Talk:Central Europe

Different points of view

My suggestion is to divide the article into the section of the perspective of different countries or groups of countries.

For example, in the countries of the cultural heritage of Habsburg monarchy (Czech R., Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, Slovenia and Croatia), generally accepted is the idea that the countries of this cultural heritage are central european. It is also important in this sense to mention that this concept of central Europe is the oldest one and enjoys (from the cultural and historical perspective) the biggest plausability. Note that "old" central Europe as described excludes Germany and Poland and, of course, Benelux countries.

Therefore, I deem that the map provided in the introduction is showing a biased view and the view that is strongly influenced by political development after 1990-ies.

Second issue is that after the fall of comunism there was a need to include a buffer-zone between old west and old east Europe. For that reason Germany and Poland were becoming central Europe only politicaly. For Germany it is reasonable because West Germany was part of west Europe and East Germany part of east Europe.

Geographicaly seen, none of these approaches is correct as the center of Europe (looked from east-west perspactive) is around Finnish-Russian border.

German term Mitteleuropa has nothing to do with central Europe as it was created and misused in the 30-ies in Germany to embrace Germany and Austria-Hungary as the countries of German interest.

Finally, the view that I find the most appropriate is the one taking into consideration history and culture. That one is what I have written at the beginning - lands of cultural heritage of Habsburg monarchy. All other views are not encyclopedical and are to much politicaly or only politicaly influenced. Despite that, all the views should be described but, of course, with the title of the section clearly showing whose approach it is and how old it is.

Reagrds,Hammer of Habsburg (talk) 15:23, 5 February 2010 (UTC) The states listed in the section States is totally biased. If there is a list of the concepts described under, then I dont see the point in listing the countries on the base of only one view. If it is done so, then the list must be linked with the criteria that it follows.Hammer of Habsburg (talk) 15:31, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not supposed to make up a definition that someone finds most appropriate. The idea is to mirror what is done outside wp. For some texts from before 1930 that use "Central Europe" to refer to, among other countries, Germany, try this or this (p.79). I admit they may be not the most authorative sources on usage of the term Central Europe, but at least they are better than no source.

And Mitteleuropa is actually just the German word for Central Europe, just as Mittelamerika is the German word for Central Amerika and Mittelasien is one German word for Central Asia. For a list of (mostly) pretty old books that use the term, try google books. Yaan (talk) 16:26, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the effort. I know what is German Mitteleuropa. The issue is that it is German POV and is pretty much defined since beginning of 20 century and later "misused". But then it should stand somewhere that it is German POV of central Europe. I have read a little bit english written papers from the period before WWI and they all go along with the "Habsburg Monarchy theory of central Europe" [1] p310 map; and even better one, describing what is central europe and how Germany included itself into it to create "cental powers" but much later in the 20th century [2]; ever since that time, central europe definitions are exclusively political. I suggest to describe central europe as historical and cultural term and not political or war or after cold war-related. The issue I am trying to explain that there are several aspects of the term like historical, cultural, political, geographical. Moreover it must be stated that the whole concept is disputed as political creation, for example by the majority of French authors. French authors (vast mayority) include UK, France and Germany to be west E, Poland part of east E. etc. Moreover, some countries listed as standardly central European are at the same time listed as west European (Switzerland, Austria and Germany). [3]. If this is the case, then it must be said in the article named "central E." that these countries are SOMETIMES included into central europe. Otherwise, both articles are misleading and refuting eachother.Hammer of Habsburg (talk) 18:21, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

I completely agree that different authors have different opinions about what exactly is central europe, and that this should be reflected in the article. But I don't think there is anything contradictory about some countries being central european and some-other-european at the same time. Saying that Germany (including East Germany?) is part of Western Europe does not imply it can't be part of Central Europe at the same time. Just like the UK's membership in the Commonwealth of Nations does not mean that the UK can't be part of the Council of Europe. In particular, the UK's membership in the Council of Europe does not mean Great Britian is only "sometimes" part of the Commonwealth.

