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American Reacts Where's the Line Between West & Eastern Europe?
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- Опубликовано: 1 авг 2023
- Original Video: • 403,843 Votes: Where's...
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Dividing Europe just between West and East doesn't work as well. The best way to divide the continent is by dividing it into several regions
The divide is still based on cold war era 'iron curtain' . That's why Austria is seen as West while the Czech republic is considered East. It's also the reason why Finland & Greece are considered 'West ' .This division lasted until the 1990thies , and is the division many people grew up with
Yeah, for us born after revolution (we are in our 30s now) it's pretty ridiculous that people still divide Europe and put us to some groups based on few years of communism. I am 32 and I am born 2 years after revolution, it's crazy that eastern block still kind of exists even after such a long time. It's even more ridiculous when I travel to west and realize that very often it looks worse there than here. 🙂
@@Pidalin Well it did have a negative influence on those former countries . Look at ( for example) how Austria evolved compared with the former Czecho/slovakia. Hungary etc . All part of the former Habsburg empire. Equally developed countries before wW2 with world famous capitals,etc. And those countries under the soviets did stagnate a lot.Central/ Eastern Europe is making a come back, but they still have to catch up because of the former Soviet occupation . But yes, some countries,like the U.K for example , are going down while the East is coming up .
@@spiritualanarchist8162 Don't forget that western countries still pretty much live from our cheap work, colonialism still exist, it's just masked. We work for Germans for 1/3 of their salary and we do high qualified work, then they took our products, put german flag on that and resell if for triple price. Also, they don't follow laws and don't pay taxes in other countries, everything is half legal, untaxed cash on hand....if Germany and other such countries didn't have neighbors like Czechia or Poland who do a lot of work for them for 1/3 price, they would be screwed.
As a Hungarian: True. Very much. There is 2 ways to describe Western/Eastern Europe. 1.Geographically, 2.Historically/Society of today. I think if you just generally ask if i am eastern, i will say yes. Because.. I am. Just look around. :D Sadly, it is what it is.
In years gone by, Turkey was classed as Asia Minor, and therefore definitely not Europe.
Quite, yet it has "a toe" on the European Continent, very much like Russia whose 25% of the territorry sits in Europe of which it is the largest country.
In Czechia most people would say Eastern Europe = ex USSR countries and Czechia is pure central with the V4
Exactly, in Slovenia we also feel like kind of in the middle, so we don't usually consider us Eastern nor Western, but rather central europe. Kinda reflects with the votes in this particular survey actually. Czechia, Slovenia, Hungary (and I would actually put Italy and Austria here as well), are kind of in a grey zone. I wouldn't consider Italians purely West by any stretch. We're neighbours after all haha.
I think most people here would say central Europe.
Czechia geographically is central, but the people in Czechia, are more Western in my opinion. They have a lot of Eastern Bloc History but I don't see Czech's as Eastern Europe anymore. I think a lot of Brits hear a Czech accent and immediately think 'East' but there's more to it than that. I'd say they are 65% West, 35% East.
@@BilllB We are in middle of both worlds, but culturaly, if you say that east means Russia, we are definitely culturaly more close to west, but east is not just Russia, so you can't say clearly if we are more close to east or east culturaly. But history speaks pretty clearly I would say, more than 1000 years part of Holy Roman Empire and other western countries, when you say eastern europe, I imagine those onion roof orthodox churches which are very exotic for us. When I go to Germany or Austria, it looks totaly the same as here, minus finished highway system and fast trains. 😀
We like memes about "eastern" things, but that's just kind of humor, when you look at real people, how people act and behave, you will see that we are almost the same as Austrians or Germans. When I see all those Russian and Ukrainian gopniks with their stupid hats and adidas tracksuits, I don't feel like this is my culture. Also when they start about LGBT, religion and such things, you have to run away from them, Russians and even some Ukrainians and Romanians speak about these things like if they've just time traveled from year 1420 or something, you just see a massive cultural difference here. Here in Czechia, most of people agree with gay/lesbian marriages and such things, while Russian will start yelling something about americanised pussies and that you need all need a military service to become a real man or something. This is a massive cultural difference.
@@BilllB " I don't see Czech's as Eastern Europe anymore" so apparently countries switch places as time passes... pretty soon Russia will be Western Europe and Mongolia will be Northern America, because why not? LOL
Just one point, the map that TLDR used didn’t include the European portion of Russia, which is massive. It’s difficult to actually define Europe, thus making it difficult to determine the east/west split
Interestingly, it included Turkey, though, with only 3.4 % of its territory in Europe.
