Central Europe
'Central Europe' is the
region lying between the variously and vaguely defined areas of
Eastern and
Western Europe. In addition,
Northern,
Southern and
Southeastern Europe may variously delimit or overlap into Central Europe. The term has come back into fashion since the end of the
Cold War, which had divided Europe politically into East and West, with the
Iron Curtain splitting "Central Europe" in half. The understanding of the concept of ''Central Europe'' varies considerably from nation to nation, and also has from time to time.
The region is usually used to mean:
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Rather than a physical entity, Central Europe is a concept of shared history, in opposition to ''the East'' represented by the
Ottoman Empire and
Imperial Russia, as well as the associated religions of
Eastern Orthodoxy and
Islam—with Central Europe generally defined as an overwhelmingly
Catholic area, and up to
World War I distinguished from ''the West'' as an area of relative political
conservatism opposed to the
liberalism of
France and
Great Britain and the influences of the
French Revolution. In the nineteenth century, while France developed into a republic and Britain was a liberal parliamentary monarchy in which the monarch had very little real power,
Austria-Hungary and
Prussia (later
German Empire), in contrast, remained conservative
monarchies in which the monarch and his court played a central governmental role, along with some influence of religion. Following World War I, nations in Central Europe, with exception of
Czechoslovakia, rapidly fell under
authoritarian regimes while Western European countries maintained their
parliamentary systems, and although the divide between Western and Central Europe became somewhat obsolete after
World War II and the fall of
Nazism, it remains as a historic and cultural boundary.
In the English language, the concept of ''Central Europe'' largely fell out of usage during Cold War, shadowed by notions of ''Eastern'' and ''Western Europe''. It may be seen in historical and cultural contexts. However, the term is being increasingly used again, with the recent expanses of
European Union.
It is sometimes joked that ''Central Europe'' is the part of the continent that is considered Eastern by Western Europeans and Western by Eastern Europeans.
Between the Alps and the Baltics
Geography strongly defines Central Europe's borders to its neighbouring regions to the North and South: namely
Northern Europe (or
Scandinavia) across the
Baltic Sea and the
Apennine peninsula (or
Italy) across the
Alps. The borders to
Western Europe and
Eastern Europe are geographically less defined and for this reason
culture and geographical definitions migrate easier West-East than South-North. To note the
Rhine river which runs South-North through Western
Germany is a speciality.
This may explain why according to most English-language encyclopedias, such as the
Encyclopædia Britannica, the
1911 Encyclopædia Britannica and the
Columbia Encyclopedia, as well as the
CIA World Factbook, the term ''Central Europe'' is taken to include:
In the article on Europe, the
1913 Catholic Encyclopedia counts
Germany (that then reached east of the Baltic) but not Switzerland to ''Central Europe;''
Liechtenstein is not mentioned. In other articles of that encyclopedia,
France and Switzerland are included.
The notion of ''Alpine Countries'' extending to the
Baltic Sea and the
North Sea is not uncontroversial. While Germany without any doubt has formerly been considered a Central European land, both by Germans and by others, it has at least for the 19th and 20th century had an identity and self-image as located ''North of the Alps'' rather than ''in the Alps.'' This holds true even for
Bavaria, the most Alpine of the German states, where most people live below the
Alps, not in them.
Culturally Central-European
Several other
countries have regions that retain a Central European character as well, having historically been part of the central
European
kingdoms and
empires such as the
Holy Roman Empire, the
Kingdom of Hungary, the
Habsburg monarchy, the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and
Imperial Germany. These are:
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Belarus (western parts)
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Bosnia and Herzegovina (the northern chunk adjacent to Vojvodina and Slavonia)
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Croatia (although
Dalmatia is often considered to be part of
Southern Europe)
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Lithuania
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Romania (
Transylvania,
Banat and
Bucovina)
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Serbia (
Vojvodina,
Belgrade City Region)
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Ukraine (
Carpathian Ruthenia,
Galicia,
Volhynia,
Podolia)
Central Europe behind the Iron Curtain
Following
World War II, large parts of Europe that were culturally and historically Western became part of the
Eastern bloc, which effectively removed the concept of Central Europe; if anything, it could have meant
neutral Switzerland and Austria. Following the dissolution of the
Warsaw Pact and the end of the
Cold War, this distinction has again come into use and includes many of the same regions it once had. Consequently, some of the Warsaw Pact members, now members of
NATO and the
European Union, are included.