If you can find some sources that argue the whole term is a political creation, feel free to cite them in the article. But your map in [4] shows Germany and Italy just as prominently as it does show Austria-Hungary (maybe the wrong paper?), and your essay by György M. Vajda seems to be arguing for a new definition of what Central Europe is, rather than pointing out what was traditionally meant by the term (That said, he seems to make the claim that Austro-Hungaria was commonly known as the "Monarchy of Central Europe", but at least in the English language this claim, if that is what he meant, seems not so convincing.)

Also, I don't think this or this book (p. 603: "Central Europe may be considered as embracing the present numerous German States and Switzerland; including in the former those portions of the Austrian and Prussian empires which, previous to the French Revolution, belonged to the German empire") represent an exclusively German POV. Yaan (talk) 13:25, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

My suggetion (1) is to remove the list of countries that is totally incosistent to the rest of the article. The list should have all the countries that are at least once (according to one view) part of central europe in one coherent list. The list states, for example, that Hungary is always considered CE, but later, there are several definitions that exclude Hungary, i.e. saying that Hungary is only sometimes included. (2) create maps for each concept explained. (3) delete the existing intro map as it is showing only one point of view and excluding, for example Russia, which is also sometimes included. There should also be said in the beginning that geographical central europe is at the crossroads of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, that is important fact that many seem to neglect.Hammer of Habsburg (talk) 21:38, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry but...

In Italy MittelEuropa is used and not Europa Centrale (the italian translation) or Central Europe, no. It's Mitteleurope! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.105.47.82 (talk) 21:46, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I fully agree. In Italy the current use of the term MittelEuropa is related to territories of Central Europe historically connected with the Austrian Empire and now parts of countries of Eastern and of Southern Europe: i.e. Austria,Czech Rep., Slovakia, Tanscarpathia, Galicia, Wolinia, Bucovina, Transylvania, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Trentino Alto Adige, Slovenia, Hungary, Croatia. Therefore Switzerland, Lombardy and Piedmont are not considered MittelEurope. --Deguef (talk) 15:17, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Memel terr. is Central Europe

By most def. the Memel Ter. of Lithuania (former East-Prussia) is part of Mitteleuropa. It should therefore be represented in the article and the map! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.84.189.214 (talk) 09:55, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

switzerland

• I strongly object that the part of Switzerland south of the Alps can be considered Central Europe. If it is the case also Northern Italy with Milan and Turin should be considered Central Europe. --Deguef (talk) 20:44, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Do you have any reliable sources that discuss whether the whole or parts of Switzerland and Italy are part of Central Europe? That would be very helpful. — Kpalion^(talk) 16:44, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Apparently there are Swiss MPs who do think Switzerland is part of Central Europe, see [5], [6], [7] (via [8]). Obviously different people are going to have different opinions about what exactly Central Europe is. Maybe the current map is not particularly useful in conveying the vagueness of the term. There used to be a different map, but it was removed by a certain user who insisted on Romania being part of Central Europe. Yaan (talk) 18:13, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

I would consider Lugano as Southern Europe, Geneva as Western Europe and Bern as Central Europe.--Deguef (talk) 07:54, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Southern europe?

According to the wikipedia article on southern europe either from a geo-political , mathematical , as defined by the UN ..etc, many of the balkan countries should be included in the definition of southern europe. A personal definition of southern europe cannot be accepted in this article and should rely at lest in the UN definition. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.82.184.35 (talk) 09:20, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Proposal

I have read all the criteria that are listed in the explanatory part (curent views od CE). What I find wrong in the article is the initial map that is provided. I counted all countries according to all concepts/views of CE listed and the map is not showing coherent information compared to these concepts. The following information is showing how many times each country depending on different criterion (excluding three encyclopedias) is qualified for central Europe. Czech R, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia: 8 times each; Croatia: 7 times; Austria, Slovenia: 6 times; Germany: 3 times; Switzerland: 2 times What seems to be wrong is that countries like Austria, Slovenia, Germany and Switzerland are shown on the map as CE, even though they are part of CE by far less criteria than Croatia is, and Croatia in not shown in the map nor on the list as CE. The second thing done wrong is the Map of Central Europe, according to Lonnie R. => the map is not showing what is written in the text about his criteria. The article must be redone. Especially the list of countries that states that according to MAJORITY of sources Germany and Switzerland are included in CE. That is refuted in the article later on. The map should therefore state different position.Hammer of Habsburg (talk) 13:17, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