@@jhdix6731 or Cyprus that is not in Europe by any stretch
@@GdzieJestNemo But it's considered culturally European by most people
@@jhdix6731 Yes, but where is Kazakhstan? they at least have 15% of their territory in Europe.
@@MW_Asura Just like Russia,yet it wasnt included
I guess many put Turkey as "i don't know" as in i dont know where to put them since i neither see them as western nor eastern european
They are Asian.
@@Denis-Maldonado eastern yes.
@@Denis-Maldonado Asian, yes, as in never in the EU.
@@Denis-Maldonado With a big toe on the European Continent though ...
@@scipioafricanus5871 Turkey is now Türkiye.
Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye (Turkish: Türkiye Cumhuriyeti), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in West Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in Southeast Europe.
They have been knocking on the EU door for decades but as long as:
- they won't recognise the Armenian genocide;
- they will illegally occupy the northern part of Cyprus, and
- consider Human Rights as a figment of the imagination,
... they can keep on whistling.
German here. I very much feel central european, not western european. Why on earth is the biggest european country, namely Russia, excluded from the survey?
the reason why if you don't know the country, you think it's in the east, would be explained that the majority of TLDR viewers are in Western Europe or the US. So they probably know less about Eastern Europe, therefore any mystery countries go in the Eastern basket.
the problem with this question is, what about Central Europe, which many, Germany, Austria, and Italy would fall into.
So is it geographic, cultural, or historical. I think Germany is a Central European, not a Western country, but it's aligned to the West, but then again so are Japan and Australia.
I would suggest we have a definition that has a Central Europe core and then East West North and south
The reasons why people clasify countries that they dont know as eastern european is because since the 90s they have appeared new countries every 10 years so older people dont know rheir names
New my arse. My country was established as an independent entity in 1918 as were many others, and we never recognised our awful imperialistic overlords' erasure of our country. We had 20 years of independence in the 1st half of the 20th century, and regained it 32 years ago. 32 years I believe is long enough a time that an 'old' could exercise some curiosity about parts of the world.
@@Killjoy_Mel most people in spain study geography ages 10-16 so everyone older than 48 probably doesnt know them
@@Killjoy_Mel What is your country?
But I think what jon-jz ... means is that, throughout the cold war, in the news or other run-of-the-mill sources of information, we, in the West, heard of "the USSR" and rarely of any of the states by their proper name.
Sorry about that. Western Europeans have sort of re-learned of your individual countries' history and their places and role in Europe after the fall of the USSR when you came back to the light after so many years of (forced) "absence".
So glad you got out of it and came back, fellow Europeans!
Greece continues to break the european's minds. The country is now firmly placed in eastern europe in modern times, but its culture serves such a major foundation for the culture and history of the "West" that without a map, most would think of it as a western european country.
The Greek culture is extremely balkanic and are also orthodox… if the “western culture” was based on the Greek culture it means they based it on a orthodox Balkan one. But I don’t understand what you keep saying they, beside Italy there is nothing in common between Greece and any Western European country.
@@dacian_1346 I think they're talking about ancient Greece.
@@barneylaurance1865 even the ancient one… they didn’t just move places, they were still Balkan people and part of the peslagians… which were balkanic populations like thracians, Hellenic people and Illyrians.
Turkey is not in Europe !
To me as an old Norwegian this is simple: Former Warsaw pact countries are eastern Europe, the rest is western Europe. Finland and Greece are western Europe.. the east/west divide was a product of the cold war wich was a product of the second world war. It's not about geography.
Ok then how do you explain Yugoslavia which was never in Warsaw Pact.
Speaking about Warsaw, a Pole here, hi.
The reason many Poles (i d9nt really give a shit tbh) dont like the eastern europe label bc it still speaks stalin to them, and ignoring the improvement after joining the EU.
Even visually. Ive visited Ukraine in 2012 and even the city centres looked really nice, the outskirts gave Poland in 2002.
So thats the first thing.
Second is the culture. Of course we share a lot of it with our eastern neighbours, we were one countrt for a while after all. We share much of the food, the alcohol, the communism, the "hej sokoły".
We do also have the latin catholic influence thats strong and impactful.
I think the central europe makes some sense culturally.
But its the line you can put on the map different ways, depends on how you look at it
@@blastmanutz7798 "Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia"? I though they were Warsaw pact.. OK, new definition needed: Eastern Europe equals former Warsaw pact countries plus former Yugoslavia.. ;-)
@@kristena9285 That makes no sense at all lol.
