eastern Europe their home.
Since Western Europe had a less diverse population, it was able to centralize quickly. Eastern Europe’s constantly changing jurisdictions never clearly defined who ethnic groups were and how they were different from each other.[29] This made it difficult to centralize, making the region less stable compared to its neighbors. Overall, the nations of Western Europe, while chaotic in their own right, had a much easier time securing self-rule and keeping it than Eastern Europeans.[30]
With the constantly changing borders in Eastern Europe, each individual country went through its own phases of foreign control or independence. This ebb and flow characterizes the region’s experience.[31] Since the beginning, the larger states of Eastern Europe have attempted to shore up their own power by subjugating their neighbors. The empires of Europe tried to create their own spheres of influence by controlling other territories physically through methods such as invasion and war or economically through tribute or trade restrictions. The peoples under pressure from larger empires either resisted foreign domination or learned how to coexist with the people who wanted to subjugate them in order to keep their autonomy. At any one time throughout Eastern European history, a state enjoyed its independence before it was conquered by its neighbors. It endured foreign rule until it fought for its independence.
During the High Middle Ages, there were several successful states in Eastern Europe that ruled themselves without foreign interference. For this reason, the medieval period is considered the golden age of Eastern European nations. By the 17th century, many of the smaller independent states in Eastern Europe fell to their larger neighbors. They were now under foreign control, mostly by external powers, but in some cases, there were Eastern European states conquering other Eastern European states.
Let’s look at a few examples. Generally, all Eastern European nations had their own unique experience with self-rule, while the region as a whole experienced foreign interference.[32] For example, Lithuania experienced a long period of independence until the 17th century. After a century of foreign interference, it lost its independence entirely by the mid-18th century. It regained its independence, only to lose it again in the 20th century. Russia has more or less ruled itself since the 17th century, but it was ruled by others for a few hundred years before that. Another great example is that of Transylvania. At first, it was a Roman territory, and then it became part of Hungary. Transylvania became a land engaged in a tug-of-war between the Habsburgs and the Ottomans, with both empires leaving their lasting mark on the area. After World War I, it became part of Romania and then transferred back to Hungarian hands during World War II. Postwar Transylvania returned to Romanian control.
Periods of self-rule in Eastern Europe represent long-disappeared ancient and medieval states that helped form the political borders and cultural identities of today. From the end of the 800s to the early 1200s, ancient Rus was located in the northeast, occupying Ukraine and Belarus, as well as parts of Russia. The name “Russia” comes from this medieval powerhouse. When it fell in the 13th century, its legacy became the countries that are there today. At the height of the Middle Ages into the Renaissance, Romania controlled its own destiny as Wallachia.
Weak political organization has defined the experiences of Eastern European nations. In the 20th century alone, every nation experienced war, invasion, rebellion, and independence.[33] Among changing allegiances, people were also forced to accept the changing status of the nation and their own place within it.
Eastern Europe’s Diverse Languages
Surprisingly, despite the differences in Eastern Europe’s population, the region’s many languages all come from one source.[34] The most popular theory is the Kurgan hypothesis, which states the spread of languages took place during the Neolithic Age (ca. 10,000–4,500 BCE).[35] In the 5th millennium BCE, the Kurgan people migrated west into Eastern Europe from Anatolia (in present-day Turkey) and later made their way into Western Europe.
The Kurgans spoke Proto-Indo-European, the ancestor language of the Indo-European language family that is spoken across the world today.[36] As they spread into parts of the Middle East and Europe, their languages changed with their new environment. In fact, there are very few languages spoken by Europeans today that aren’t related to the Indo-European language family.[37]
The accepted area where the Kurgans lived before moving into Europe is labeled in dark green on the map. It spreads from north of the Black Sea to the north of the Caspian Sea, making up parts of modern-day Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, and Romania. In light green, the map shows the spread of the Indo-European languages that came from the Kurgans.
Joe Roe, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Indo-European_steppe_homeland_map.svg
Some descendants of the Indo-European language, such as the Slavic languages, the Baltic languages, the Finno-Ugric languages, and Romance languages, are all still spoken in Eastern Europe today.[38] The good news is, if you speak one Slavic language, you can get by in another.[39] The Slavic languages come from the Slavs, an ethnic group that settled in Eastern Europe. There are three main Slavic language groups that are still spoken today: Western Slavic, Southern Slavic, and Eastern Slavic. The differences between Slavic languages break down into geographical areas based on where they are spoken.