We didn't add all maps and theories, you can only see some of them. The map in the intro was created based on discussion lasting for months (or rather years?) in which many editors participated. See earlier discussion, archives for a number of proposals. Squash Racket (talk) 15:08, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

I understand, but even the maps provided for separate views are false. For example the one based on Lonnie R.; according to him, Kingdom of Hungary and Polish Kingdom and the area inbetween I gues is CE.=> Slovenia does not belong to be coloured red and the red colour should be extended to Lituania and Croatia as these two kingdoms were part of Polish-Lituanian and Hungarian Kingdom respectively. In the section states in the introduction sentence incorrect is the statement that majority of sources include the following states, as it is later in the article (by naming all the sources/views) refuted. The second group of countries (under) is part of central europe according to the same criteria (history, geography, culture) so I find this explanation redundant. It is also not correct to state that some sources ADD some of the countries from the second list. The example would be the fifts concept, where Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and probabbly all orthodox south slavs would be CE. So these countries would not be added to the first list but would create CE on its own, excluding the first list of "majority sources countries".Hammer of Habsburg (talk) 15:39, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

The "map of Johnson" was based on how the World Bank and the OECD defines CE. (He only cited them in his book.)

Johnson added important notes, but we won't create additional maps based on every additional remark. Notes help the readers to better understand the concept.

I repeat: not all sources/views are mentioned in the theories' section, it is only a selection. It is also important to not equalize a non-English pocket encyclopedia with a major English reference. Squash Racket (talk) 14:16, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Squash Rocket do you really think that English Encyklopedia is better then for example Croatian only becouse its English?please lets be serious here.Polish, Hungarian or Croatian scholars can tell u far more about Central Europe than anybody else can.Definately more than so gloryfied by you them Big English Sources. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.40.49.204 (talk) 12:48, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

@squash rocket I strongly oppose your approach. Not only you are rasistic with it but are also trying to say that science outside english speaking community is "under" the encyclopedic level. The aim of wikipedia is not to reffer to sources from a certain language region but to discover truth and reveal it in an easy way to general public. You can look at any other language pocket (say russian) and see that the russian science view is not dominant in the article. Furthermore, it is not present in the article at all. Second, central Europe was and will never be a geographic term. If this is what some "english speaking" scientist that you are reffering to are saying, than they should be avoided in evary sense.Hammer of Habsburg (talk) 12:27, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

and tell me please, which approach was used to list the countries? None. It is done arbitrary without any criteria. Hammer of Habsburg (talk) 12:31, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Unencyclopedic unscientific article

First of all, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, all famous Encyclopedias use the Central Europe term. All European Geography society of national scientific academies use the C.E. term too. Therefore the denial of this term is unencyclopedic and unscientific. It is a geographical (scientific) qustion rather than political.

Encyclopedia Britannica Cambridge Encyclopedia American Columbia Encyclopedia

German Brochaus Encyclopedia

French Larousse and French Encyclopædia Universalis

All of them Use the Central Europe term.

United Nations is chiefly a political organisation rather than scientific.

Geography is one of exact sciences. For that reason, geographic center of Europe is located in Ukraine. If you argue that C.E. is something that does not include the center of Europe - it is no longer scientific in the scope of geography, but some other approach. E.g. West Germany is located in the west Quarter of the continent and according to nongeographical criteria is located in C.E. Likewise, Ukraine is geographical central Europe, but due to usage of nongeographical criteria is classified into east Europe. All of the sources that you listed above use political borders (the borders of modern states)to determine the term. Therefore, they (even though encyclopedias) use political, cultural, historical or other criteria (not geographical) to define the term. I don's see a reason why all other marginal views deserve their space on this article and the worldwide institution not? Explain why do you dislike UN? It is the most quoted source in Wikipedia, btw. Please sign your work next time.

Hammer of Habsburg (talk) 15:33, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

UN use cold-war terms. Ukraine is not located in the geographical center of Europe. It is easliy determinable when you see a map! Encyclopedias were written by academic scholars and scientists, they represent te official scientific viewpoint of a country. And all important Europen encyclopedias use the Central-Europe term! Please don't write nonsenses!--78.92.106.176 (talk) 06:02, 10 October 2010 (UTC)