@@blastmanutz7798 Not everything in my life makes sense.. But I'm satisfied with my explanation.. It will do. ;-)
Swede here: I'm curious to see HOW the actual F people were uncertain about if Finland is Easy/West. Finland was a part of Sweden for 6-700 years, until Russia took it in the 1800's. The Russians really TRIED to "russify" Finland, but failed spectacularly because the culture was no where close to Russian. The Finns disliked being a part of Russia and eventually became independent in the early 1900's. The Finns are culturally distinct, but because of the shared history with Sweden, it should be a no-brainer to firmly place them in the west-camp.
Governor-General Bobrikov was appointed in charge of Russification in Finland by Czar. He got a bullet in the head.
I agree, but some people would also put Sweden in the east camp. Mainly due to our history from 1932 to 1976 (in some respects much longer). The in many ways totalitarian socialdemocrats even tried to implement _löntagarfonder,_ a purely communist device for taking over private companies.
Honestly as a Finn I believe politically were very much in the western side, but if were talking otherwise.. Geologically, looking at a map of Europe were definitely part of northern-east Europe. As I said, geologically. Culturally I could not place us, our culture is way too difficult to just place from one person's perspective. Good night to you, dear neighbour :)
I think your point of view is the exactly why this issue is discussed. You assume that measure of Finland being eastern or western is decided by whether the people were russified or how the culture is connected to Russia. And honestly, I think you are spot on with that assesment, because that is what people actually think when disscussing "Eastern Europe". After WW2 Soviets revived then already outdated concept of Eastern Europe as part of their effort to put these nations within their percieved sphere of influence.
With that in mind, nobody actually wants to be called Eastern Europe, because it is more of a value judgement (like russified, poor, backward etc.) than actual geographical fact.
Yeah, me too, because it's pretty obvious it's Eastern Europe.
Turkey is just a small part european Trakya or Thrace ; the main part, Anatolia is supposed to be asiatic and as far as Ankara the capital is anatolian the state isn't considered as "european".
It is considered European too since its a transcontinental country
East is slavic (majority). Greek is "cradle of WESTERN civilization" (maybe that's the reason being pushed to western europe)
it goes both ways though - Byzantine Greek is cradle of eastern civilization though
@@GdzieJestNemo eastern civilization is such a broad term and usually not associated with greek culture. Eastern civilizations is term usually used for Japanese or Chinese civilzations
@@antondzajajurca7797 you can replace it with orthodox then if word eastern is a problem for you
@@antondzajajurca7797 Japan and China are part of Eastern European Civilisations???
@@scipioafricanus5871 lets say, Eastern Eurasian ;)
0:40 - as a Czech, I 100%, Moravia is already eastern europe and eastern from Brno, there is already Asia. 😀
Connor, the Hungary and Turkey puns only work in English xD
Turkey is now Türkiye.
But how would Americans know that Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye (Turkish: Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in West Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in Southeast Europe.
@@micade2518 To English speakers there is no discernible difference in pronunciation between Turkey and Türkiye. They can't pronounce Türkiye the correct way because either those sounds don't exist in English or they are written differently, which is why most English speakers don't respect this new official name and think of it as a joke. The same goes for most other speakers of other languages than Turkish. Names of countries naturally change their pronunciation and spelling to fit the language they are spoken in, and you can't change that by demanding that everyone use the same orthography and pronunciation as yourself. Before you point out the switch from Swaziland to Eswatini; the idea there was to use the endonym of the Swati's rather than the exonym used by the British and Boers, which included the word "land" and an outdated way of spelling "swati". These changes were made in a way that respects English orthography and allows for different pronunciations. This is different from Türkiye because there is no etymological difference between Turkey and Türkiye; they are literally the same word just pronounced in different languages, and English doesn't use 'ü': English language keyboard layouts don't even have an easy option to add the diaresis (¨) to vowels.
As for whether Connor knows those facts about Turkey's geography, he definitely knows them. He has watched entire videos about the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey.
I'd say he is still a bit biased in terms of the classic West vs East mentality, where he thinks Greece is completely European and Turkey more closely linked with the Arab world, even though Greece and Turkey are extremely similar where they meet, but I sense that you might be biased a bit in the same way, so I'll forgive you both on that front.
And no, I'm not American.
@@rasmusn.e.m1064 Waow! What an answer! Thank you. But I'll do without your forgiveness!
The point is not about prononciation, but about Turkiye being fed up with the name of their country being assimilated to that of a bird (named after its origin, btw).
And the country is not linked to the Arab world but is in Asia Minor though, indeed, their main religion being islamic, the confusion is easy.
