Central Europe (Mitteleuropa), East-Central Europe (Ostmitteleuropa), East and South-East Europe: Problems of European Areas
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| Year of publication | 2010 |
| Type | Chapter of a book |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | The author of the present contribution deals with the crucial and topical problem which usually appeared and appears in past and current publications on Central Europe. He accentuates the significance of proper and precise terminology that inevitably has an axiological function. The term “Central Europe” which is the literal translation of German “Mitteleuropa” going back to the famous book by F. Naumann (1915) is very vague and needs for a better and deeper explication. He refers to the Brno conception of Central Europe formulated in many international comparative volumes. Nevertheless, the term itself represents a certain identity, more spiritual and cultural than geopolitical while, on the other hand, the term East-Central Europe (Ostmitteleuropa) is politically deformed which might lead to a certain kind of axiological shift. On the basis of several conceptions he argues with the split of Central Europe into two halves with an apparently axiological understatement. The same concerns the other terms. East Europe and East South Europe coincide with the Baltic region, Ukraine, Byelorussia and Russia and with the Balkans. Also these areas are sometimes subdivided from a purely purpose-built political and ideological point of view into Western or Eastern parts (e. g. Ukraine and Byelorussia are sometimes regarded as Central-European countries, while Russia as nearly an Asian power, Balkan countries are semi-officially split into Western and Eastern). The author asserts that this politically and ideologically motivated typology has nothing in common with the real scholarly approach and cognition based on the close study of both the synchronous and diachronous cultural strata of these areas. The terminology often exposes the real, but hidden motivations. The only way consists in the elaborate analysis based on facts and its careful and historically anchored interpretation including its volitional aspect. |
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