I. Terms and concepts
I
T IS sufficient to take a careful glance at the world map to understand why the common usage of the term “Eastern Europe,” as the region where the post-communist system transformation continues to take place, is wrong. There never was, nor is there today an Eastern Europe, that stretches from the Elbe to Vladivostok. Those who pretend that such an Eastern Europe exists simply seek to avoid the differentiation of the affected regions, a task which is absolutely necessary and inevitably laborious in the analysis of the transformation of the post-communist system. As a reminder, geographically two-thirds of Russia are located in Asia, while the last third is situated in Eastern Europe. This undeniable fact, incidentally, is one of the most important reasons as to why Russians themselves often speak of “Eurasia” when (not only) geographically positioning their country. Poland, Eastern Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, the successor states of communist Yugoslavia, Albania, and Hungary are not part of Eastern Europe. Geographically seen, they belong to either Central or South-Eastern Europe. Even Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, as well as the Russian Kaliningrad region, cannot be assigned to Eastern Europe. They are located in Europe’s north-eastern part. Similarly, Belarus and Ukraine are also only partly in Eastern Europe, while being partly in Central Europe. Taking into account the prior mentioned fact that Russia, likewise, is by no means fully situated in Eastern Europe, it can be boldly asserted that most “Eastern European” states, as taken for granted in the West, cannot be found on any map of Eastern Europe. In the early fifties, Oskar Halecki introduced the term “East Central Europe” regarding the aforementioned countries – in other words, the eastern portion of Central Europe.1 This term 1 Oskar Halecki, Borderlands of Western Civilization. A History of East Central Europe, Safety Harbor 1993 (2nd Edition).
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