In Europe it's a quite common thing to "boycott" Turkey, as if the country doesn't exist. I believe it has something to do with the Armenian genoc*de during WWI, which the government of Turkey still refuses to admit it happened
he's factually wrong about the geography - he excluded 2/3 of the continent for some reason. Interpretation of religions is also wrong - the divide clearly separates in south/north with two exceptions of Poland and Ireland. Also very few people consider Cyprus or even less Turkey to be part of Europe. East -west divide today makes no sense, especially the coldwar based the author used - for most of the countries it makes to sense in nearly every aspect imaginable - geographically, culturally, politically or historically. The poll for the most part shows ignorance of polled people
If you do a dichotomy then yeah, many people refer to Eastern and Western Europe in terms of the Cold War split. But often, Europeans have a more regional approach (just as many Americans do for the US). Then we differentiate between Western, Northern, Northeastern (the Baltic), Eastern, Southeastern, Southern and Central European Regions.
Agree , south Europe got a self identity , and northern central and eastern , then Balkans being the most crazy region in the all world
I agree with you on Turkey, they’re not Europeans
Living in the Czech republic is pretty frustrating ngl. Our sense of identity is fractured. I've been to Italy, Greece, Spain etc. and on average czech towns look wealthier, have better infrastructure, buses on time & drinkable tap water (looking at u Spain), even our McDonalds has vegan options (looking at u Italy), more people attend uni than ever, no one's religious.. and yet we get grouped in with Belarus and Moldova for having similar language and brief history with them (as opposed to the hundreds of years we spent together with Germany and Austria).
Prague is way more western than eastern and if you argue communism, Berlin was also part of the soviet block.
As a German. I have to say I never thought about that and altough I live less then 100km from the Czech border, the Czech Rep never felt as similar to Germany as Denmark, the Netherlands or (obviously) Switzerland or Austria (or even France but there is the difference only tiny). I think the "problem" is the language. Slavic people understand each other pretty well (I mean slovaks and czech even speak basically the same language due to their shared history) but this language is far from the Germanic languages and therefore the Czech Rep. is thrown in a bin with all the slavic nations (most of which are far more east then Czech Rep). Of course there was also the iron curtain. And I think that's why. And I have no idea, why our language is so different, altough our traditions, food and cities look so similar. 😂
Why is Turkey included in this? It's not an European country.
Neither is Cyprus.
@@Denis-Maldonado Cyprus is most definetely European.
@@virtueofhate1778 It's not. The southern part is just culturally european, but it's clearly in Asia, is closer to Turkiye and Syria.
@@Denis-Maldonado The Southern part is the Country of Cyprus and it is culturally, economically, ethnically and historically European. It doesn't matter where it is located. Think about London, it is clearly located in England but it's not an English city. Actually it's hardly even an European city.
@@virtueofhate1778 It totally matters where is located, this was a question of geography. What are you on about?
Do you just have a hate boner for Turkiye?
Neither country is european, Turkiye at least have a tiny bit in Europe, Cyprus not even that.
Bro hi from Germany!
Important info: your thumbnails contain red at the bottom and that makes it feel like I watched the video already. I feel I missed some of your videos because I wasn’t really focusing on the thumbnail and just saw the red line on the bottom
Geht mir genauso
I feel the same way.
There's still a lot to be said for Arnold Toynbee's distinction between the Orthodox world (Russia, Ukraine, Serbia, Rumania, Bulgaria, Greece) and the Catholic/Protestant world west of that line, which includes Croatia and Poland. He regarded them as two distinct civilisations. The E.U.'s natural environment is the second group, not the first.
Also the Baltics and Bosnia is like a zone split down the middle.
The EU is not "Europe" and doesn't care about religions.
In EU in general and in ny country in particular, when someone mentions Eastern countries, he or she refers to countries that where from the former Eastern block : part of USSR or aligned with it / behind the iron curtain.
So Greece, Finland, Malta, Cyprus, or Austria are considered *not* to be Eastern countries.
Turkey is a bit odd, as it is usually considered neither Western nor Eastern Europe.
Well Turkyie has one toe on the European continent, and the vast majority of its territory in Asia ...
From Istambul westwards is eastern Europe, from Istambul eastwards it's asia.
Greece,Finland and Cyprus also eastern.
Few parts of Sweeden,Norway,Czechia Slovenia and Austria split
In my opinion we should divide europe by their geographical positions not by social status, gdp, by the factions they were aligned with and what not.
