"Eastern Europe" - why we hate the term

[Rossiya]

i'm just curious, do you westerners consider poland/czech republic/hungary as backwards and equal to russia?

I don't consider them as backwards as Russia. But I have never been to any of those countries.

 

[Sharwood]

i edited it when i saw another replie. Besides, if you have a problem with smileys, there's an option to take it of.

now on topic,

i'm just curious, do you westerners consider poland/czech republic/hungary as backwards and equal to russia?

I can't speak for others, but I wouldn't see former Soviet Bloc countries as backwards and equal to Russia. I might consider them to be playing catch-up with the Western European nations in many ways, whether true or not, but I wouldn't classify them as backwards.

Now the American Mid-West; That's backwards!

 

[TheLastOne36]

I can't speak for others, but I wouldn't see former Soviet Bloc countries as backwards and equal to Russia. I might consider them to be playing catch-up with the Western European nations in many ways, whether true or not, but I wouldn't classify them as backwards.

Correction.

Ukraine, Belarus And the Baltic states and various other former-communist states in eastern/southern europe are playing catchup. The countries in central europe aren't. (except maybe slovenia). maybe we're not at the same level as england, france or the netherlands, but we're extremely close, Unlike our nieghbours (ie: Baltic states, Ukraine, Belarus, Caucasus states, and various other states in eastern europe).

 

[chad187]

I thought the baltic states where good?

 

[kronic]

but we're extremely close

Yeah.

 

[Marla_Singer]

Well in the European Union, we have a tradition : in case of disagreement, we try to find a consensus.

So here's my solution. What about calling the area of Czechia, Poland and Hungary the Middle Eastern Europe. Would you agree Winner ?

 

[TheLastOne36]

Well in the European Union, we have a tradition : in case of disagreement, we try to find a consensus.

So here's my solution. What about calling the area of Czechia, Poland and Hungary the Middle Eastern Europe. Would you agree Winner ?

and we call Germany, Austria, Slovenia and maybe Switzerland "Middle Western Europe".

I'd be fine with that cause it's true.

 

[Fëanor]

i'm just curious, do you westerners consider poland/czech republic/hungary as backwards and equal to russia?

Is that the reason you Eastern Europeans want to disassociate yourself from being part of Eastern Europe?

And no, i do not think that Russia, or other eastern European countries are backwards.

 

[Tank_Guy#3]

There's no implicit meaning in how I separate and break them down. Nothing meant to be insulting, just breaking it down by geographic location/major landmark. If you take it as an insult, you are greatly misinterpret how I mean it. Geographical description, not Cold War terminology insult.

Here's how I break them down:

Spoiler :

I don't think they're backwards either.

I'm not basing my opinions here off of anything I learned in Social Studies or anything I learned like that. I generally pick Germany to be in the Center and separate things accordingly. Why? I don't know, it's what I've always done.

 

[mrtn]

Hm, maybe I should post a thread about the insult people do when they misspell Scandinavia? Better include something about how Finland is a Nordic, but not a Scandinavian country too, in that case.

 

[LightFang]

Meh, all the Eastern European nations that were formerly part of the Soviet Bloc aren't doing that great. You could make a case for the Baltic States being okay, but that's because they have oil. The rest kind of got owned when they did that whole shock therapy thing.

I'm sure they'll catch up one day.

 

[Babbler]

Why exactly the designation "Eastern" and "Central" be exclusive? We can define a region to be anything we want, so long as its useful. Some times that means we classify a country as "Eastern" or "Western" or "Central", or even ignore national boundaries altogether.

 

[Winner]

Talking about this, it would be a better idea to keep the German name and call it Brünn both in English and French. Brno is just impossible to pronounce. And as it's impossible to pronounce, people always forget about it... Furthermore, Brünn is a prettier sound than Brno.

Well, French names are impossible to pronounce too, so should we use their English names too?

In fact, I don't care what names do people use in their maps. We use Czech names for many German cities too (Köln (Cologne) -> Kolín, München (Munich) -> Mnichov etc.). The best option is to use both local and the other names, which is what good maps offer.

 

[Winner]

I'll still call it Eastern Europe - Eastern Europe and Western Europe - Western Europe.
The Geometry and geopolitical terrain is hard to distinguish a Central Europe

What kind of nonsense is that? When talking geopolitics, you have to take the EU into any consideration, and we're members of it. We are also members of NATO, an alliance created against Eastern Europe. How could we possible be members of an organization aimed against us?

Seriously, the geopolitical climete is VEEEERY different now. Cold War is over, once and for all, thank God. What was once a block of hostile countries has disintegrated and the countries now belong to many different groups.

Calling the whole post-communist part of Europe "Eastern" makes no sense in either geographical, political, economic or cultural sense.