The West Slavs (who speak Western Slavic languages) settled in Slovakia, Poland, and the Czech Republic.[40] To the northeast, the East Slavs occupied the territory that became the countries of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine. These countries, which are descended from the medieval state of Kievan Rus, speak Eastern Slavic languages. Finally, the bulk of the Balkan Peninsula was settled by the South Slavs. The Slavic languages spoken in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, North Macedonia, and Bulgaria are South Slavic languages.
While each language group is distinct, each adopted several influences from its history as a hotly contested area, including many Greek words and phrases.[41] The Slavic language group uses two different alphabets: the Latin alphabet and the Cyrillic alphabet. Cyrillic is an alphabet that only Slavic languages use, so you won’t use it when speaking English or Spanish!
The Baltic languages are a little different.[42] They used to be spoken across the Baltic region, but today, only Latvian and Lithuanian are considered Baltic languages. These two languages are most likely the closest to the original language spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans.
Did you know that Romanian is actually a Romance language, just like French and Italian?[43] Romanian actually has Latin and Slavic elements.[44] The Dacians, who descended from the Illyrians and Thracians who lived in the Balkans before the Romans arrived, added Slavic contributions to the Romanian language, making it just as much a Western European language as an Eastern European one.
The Finno-Ugric language family holds just as much weight in Eastern Europe as the Slavic and Baltic languages. It is actually two language families that merged with migrations from the Russian Ural Mountains into Central Europe between the Baltic and the Black Seas.
Of course, we can’t forget the contributions of the Semitic languages: Yiddish and Hebrew.[45] Yiddish itself has Slavic elements. Ladino, spoken by Sephardic Jews, remains a spoken language in modern-day Bulgaria. The Ottoman Empire allowed European Jews safe passage as they left the Iberian Peninsula during the Reconquista. They became major players in commerce in the Balkans.
While Eastern Europe hosts a multitude of languages, it isn’t as easy as saying that Russian is spoken in Russia or that Czech is only spoken in the Czech Republic. The constant shifting political borders and growing and shrinking states that have plagued Eastern Europe since the beginning of its history led to languages being spoken outside of their original states. After World War II, Eastern European states attempted to eliminate all ethnicities that were considered “outsiders” to their new state boundaries. Despite the multiple languages that exist throughout Eastern Europe, each nation is not as multilingual as it could have been.
Religion
One predominant layer to the conflict that defines Eastern European history is the battle over religion.[46] Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all attempted to coexist at one time or another. Eastern Europe became a battleground for the conflicting forces between Western Christianity and Eastern Orthodox Christianity.
In many Eastern European countries, the introduction of Christianity marks an important milestone in its statehood.[47] Some don’t consider themselves truly united as a nation before its people were converted. This shows the power that the church wielded over Europe and the importance that Eastern Europeans placed on their religious lives.
Eastern Europe was the target of a mass Christianization effort, which was led by priests from both the Western Church and Eastern Orthodoxy. Conversion was a religious effort as well as a political one. Religious officials convinced kings to convert to Christianity so the rest of the population would follow. Far too often throughout history, Eastern European rulers earned political legitimacy through their affiliation with the church.[48] Many of the early kings of Eastern Europe were sainted, demonstrating the connection between politics and religion.
Missionaries often came to blows with Eastern European heads of state over the matter of religion.[49] Those kings who were hesitant to convert or flat-out refused altogether were threatened with invasion and war. Each Christian sect— the East and the West—had its own kingdom that supported its cause. Since Constantinople was the center of the Byzantine Empire and Eastern Orthodoxy, it provided its armies to support its religious cause. In the West, the Franks were the representatives of Western Christianity.
Later in the medieval period, Eastern Europe would become one of the centers of conflict during the Protestant Reformation.[50] Before there was Martin Luther, there was Jan Hus. Long before Luther defied the church, Hus was spreading English reformer John Wycliffe’s teachings in the modern Czech Republic. The church burned him for heresy in 1415.
