scholarly journals Does the Name Matter? Central Europe and Central‑Eastern Europe in Different Variations and Configurations

Politeja ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (6(57)) ◽  
pp. 231-257
Author(s):  
Radosław Zenderowski ◽  
Dušan Janák
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
World War ◽  
Central Eastern Europe ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Communication Activity ◽  
Central Eastern ◽  
Object Of Study ◽  
First World ◽  
Selection Of

This article points at differences and similarities in ways of defining Central Europe and Central‑Eastern Europe found in Polish and Czech academic discourse. The aim of the article is, firstly, to identify these differences and similarities, and secondly, to indicate the probable reasons for their existence. In order to accomplish both goals, the authors analyze selected narratives of Czech and Polish historiography and the terms present in both kinds of discourse under analysis. The analysis is based on a selection of texts considered relevant and influential. The time span covered in the article is the period from the First World War to the present times, with particular emphasis on the period from the 1970s onwards. In spatial terms, the article focuses on influential Polish and Czech authors working either in their home countries or abroad, as émigrés. The object of study is discourse understood as a communication activity in which meanings are continuously constructed. The article takes into consideration the following issues: (1) the popularity of the notions of “Central Europe” and “Central‑Eastern Europe” in both discourses; (2) the evaluation of these concepts – namely the attribution of some positive and negative features to them; (3) the presentation of the topoi of Central Europe and Central‑Eastern Europe in Polish and Czech discourses (the views concerning their spatial extent and borders); (4) political operationalization of these concepts in the form of integration (geopolitical) projects.

Fragmentation in East Central Europe

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Klaus Richter
Keyword(s):  
Central Europe ◽  
Social Exchange ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
The First World War ◽  
New States ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
First World

The First World War led to a radical reshaping of Europe’s political borders like hardly any previous event. Nowhere was this transformation more profound than in East Central Europe, where the collapse of imperial rule led to the emergence of a series of new states. New borders intersected centuries-old networks of commercial, cultural, and social exchange. The new states had to face the challenges posed by territorial fragmentation and at the same time establish durable state structures within an international order that viewed them at best as weak and at worst as provisional entities that would sooner or later be reintegrated into their larger neighbours’ territory. Fragmentation in East Central Europe challenges the traditional view that the emergence of these states was the product of a radical rupture that naturally led from defunct empires to nation states. Using the example of Poland and the Baltic States, it retraces the roots of the interwar states of East Central Europe, of their policies, economic developments, and of their conflicts back to deep in the First World War. At the same time, it shows that these states learned to harness the dynamics caused by territorial fragmentation, thus forever changing our understanding of what modern states can do.

Stowaways at Bohemia's Shores: Undocumented Emigration and People-Smuggling Networks in Interwar East Central Europe

2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 564-583
Author(s):  
Allison Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
Central Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
The People ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Migrant Smuggling ◽  
First World

AbstractThis article investigates interwar people-smuggling networks, based in Germany and Czechoslovakia, that transported undocumented emigrants across borders from east-central Europe to northern Europe, where the travelers planned to sail to the United States. Many of the people involved in such networks in the Saxon-Bohemian borderlands had themselves been immigrants from Galicia. They had left a homeland decimated by the First World War and subsequent violence and entered societies with limited avenues to earn a living. The “othering” of these Galician immigrants became a self-fulfilling prophecy, as those on the margins of society then sought illegal ways to supplement their income. This article concludes that the poor economic conditions and threat of ongoing violence that spurred migrant clients to seek undocumented passage had driven their smugglers, who also faced social marginalization, to emigration and the business of migrant smuggling.

Abnormal Times

2019 ◽  
pp. 313-328
Author(s):  
Emily Gioielli
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Extended Period ◽  
State Building ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Short Term ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Political Factions ◽  
Military Occupations ◽  
First World

THE END of the First World War in eastern Europe could hardly be said to have inaugurated a period of peace. Marked by revolutions, counter-revolutions, renewed foreign warfare, and military occupations, the early post-armistice state-building processes were violent affairs, as political factions wrestled for dominance over their political, ethnic, and religious enemies, and armies battled for territory. This extended period of conflict and violence in the region could be described as the ‘long First World War’. The conflicts that shaped it traced their short-term roots to the preceding years of open warfare and the revolutions that occurred in the wake of the defeat of the Central Powers....

Introduction

2012 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Shaul Stampfer
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Jewish Settlement ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Separate Identity ◽  
First World

This introductory chapter describes the unique aspects of the yeshivas of nineteenth-century Lithuania. These yeshivas represented a major attempt on the part of traditional Jewry to cope with the challenges of modernity. The Jews of nineteenth-century Lithuania thus defined had several distinguishing characteristics. In religious terms, most were traditional, in the sense that they had withstood the innovations of hasidism; in fact, the strength of the opposition to that movement in Lithuania was such that they came collectively to be known as mitnagedim (opponents) — that is, opponents of hasidism. Economically, they were mostly poorer than Jews in other major areas of Jewish settlement, such as Poland or Bukovina, and lived in more crowded conditions. Until 1764, they benefited from self-government under the Va'ad Medinat Lita (Council of the Land of Lithuania). By the beginning of the eighteenth century this body had ceased to function, but the distinction between the Jews of Lithuania and those of the neighbouring regions continued to exist — not least because the Lithuanian Jews spoke a distinctive dialect of Yiddish. These and other factors ensured that they continued to maintain a separate identity among the Jews of eastern Europe until the First World War.

scholarly journals „Neutralność” Litwy podczas Bitwy Warszawskiej

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 63-74
Author(s):  
Jarosław Wołkonowski
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
First World War ◽  
Source Material ◽  
Peace Treaty ◽  
Nation State ◽  
World War ◽  
Bolshevik Revolution ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The First World War ◽  
First World

After the First World War, three concepts clashed in Eastern Europe: the model of the nation state, the expansion of the Bolshevik revolution implemented by Russia and the union of nation-states (Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, Belarus and Latvia) according to Piłsudski resulting from the threat. Russia in the years 1920-1921 signed five peace treaties, but only the treaty with Lithuania contained secret arrangements regarding the neutrality of Lithuania in the Bolshevik-Polish war. The analysis of the source material shows that Russia used the secret provisions of the peace treaty in its plans for the expansion of bolshevism, and after the defeat of the Polish army, it was to carry out a Bolshevik coup in Lithuania. Despite the proclaimed neutrality, Lithuania turned out to be on the side of Russia in this conflict, causing additional difficulties for Polish troops in the Battle of Warsaw. The Polish victory over the Vistula impeded the expansion of Bolshevism to Europe.

Prospects for Central-Eastern Europe to end-2019

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Euro Area ◽  
Economic Conditions ◽  
Gdp Growth ◽  
Baltic States ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Central Eastern Europe ◽  
Central Eastern ◽  
The Baltic

Subject Prospects for Central-Eastern Europe to end-2019. Significance After a strong cyclical upswing in 2017-18, the outlook for GDP growth in Central Europe and the Baltic states (CEB) will be shaped by several political milestones, notably Poland’s general election and Brexit, while softer economic conditions in the euro-area will test the resilience of the region’s export-dependent economies.

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