During the Cold War, the English term ''Central Europe'' was increasingly applied only to the westernmost former Warsaw Pact countries (Poland to Hungary) to specify them as communist states that were culturally tied to Western Europe. This usage continued after the end of the Warsaw Pact when these countries started to undergo transition.
Central European contributions to world culture
Although Central European is a rather loose geographical term, the region has produced quite a sizeable contribution to world culture that is clearly recognised as distinctly "Central European". Its peak time was the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, when the ''
Golden Triangle'' of Prague-Vienna-Budapest, as well as numerous other centres of culture radiated to the entire world.
The region produced outstanding talents in science, such as the psychologists
Sigmund Freud,
Adler and
Jung, or the philosophers
Karl Popper and
Ludwig Wittgenstein.
In music some truly Central Europe figures include the
Strauss family,
Arnold Schönberg,
Gustav Mahler,
Antonín Dvořák,
Zoltán Kodály and
Béla Bartók.
In painting
Gustav Klimt,
Paul Klee and
Oskar Kokoschka and
Alfons Mucha are defining artists, all belonging to the Secessionist movement, a distinctly Central European phenomenon. Also
Jacek Malczewski should be pointed.
Secession was present in architecture, with
Otto Wagner,
Adolf Loos and
Ödön Lechner being leading figures.
In literature one might mention
Jaroslav Hašek,
Václav Havel,
Robert Musil,
Kundera,
Péter Esterházy,
György Konrád and
Danilo Kiš.
In terms of cooking, the area has contributed the meat dish
Wiener schnitzel, the cakes
Sachertorte,
Gerbaud and
dobostorta, as well as
Gugelhupf. The lager (
pils) variety of beer can also be identified as being of Central European origin.
The new members of the European Union
After the
enlargements of the European Union of
1 May 2004 and
1 January 2007, the term ''Central Europe'' is sometimes incorrectly used in a way that means "the new members of EU"—from
Estonia to
Malta—perhaps in particular by writers who want to avoid the term coined by
Donald Rumsfeld, ''
New Europe'', which may be perceived to carry too much American ignorance of European matters.
Malta and
Cyprus, as well as
Estonia and
Latvia, are sometimes now also included, but as these new members of the EU are clearly more differentiated from most of the western EU members economically it is arguably an inaccurate construction in its own right. It can be also questioned what there is that unites the nations of a region so constructed apart from a less advanced economy. A usage that closer adheres to the common cultural traits, and also the shared experience of post-war
Stalinist rule, may be less prone to cause confusion.
Remnants of the Holy Roman Empire
The
German term ''
Mitteleuropa'' (or alternatively its literal translation into English, ''Middle Europe'') is sometimes used in English to refer to an area somewhat larger than most conceptions of 'Central Europe'; it refers to territories under German(ic) cultural hegemony until
World War I (encompassing Austria-Hungary and Germany in their
antebellum formations but usually excluding the
Baltic countries north of
East Prussia). In Germany the connotation is also heavily linked to the pre-war German provinces east of the
Oder-Neisse line which were lost, annexed by
People's Republic of Poland and the
Soviet Union, and ethnically cleansed of
Germans by national and communist authorities and forces (''see
expulsion of Germans after World War II''). In this view
Bohemia, with its
Western Slavic heritage combined with its historical "
Sudetenland", is a core-region illustrating the problems and features of the entire Central European region.
See also
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Central European Initiative
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Central European Time
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Międzymorze
Further reading
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Oskar Krejčí:
Geopolitics of the Central European Region. The view from Prague and Bratislava Bratislava: Veda, 2005. 494 p. (Free download)
★ Jacques Rupnik, "In Search of Central Europe: Ten Years Later", in Gardner, Hall, with Schaeffer, Elinore & Kobtzeff, Oleg, (ed.), Central and South-central Europe in Transition, Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 2000 (translated form French by Oleg Kobtzeff)
★ Article 'Mapping Central Europe' in
hidden europe, 5, pp. 14-15 (November 2005)
★ A journal in three languages (English, German, French) dealing with the region: http://www.ece.ceu.hu
External links
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