Slavic Europe
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Slavic Europe is a region of Europe where Slavic languages are spoken. This area corresponds, more or less, to Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans, and consists of: Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, the Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, the disputed territory of Transnistria, and Ukraine. It may also include Lusatia in Germany, home of the Sorbs and Burgenland Austria, which are Slavic regions in mainly non-Slavic nations.
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[edit] Idea of Slavic unity in history
Throughout the late Middle and early Modern Ages, many Slavs were under foreign rule. Whilst the western Slavs were dominated by German Empires, South and East Slavs served as a buffer from Mongol attacks onto the rest of Europe, falling under Asiatic rule for a few centuries.
In the 19th century, the consolidation of a national ideology searched for the ancestry of ethnic groups; one of the movements was called Pan-Slavism and it tried to unite nations of Slavic origins to a common interest and develop a common identity. These efforts failed for a number of reasons, one of them being attempts of Imperial Russia to take it over in order to justify its territorial expansion and the subjugation of nations of Slavic origin such as the Ukrainians or Poles. Another fact was due to independent developments amongst Slavic peoples and the development of antagonisms between them. Thirdly, due to divergenet interests between various groups; for example, the Poles repressed the freedom of the Ukrainians both religiously and culturally[citation needed]. Also, while certain Slavic nations such as the Czechs and Slovaks in the Austro-Hungarian Empire desired Russian protection and wanted its dissolution, the Poles, comparing their Austrian partition to the Russian or Prussian one, preferred the relative freedom they enjoyed under Austrian rule.
With the Soviet Union came another period of attempts to use the idea of Slavic unity for political purposes, and post-war Soviet propaganda often made use of Pan-slavist ideology, while before WW II, Poland‘s repressive policy created a great deal of resentment amongst its populous Belarusian and Ukrainian minorities. See also Polish-Ukrainian War in which the Ukrainians fought for independance from Poland.
Due to the past, historical sympathy for the idea of a Slavic identity and unity is found mostly in Russia, while in many other countries the idea is part of the fringe of politics, with people having no interest or desire for such concepts and viewing them as part of Soviet-dominated politics aimed at the area of Central and Eastern Europe.[citation needed]
[edit] Religion and culture
Two main religions within countries with Slavic populations are Eastern Orthodox Church and Roman Catholicism. Religious Areas are clearly divided between West Slavic region and East Slavic region. Besides divisions of religion there are also isions of culture and political orientations. Over time nations with West Slavic origins increasingly patterned their thought and institutions on Western models in areas of thought ranging from philosophy, artistic style, literature, and architecture to government, law, and social structure, Eastern Slavs developed their culture fluenced by the once one of the most powerful Byzantine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire). For example, while Western Slavic people use Latin alphabet, most Eastern Slavic people use Cyrillic (an alphabet inspired by Greek characters). South Slavs are split in the same way (the Catholic Slovenes and Croats use the Latin alphabet, while the Orthodox Serbs and Bulgarians use the Cyrillic alphabet).
[edit] See also
[edit] Endnotes
- ^ Michael Fleischer: Niemcy, Europa, USA i Rosja w polskim systemie kultury, Wrocław 2004