Don't forgot, the biggest European war before ukraine was Serbia and Bosnia. UK troops fought and died there so it was heavily covered during the 90s. So we all heard about that. I wouldn't have heard of them otherwise, I cant lie. Turkey we should all of heard it but I wouldn't be surprised if people didn't know its location. Purely because Turkey hasn't been that big a deal on the world stage. Not enough for your average non geographer anyway.
Only 3% of Turkey is european. 97% of its area is located in Asia.
Actually, geographically; Türkiye, Russia, Georgia, Azerbaijan & even Kazakhstan have a piece of landmass in Europe. They're trans-continental countries. Also Türkiye is "politically" a European country since it's member of many European organizations such as EBU, CoE, EOC, NATO (most of it's members are in Europe*) etc. & a candidate-status-given-country in the EU membership. We're 97% in Asia but politically a European country.
Also a side note, Armenia & Cyprus are fully located in Asia, not a singlelandmass in Eyrope *but* politically & religiously belongs to Europe
This question has come up for me personally, as I am from Scotland but I live on the Greek island of Rhodes. Do i think of Greece as eastern or western? Well, I think these terms are too vague. For example, when it comes to geography, Greece is clearly in eastern Europe. However, Greece is the home to western civilisation. Culturally, for me, Greece has much influence from the east, yet is it a western country? Absolutely. So its not so cut and dry, it depends on the context you mean.
Equally valid the Orthodox countries can say that Greece is the cradle of Orthodox civilisation.
Never understood the obsession many Europeans have about the delineation between western and eastern European countries, Greece is 100% a southeastern country. Enjoy your staying on Rhodes
As a child of the cold war I still always class the Iron Curtain countries still as east, and all the old classic Nato as western, geography doesnt really come in.
I asked another commenter this question already, how do you classify Yugoslavia then, it was aligned with neither west nor east. Tito actually mocked Stalin. And completely ignored their politburo nonsense.
What about countries that weren't part of either?
@Rene_Moor3095 But we still feel it today. That is why its still an important mention.
This movie downplayed one significant fact: about 40 percent of Europe is in Russia
Slovenian here. 0:16 about your assumption of east and west block... There were number of countries that were not a part of either block, but had alliance of independent countries. In Europe it was Yugoslavia. Kept friendly relations with both blocks, probably because of very strong army and leadership at the time, otherwise it would be occupied by Russia in 1968. I don't have any opinion in where we are and it matters less and less.
That Prague thing is good, but there's Most of Austria, all of Greece and FInland, heck even most of Sweden is further east of it :D
I'd argue that a southern and northern distinction makes more sense in terms of general people attitude and mentality, than focusing on recent history.
Hot summers slowdown life a lot - all the Mediterranean countries share a similar lifestyle and as a consequence have a similar economic problem.
Even Bulgaria has more in common with Greece than it does with the Baltics.
They're not called Hungary or Turkey in Europe though (13:53), only in the UK and Ireland, etc.
The east west divide worked when there was two superpowers and an iron curtain between them.
The more important division is the line Pyrran
Making the division along the former iron curtain probably makes the most sense, because this dividing line still has an impact on the present. However, a few countries then fall into a gray area (which were not NATO members and never belonged to the Warsaw Pact until the collapse of the USSR, in some cases up until today) - and Germany becomes a hybrid in that sense.
In addition to the division according to political-historical aspects, the division according to climate is probably the most sensible: Mediterranean, Scandinavian, Rest (Central Europe).
Then you can also group by language/ethnicity, but that's probably less relevant in everyday life.
However, the video shows a glaring inconsistency: Turkey is considered part of Europe, but Russia is not. Both countries have a European and an Asian part. It would make much more sense to see Russia as part of Europe and Turkey not:
1. A large part of the Russian population lives in Europe, in Turkey it is the other way around.
2. Russia is Christian, Turkey is not.
3. Russian is a Slavic language like many other Eastern European languages, Turkish is not. A Russian-speaking country (Belarus) is also considered part of Europe. Russia is ethnically related to its western neighbours, Turkey is not.
4. With the enclave of Kaliningrad, Russia actually extends relatively far to the west.
It's not that I would dislike Turkey to see there but if you count Turkey in, you MUST take in Russia as well.
@Rene_Moor3095 these definitions are random. They make sense perhaps regarding nature but not even that completely. Your mentioned borders are not bordering anything real apart from human imagination. Dividing by history or climate makes most sense.
It's all become unclear after World War II.
Prior to that time, Western Europe were all the countries bordering the Atlantic Ocean plus maybe one or two like Germany and Italy and Greece.
Or perhaps a few more.
However, next to Western Europe, geographically speaking, is NOT Eastern Europe.