 

[Winner]

Thats spam you know? thats against forum rules.

Oh please, you are the last one who should mention forum rules, because your every single post in this thread is a troll.

 

[Winner]

Meh, all the Eastern European nations that were formerly part of the Soviet Bloc aren't doing that great. You could make a case for the Baltic States being okay, but that's because they have oil.

Eh, WHAT?

Baltic states don't have any oil I know off. They're fully dependant on Russian oil/gas.

The rest kind of got owned when they did that whole shock therapy thing.

I'm sure they'll catch up one day.

OK, for you and the rest of you Westerners who don't really know much about that what you call "Eastern Europe" (no offense, I don't know much about some parts of the world too), I'll make a list of formerly EE countries according to their economic strenght:


1st category - 70%+ of the EU15's average

- Slovenia: most advanced former EE country, it really looks like Austria of Switzerland - at least it looked like that when I was there 4 years ago. Nice and lovely country. They use €uro as its national currency.
- Czech Republic: a country with German-style industrial tradition, steady economic growth, low unemployment, almost as much foreign investments as 4x bigger Poland, increasing immigration from Eastern Europe proves that the country is becoming an attractive destination for immigrants.
- Estonia: a country which looks more like Finland than as its neigbours. Service base economy with worlds first e-democracy. Very perspective, it will become the richest former EE country in the next 10 years due to the most competent leadership in Europe (not just the "Eastern" part of it).

2nd category - countries soon to move up or down

- Hungary: used to be in the top group, but years of socialist governments heavily indebted the country and it now faces serious problems. Economic growth is almost as slow as if it was a Western European country, about 1% or 2%, which means it is lagging behind the rest of Central Europe. Right-wing radicalism is on the rise.
- Slovakia: used to be one of the poorest, but 8 years of center-right governments and radical liberal reforms have made it one of the fastest growing countries in the former Eastern Europe. The growth has solid roots and the country is likely to adopt €uro currency next year.

3rd category - 50%+ the EU15's average

- Poland: the biggest new EU member state, which also have many problems with its large and ineffective agriculture and unemployment. On the other hand, the econoym is growing fast and the new liberal government looks promising, although it faces a lot of challenges.
- Latvia: not as good as Eastonia, but they're making good progress too. They suffer of having large Russian minority though, which doesn't quite feel to be part of the country.
- Lithuania: a country which can be best described as a mix between Poland and Latvia.

4th category - the least developed of the new EU members

- Romania: they'll soon move up, since their GDP is growing really fast and liberals reforms are starting to show their positive effects.
- Bulgaria
- Croatia: not an EU member, but they're doing good thanks to tourist industry. They're statistically better than Romania or Bulgaria.

5th category - non-EU formerly EE countries, the least developed in the region

- Ukraine
- Belarus
- Serbia
- Macedonia
- Bosnia
- Montenegro
(- Russia)

 

[Rossiya]

Correction.

Ukraine, Belarus And the Baltic states and various other former-communist states in eastern/southern europe are playing catchup. The countries in central europe aren't. (except maybe slovenia). maybe we're not at the same level as england, france or the netherlands, but we're extremely close, Unlike our nieghbours (ie: Baltic states, Ukraine, Belarus, Caucasus states, and various other states in eastern europe).

Are you saying that a country like Poland is not playing catchup?

 

[TheLastOne36]

Are you saying that a country like Poland is not playing catchup?

of course it is.

just not as much as Ukraine, Belarus, Parts of former Yugoslavia, Lithuania and Latvia.

but it won't be long before we're on par with western europe and have made the vital switch from agriculture to industries and services. Poland's problems with unemployment will be solved in the next couple of years.

When thinking of Poland's future, think of what Spain did post '75.

 

[aronnax]

Ways to divide a really tiny continent...

Economically

Spoiler :

Culturally

Spoiler :

Geograhically

Spoiler :

Red - Balkan
Brown - Mediterrean South
Blue - Western Europe
Black - Central Europe
Brown - Northren Europe
Light Brown - Eastern Europe

 

[Imcalfin]

Funny. If Czech Rep., which lies in the very center of Europe and is culturally closer to Germany or Austria than say France, is to be called Eastern European, then Finland should be called Eastern European too.

Hey, wait, it doesn't fit, right?

You could probably make a better case for Finland being Eastern European than Czech Republic. At least if you look past the post-WW2 geopolitical situation. I'm a Finn and find Northern European the best description, though. Lumping us together with the former communist countries of Central/Eastern Europe doesn't make much sense from a cultural perspective. As much as many of us Finns loathe to admit it we do have a lot in common with Russia, though. And even more in common with Swedes. Ick.

Helsinki does have a nice orthodox cathedral, and the Helsinki Lutheran Cathedral has domed roofs so perhaps we really are Eastern European.