Eastern Europe is not real
funeralxempire
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In particular the way 'middle eastern' is often treated as shorthand for backwards and uncivilized would make it analogous to how Eastern Europe is/was often used.
That makes sense too. Not to mention anything from the "East" is often stereotyped as "mysterious and exotic". Especially the stuff regarding Asians and Arabs.
That's probably the whole reason why using words like "Oriental" or "The Orient" are no longer acceptable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orientalism
The whole attitude of Orientalism isn't really acceptable anymore, thankfully.
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Also another interesting example is the term "Indians" for the Native Ameticans/Indeginous People here in the US. They were originally called this by white settlers based on the mistake made by Christopher Columbus who thought he had found India. For some weird reason that term stuck for those native people that lived here long before the European colonists arrived. I guess it can be blamed on legit racist laziness?
Yes..."the Middle East" is a really odd concept. Odd because...for starters...what is it in the "middle" of?
Originally Europeans and Americans would talk about "the Near East" (which meant Turkey, North Africa, Arab countries south of Turkey, and maybe Iran). And then there was the "Far East" which meant China, Southeast Asia, Korea, and Japan. And the Middle East was...well...some sources say "Iran", and some say India was "the middle east".
But either way ... at least there was logic to what was pegged as near or middle or far (with respect to Europe).
But since WWII the Arab-Israeli conflict and later the war on Terrorism have dominated headlines. And the media all refer to the Iran/Arab/Israel/Egypt part of the world "the Middle East". You rarely hear "near east" anymore.
So today "the East" is divided between a "middle" and a "far". There is no "near". The subcontinent of India (which could be called "middle") has no equivalent "east" label. And since there is no longer a "Near East" in common parlance (because what was the near east is now the middle east) the Middle East is no longer in ...the middle of the "east", but is the near part of the east!
That's starting to make sense to me now. The American media mislead the public about a lot of things regarding those countries especially after 9/11.
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If you watch the video he never attempts to say Europe has no eastern portion, only that for the residents of the eastern portion of Europe there's no cohesive identity and that the concept of a cohesive eastern European identity is largely one imposed by outsiders on peoples who typically either identify with Central Europe or with the Baltic.
That does make sense now. Just like how I pointed out the way outsidera often refer to Africa as if it is just one big country when it's actually made up of several countries any many types of people.
.
This is the understatement of the Century.
"Several countries"????
Africa has fifty four friggin countries (almost half of the UN). Each one has diverse ethnic groups.
Not to mention the fact that at almost 12 million square miles Africa is bigger than the whole 8 and half million square mile former Soviet Union (the Sahara by itself is equal in size to the contiguous US 48 states).
That does make sense now. Just like how I pointed out the way outsidera often refer to Africa as if it is just one big country when it's actually made up of several countries any many types of people.
.
This is the understatement of the Century.
"Several countries"????
Africa has fifty four friggin countries (almost half of the UN). Each one has diverse ethnic groups.
Not to mention the fact that at almost 12 million square miles Africa is bigger than the whole 8 and half million square mile former Soviet Union (the Sahara by itself is equal in size to the contiguous US 48 states).
My own ignorance as an American shining through.
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![Embarassed :oops:](./images/smilies/icon_redface.gif)
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A flower's life is wilting...
If you watch the video he never attempts to say Europe has no eastern portion, only that for the residents of the eastern portion of Europe there's no cohesive identity and that the concept of a cohesive eastern European identity is largely one imposed by outsiders on peoples who typically either identify with Central Europe or with the Baltic.
To be clear: I'm mainly being a smartass here. I get that it's more self-identification you're referring to. I would watch the vid but my phone has been refusing to load YouTube links on this site for a while.
I have to feel Russians and Ukrainians and Byelorussians and even people from the Baltic states would consider themselves some kind of Eastern European. At the risk of making you repeat what's said in the video, I think it's more that "Western Europeans" care much more about their "Western"-ness than "Eastern Europeans" care about their "Eastern"-ness. Lord knows how many Europeans refuse to shut up about how great it is to be from the "West" and how being from the "West" just makes you like things like freedom and equality way more than those freedom- and equality-hating non-Westerners.
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funeralxempire
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If you watch the video he never attempts to say Europe has no eastern portion, only that for the residents of the eastern portion of Europe there's no cohesive identity and that the concept of a cohesive eastern European identity is largely one imposed by outsiders on peoples who typically either identify with Central Europe or with the Baltic.
To be clear: I'm mainly being a smartass here. I get that it's more self-identification you're referring to. I would watch the vid but my phone has been refusing to load YouTube links on this site for a while.
I have to feel Russians and Ukrainians and Byelorussians and even people from the Baltic states would consider themselves some kind of Eastern European. At the risk of making you repeat what's said in the video, I think it's more that "Western Europeans" care much more about their "Western"-ness than "Eastern Europeans" care about their "Eastern"-ness. Lord knows how many Europeans refuse to shut up about how great it is to be from the "West" and how being from the "West" just makes you like things like freedom and equality way more than those freedom- and equality-hating non-Westerners.
Russians probably. I'd be curious where Ukrainians and Belorussians stand on that identity.
Although, the video would argue the concept is most useful to those who wish to maintain imperial spheres of influence in the region, so it would make sense that Russians and Russophiles would be the ones most attached to it these days. Kraut argues that historically the concept is most useful to those who support German/Austrian and/or Russian imperialism in the region.
Of course the other side of things is that resisting Russian imperialism is the primary uniting experience for Eastern Europe.
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CheckerboardStrangler
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That portion of the Russian Republic that is west of the Ural Mountains is part of Europe. As are all of the former Soviet Republics of Ukraine, Belarus, and the three Baltic states (Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia).
These state together...are the European portion of the former USSR which is (a) the farthest east part of Europe, and (b)are so vast that they constitute about half of all of Europe's land area (although they have no where near half of Europe's population size).
So it makes sense that Poles and Czechs would think of "eastern Europe" as being European Russia. And think of themselves as being "central Europe".
But Americans are in the habit of think of all the countries east of the Iron Curtain as "Eastern Europe" because of Cold War politics.
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