That's a fairy tale told to us by the Americans and NATO (created by the Americans also). And probably by one Winston Churchill, who referred to Non Western Europe as the 'countries behind the Iron Curtain.' The Eastern Europe that most of us think is Eastern Europe, is actually Central Europe!
I believe that is Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, etc. etc.
Eastern Europe? Simple, Russia and Belarus and a few more.
So in the end, the Eternal Enemy of America still is in Eastern Europe.
But nobody talks about Central Europe anymore nowadays.
You're either WEST or EAST.
You're IN or OUT.
Greece is always confusing...some people consider it as the cradle of western civilization but for the past 1000 years ultra nationalist westerners especially GERMANIC people never consider Greece as part of 'them' or white at all. The split between Western Roman and Eastern Roman and then the establishment of Holy Roman Empire where all the Royal family are from a Germanic tribes made the split even worst. Even in the US when a lot of Greek immigrants started to came to US most local white Germanic people in the US hated them and discriminated them just like they did with Italian or other non white people...they didn't even consider the Irish as white and call them dogs. So basically i think Europe or western people are still in their tribal mentality because most of the western country that is considered as the west are culturally 'GERMANIC' like the UK, France, German, Portugal,Netherlands Spain and the Scandinavia. Most of these country after the fall of Rome was taken over by Germanic barbarian tribes who then made these land their own and culturally changed the native people that were first there like the Celts and Gaul in Britain, Spain and France. Even Italy it self, the seat of Roman civilization was conquered by the Vandals, Visigoth and Lombard Germanic tribes. So in essence anyone who are not genetically Germanic and Vikings are Eastern Europe. So the Celtic Irish, the Slavic in the Balkan, Russia, Poland, the Greek and Southern Italian/Sicilian and other Eastern European countries that are non Germanic were consider as non white or less human to the Germanic people. Tribalism is still strong and exist in Europe, its just most people didn't want to admit it.
The historian Norman Davies has identified six 'fault lines' between western and eastern Europe:
1. A geographical divide (North Cape in Norway to Cape Matapan in Greece)
2. The Roman limes (fortified defences) very close to the limits of viticulture
3. The Catholic/Orthodox divide
4. The Ottoman line, very close to the modern limits of Islam
5. The extent of 19th century industrialisation
6. The Iron Curtain (1955 - 1989)
For western Europe only Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Switzerland, Spain and Portugal satisfy all of these criteria. For eastern Europe only Belarus and Russia satisfy them.
I spoke to my Greek friend the other day and during conversation I referred to Greece as Western Europe and he corrected me and said we are eastern. Also, when it shows the European continent on the map it doesn’t include parts of Russia which is part of the European continent. Israel as well which is in southern Europe.
israel is not in europe in any other sense than by culture and even then partially.
@@hullmees666 “The European Council has not been asked to take a stance regarding whether or not Israel is a European state, but similar circumstances to Morocco (being geographically outside Europe and without exceptional features such as CoE membership) may preclude its inclusion as a full member into the EU as well”… Like you say Israel is closer culturally to Europe then Asia or the Middle East. They’ve been longstanding members of Eurovision and the EU is Israel’s biggest trading partner.
In what world does Israel belong to Southern Europe?
@@lg5819 Why in the world would Morocco be a member of the Church of England???? lmao
@@Maria-js9ou in UEFA world.
I wonder what would happen if we added "central Europe" as a category. Greece, Poland, theCzech Repulblic would certainly be central.
why Greece? Central Europe (there are already definitions) is usually Germany, Poland, Czech etc.
WHAT A POINTLESS DISTINCTION FOLLOWED BY EQALLY POINTLESS DIVAGATIONS.
I find Greece more western because of the culture butt in Belgium my country is Greece,Spain , Portugal and Italy for us South Europe and not West Europe. West Europe is for us Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany , France and UK and Ireland
this dividing is only result of ww2 and treates made by allied(at that time) superpowers simply as you said Russian and American blocks, on the other hand you have all that history before which simply says east of silesia is central europe or polish/lithuanian kingdoms, south of hungary and former yugoslavia is southern europe, east of british islands is continental europe, east of poland/baltic states is eastern europe, north of baltic sea is northern europe, when you look at architecture pre ww1 it realy supports this, german houses and czech houses and houses in croatia are similar, in poland and baltic states you can see influence of germanioc style, eastern and northern which again nicely puts them in center while orhodox church and strong islamization and influence from turkey makes perfect sense for southern europe, you may ask what about italy and I woudl say italy is italy jsut like we ahve islanders Italy is special case, while northenr part could be said to be apart of ciontinental powers the most of italy was basicly doing their own things, just like England and Ireland who only reacted with continentalists when something major was happening, to make it even more complicated you can devide continental part to spanish sphere, French sphere and Germanic sphere which can be devided to Prussian/German/Austrian where autrian is influenced by Czechs, Hungrians and former Yugoslavia, while Prussian and German basicly melt togheter with little differences
and this stupid long text is just stupid tip of iceberg how to devide Europe.