Even though the region is seen as the domain of Christianity, Protestantism successfully spread throughout Eastern Europe. From the 16th to the 17th century, Hungary, Latvia, Estonia, Slovakia, and Poland all practiced or at least introduced some form of Protestantism.
There were other religious influences on the area too.[51] Although there is little left of them in the historical record, the first inhabitants of Eastern Europe practiced paganism—another word for the worship of pre-Christian practices. Catholic and Orthodox missionaries traveled deep within Eastern Europe, influencing local culture and spreading their own. Jews arrived in record numbers, finding safe spaces within the confines of Eastern Europe.[52] As many were merchants by trade, they found success and even thrived in the commercial cities of Eastern Europe. And, of course, there was also Islam, which reached the far corners of Eastern Europe after coming in from the Middle East and Asia.[53]
The Importance of Trade in Eastern European History
Trade made Eastern Europe a dynamic actor in the history of the Eurasian landmass.[54] It was the method that allowed a wide variety of people groups to move in and out of Eastern Europe.[55] Various trade routes interconnected lands between Europe and Asia; where one ended, another began.[56] One particular trade route in Eastern Europe that was well-traveled in the ancient period was the Amber Road, which brought amber from the Baltic down to the Mediterranean Sea.
The success of trade routes was at the whim of external factors. Trade routes were popular in one era, but they could die out in another. This could be due to changes in transportation, demand for certain goods, or instability in the region. For example, the Silk Road connected each side of Eurasia through a series of connected routes that spanned from China to Western Europe. The use of these routes ebbed and flowed for thousands of years. Although the Mongol invasion of the 13th century was brutal, lands under new Mongol rule reactivated trading systems that had been long dormant.
More movement through Eastern Europe from the Crusades also stimulated near-extinct trade routes. Crusaders returned home to Western Europe with tales of trade routes that connected Europe with the riches of the East. Even more trade opportunities, such as the Indian Ocean trade route that connected eastern Africa to Southeast Asia by sea, began to stimulate a truly global trade market.
Another major presence in Eastern Europe trade routes was the Muslim Arab empires.[57] The people of Eastern Europe were connected to the Muslim Arab empires through trade. In modern-day Russia, in the river basins of the Dnieper and the Volga, Slavs and Arabs were frequent trading partners.
When the Vikings moved into the Baltic Sea region, they commandeered Eastern European trade. There was now a trading system that connected Europe to Asia, running right through Eastern Europe. This was the dominant trade route across Eurasia for hundreds of years.
In the 13th century, the Italians figured out that the region between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, which moved right through Eastern Europe, gave Western Europe easier contact with Asian traders. Within two centuries, the Ottoman Empire cut off European contact with the East. As a result, the Europeans relied on the Indian Ocean trade to restore contact with Asian goods. This left Eastern Europe without its vital trade contacts that ran right through the region.
The combination and diversity of Eastern Europe’s geography, history, religion, and language make the history of the region unique.[58] But one question still remains: what countries make up this region?
Generally, the states that lie between the Baltic Sea and the Adriatic Sea (excluding Greece) are considered to be Eastern Europe. Russia is the largest country in the region (not to mention the world), stretching along the whole Eurasian landmass. It has much more in common with Eastern Europe than it does with its other neighbors of Western Europe and Asia.
Moving from west to east, the eastern borders of Germany, Austria, and Italy will be the starting point. Alongside these countries of Western Europe, down to the Adriatic Sea, are Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, and Croatia, which all share common experiences that would make them part of Eastern Europe. Moving inland, one can find Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, and Bulgaria, which make up the bulk of the landmass that is Eastern Europe.
This history will also include the smaller but no less important states that separate Europe from Asia. To the north, the Baltic states—Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania—border Russia and the Baltic Sea, making them the northernmost point of Eastern Europe. To the south, between Slovenia and Hungary to the north, Romania and Bulgaria to the east, and the Adriatic Sea to the west, lies a smattering of small states that all have similar experiences. These nations are Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, Kosovo, Albania, and North Macedonia. Although these countries are more familiar for the chaos that occurred at the close of the 20th century, they also were crucial to the development of the region.
In this book, we will dive into the history of Eastern Europe from the beginning, tracing its victories and conflicts until the present day. We will begin in the ancient period, where the great classical civilizations of Greece and Rome discovered what Eastern Europe had to offer.