This article is about the geopolitical subregion of Europe. For the geographical subregion of Europe, see
Central and Eastern Europe.
East-Central Europe is the region between
German-,
Hungarian-, and
West Slavic-speaking Europe and the
East Slavic countries of
Belarus,
Russia, and
Ukraine.[1][2] Those lands are described as situated "between two": "between two worlds, between two stages, between two futures".[3]
The concept differs from that of
Central and Eastern Europe which is based on criteria[4] whereby the states of Central and Eastern Europe belong to two different geographical regions of Europe.
Definitions
Oskar Halecki
In the 1950s,
Oskar Halecki, who distinguished four
regions in
Europe (Western, West Central, East Central, and Eastern Europe), defined East-Central Europe as a region from
Finland to
Greece,[5] "the eastern part of Central Europe, between
Sweden,
Germany, and
Italy, on the one hand, and
Turkey and
Russia on the other".[6] According to Halecki:
In the course of
European history, a
great variety of peoples in this region created their own independent states, sometimes quite large and powerful; in connection with
Western Europe they developed their individual national cultures and contributed to the general progress of European civilization.[6]
Paul Robert Magocsi
Paul Robert Magocsi described this region in his work Historical Atlas of East Central Europe. His idea distinguished Central Europe into 3 main zones:
United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN) was set up to consider the technical problems of domestic standardization of geographical names. 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.
International Federation of the Institutes of East-Central Europe has four institutes in its structure (
Lublin,
Prague,
Bratislava, and
Vilnius) and includes over a hundred members from
Belarus,
Croatia,
Czech Republic,
Hungary,
Lithuania,
Poland,
Slovakia,
Slovenia, and
Ukraine.[citation needed] The institutes were established successively after 1990, with a secretariat in Lublin, to stimulate the debate on the issue of Central European space between the East and the West.[9] This experience of cooperation – from the very beginning open for representatives of other East-Central European nation-States as well as Russians, Germans and Jews – allowed creation of the Joint Committee of
UNESCO and International Committee of Historical Sciences (ICHS). The first president of the committee was
Jerzy Kłoczowski, long-time member of the
UNESCO Executive Council and president of the Institute of East-Central Europe in
Lublin.[10] The committee's 10 meetings (in Paris, Lublin, Oslo and Sydney) were devoted to East-Central Europe.[11] The Federation maintains official relations with
UNESCO.[12][13]
Michael Foucher[16] defined Middle Europe as "an intermediate geopolitical space between the West and Russia, a space of historical transitions between these two organizational poles; political and territorial heirs imposed from the East, i.e. Kremlin; nowadays streamlining process imposed by the West". According to this author, the following sub-regions form Median (Middle) Europe:
Greece is cited as not being a part of Median Europe but playing an important role there
Daniel Călin – In the Final Report NATO and the EU in the Balkans – a Comparison prepared by Romanian
NATO Fellow
Daniel Călin,[17] three sub-regions of Middle Europe are distinguished:
J. Kloczowski, East Central Europe in the historiography of the countries of the region, Institute of East Central Europe, Lublin, 1995
J. Kłoczowski (ed.), Central Europe Between East and West, Lublin 2005,
ISBN83-85854-86-X
East – Central Europe's Position within Europe. Between East and West, Lublin 2004,
ISBN83-85854-81-9
O. Halecki, Borderlands of Western Civilization: A History of East Central Europe, Fordham University (1952, 1980)
(available on-line)Archived 2016-03-03 at the
Wayback Machine
I. Loucas, The New Geopolitics of Europe & The Black Sea Region, Naval Academy, UK National Defence Minister's Staff, p. 8
O. Halecki, The limits and divisions on European history, Sheed&Ward, New York 1950
Y.Shimov, Middle Europe: On the way home, Eurozine 2002/10/11[20]
Myant, Martin; Drahokoupil, Jan (2010), Transition Economies: Political Economy in Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia, Wiley-Blackwell,
ISBN978-0-470-59619-7
N. Popa, Frontiere, regiuni transfrontalieresşi dezvoltare regionala in Europa Mediana, [Borders, Transborder Regions and Regional Development in Median Europe] Ed. Universitatii de Vest, Timișoara, 2006
G. Zrinscak, L' Europe médiane : des pays Baltes aux Balkans (Dossier n. 8005), La Documentation française 1999[21]
P. Verluise, Géopolitique de l'Europe. L'Union européenne élargie a-t-elle les moyens de la puissance ?, Collection Référence géopolitique, Paris, éd. Ellipses, 2005[22]
References
^Palmer, Alan (1970)The Lands between: A History of East-Central Europe Since the Congress of Vienna, New York: Macmillan
^J. Kłoczowski (ed.), Central Europe Between East and West, Lublin 2005,
ISBN83-85854-86-X
^J. Kim, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary: Recent Developments, CRS 1996, Federation of American Scientists
on-line versionArchived 2015-06-14 at the
Wayback Machine
^J.Winiecki, East-Central Europe: A Regional Survey. The Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia in 1993, Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 46, No. 5 (1994), pp. 709–734