For us now is important one thing - EU/NATO members/Neutral countries/Russia and Belarus
Terms like Eastern/Western should be left in past in times of cold war when they made sense geopoliticaly
Wtf are American Block Countries?
Idk, maybe the ones americans go to holidays to lmao. The ones that think europe ends in Berlin 😂😂
A Lot of people hear east europe and thinks cold war era division, but i think also a problem is how hard it is to define Europe as a continent. Traditionally it was consider to go until what now is western Kazakhstan but the map they show ends with Ukraine as the most eastern parts. And if you remove the big chunk of the european part of russia and some others countries then a lot of central europe looks more eastern then it is.
That might explain why some changed greece to western when they see the map and maybe thinks europe border at caspian sea, ural mountains/river? Just a thought.
Greece is considered in Europe to be the country where culture and democracy once came from. First the Greeks had their world empire, then the Romans took over. The Romans also took Greek elements with them and spread them throughout Europe. The ancient Greeks still have a high reputation in Europe. But today the Greeks are no longer the ones at the top.
Many Turks live in Europe. And Turkey tried for a long time to become European. Turkey tried to join the EU. But I think that failed.
The Czechs used to be part of Austria. And there were also German-speaking people living there.
But after 1945 all Germans and Austrians had to leave Czechia.
The Czechs belonged to the communist bloc, but the Czechs were the first to rebel against it. This was crushed bloodily.
I think that the Czechs still remained Europeans at heart. When it was possible, the Czech Republic went bloodlessly from communism to a democracy. The Czechs today emphasize their European culture and history.
The alliance with the Slovaks collapsed because the Slovaks did not want to be patronized by the Czechs.
The Czechs had found their self-confidence, but the Slovaks did not want to be dependent on the Czechs.
Really good video :D u smart
Poland and Czechia are eastern, Austria is western
It's all about the Soviet and Communist influence!
Everyone should stop being biased and be objective. We know you all hate the USSR and all, but think rationally. Eastern and western Europe is difficult to differenciate since what does it mean? Geographically? Historically?
Greece may be geographically eastern Europe, but they have practically created the "western culture."
I think that eastern Europe is the countries during the Cold war, but it doesn't really matter to me.
Very interesting - and very complex. I am truly amazed that Greece is not seen as Western! I would never put Greece in the same category as the Eastern Block countires such as Ukraine, Romania etc. To me it's exotic and 'Mediterranean' but democratically Western! I'd never thought about Ireland and Portugal - I've just always called them Western. You are right over Turkey, McJ...it's an anomaly. Even though is sees itself as half in Europe and half in Asia geographically, I always see it [probably coz of Islam] as being in the Middle East - I know it's not.
Oh dear. How do you manage to know so little about both Greece and the Block, yet talk with such confidence. Or do you not think we have democracy here that is as strong or even stronger than what Greece has right now?
There is a viedoe titiled "what is central europe?" from kaiserBauch
the main difference i see with the east and west is that our languages are inluenced heavily from latin.
That's not true. Germanic language group is one of these examples - while some west germanic languages may have some latin influence, it's not widespread. Also, you must consider the fact that literally whole southern half of europe existed under roman empire for some 1000 years. So the latin influence was big on all of these areas. Also, central europe was under Austrian empire and Habsburgs for another 1000 years as well, so those nations share A LOT of culture with Austrians. Many people also speak fluent German there. It's far from being that simple.
Only romanic language group can be considered as a direct descendant of latin language.
@@blastmanutz7798 thanks for explaining, i was aware of a lot of that but some good points.
i was just sayin in my opinion what makes me think eastern Europe is the Slavic languages, german obviously sounds different to the romantic languages but being english it still sounds familiar since it has a strong influence on my language.
i'm not talking geographically or historically, the reason eastern europe feels seperate to west from to me is the language and culture divide having worked with people from both.
i've never considered 'eastern european' to have any negative conations it just seems english is harder for them and they're quite hard to relate to.
@@seldom_bucket the issue with this way of thinking is that it is generalizing a lot. For example, Russian culture is way different than for example Slovenian or Croatian culture. Slovenia in fact is largely a copy of Italian and Austrian culture (depending on the location). Croatia in general and politics also pretty much deviates from other balkan countries like Serbia for example. So it is very hard to accept this generalized categorization for some nations. Nations like bosnia, serbia, macedonia, greece, and others in that area, were under a very long otoman occupation so those regions wildly differ from their western neighbours which weren't under ottomans. Russia was never influenced from turks obviously.
It is like thinking that all the western nations look like Italy and speak "a boopitty bappa". Obviously they don't.
Slovenia historically is also a prime example how hard it can be to classify it as west or east. Historically, Slovenia a.k.a Carinthia spanned all the way up, including modern Vienna territory. It was later occupied by Bavarians (we're talking 800-900 roughly). Then it got occupied by Franks along with Bavarians. Some time later the Habsburgs swooped in and one particular slovenian count, Ulrich of the Celeian county (and his dynasty) were actually the main crown contenders to the Habsburgs and even had a legal bet going, that whoever dynasty outlives the other would in fact inherit the crown to the Austrian empire. Obviously the ulrich dynasty of the Celeians died before the habsburgs and as a result Slovenia was under Austrian crown for over 1000 years. It is very very hard then to put this country either east or west. It is for that reason hard to argue that central europe nations have anything more in common with russia influenced countries other than same linguistic group and being slavic. But that's about it.
I will say this though, the main reason why a lot of "eastern" classified countries sometimes sympathise with russia (secretly or openly) is mainly because they don't feel accepted in the west, particularly because of this condescending attitude. So the west is kind of bringing this current eastern situation on themselves really. And I am afraid this would in the future hurt people more than is necessary. China is coming and unless west and east start to work together really extremely well, Europe will be eaten by China in record time. France, UK and Germany alone are nowhere strong enough to oppose China, let alone in the future. It's kind of scary really. Then India. Both BRICS countries. Just with these two countries were talking frickin 3000 million people. Insane.
I kind of see the former Warzaw pact members, controlled by the soviet union as east europe, but I have exceptions these days. our neigbors (I'm Swedish) across the baltic sea.
la Turchia è una piccolissima parte in Europa mentre almeno un terzo della Russia è in Europa, quindi questo video non chiarisce proprio un bel nulla
Turkey is a very small part in Europe while at least a third of Russia is in Europe, so this video doesn't clarify a damn thing
East of Belgium are eastern Europeans
As Slavoj Žižek once said on a Ted talk along with Julian Assange and Varoufakis - ultimately the UK people say that we are all Balkan and Brussels is our new Constantinople.
False, east of Portugal is actually Eastern Europe.
Back to Greece - it's seen as Western [and I see it that way too] I think because it's seen as the home of modern democracy; modern theatre; philosphophical thinking; mathematics and logic; less 'native' and more modern style art; myth and story-telling; sort of Mediterranean style cuisine - you know what I mean? And, sorry to say, but because it's not Islamic, people see it as more Western. Nothing to do with it's geography.
Its roughly where the iron curtain was
But i think we generally see slavic countries or former ussr as eastern europe. I think its a language thing. Greek whilst really east is the birthplace of democracy. So its like a proxy west. But the others are mostly slavic. Romania and Hungary are seen as eastern europe more due to location than culture.
Before this war, Ukraine would be Eastern European. The shift to thinking of it as western europe is down to NATO and rejecting russia entirely. It's a cultural shift.
Greece is the cradle of European civilization, Connor!
If it was still Greek would you call Turkey Europe? Is it about ethnicity (or religion) or geography? Islam has been part of Europe since almost the beginning whatever you feel about it. Would Moorish Spain have been part of the Middle East?
Seeing this video made me realise this is all nonsense and our prejudices turn us into fools. Put the devide straight in the middle according to longitude or just forget it.
P.S. What happened to Russia?
i would argue that for the majority of it's time has it looked to for influence, comradeship, kin. Moorish Spain was part of the Arabic world but located in Europe. It didn't look towards Europe, it saw Europe as something to be conquered, luckily it failed.
The Falklands Islands are in S America but are culturally British, there is very little S American about them
Adding Turkey and not Russia just shows how uninformative and ideologically biased TLDR is.
The more important line is Pyrenees - Alps - Carpathians
Wtf is 'American Block'?!! 😅
They dont mention russia
Why would they?
@@AFFoC russia is part of europe, they doesnt shiw russia on the map, thats what i was mentioning
@@delmaticodsh5281 Geographically you're partially right, but this video wasn't talking about Geography. And mate, Russia is European in no other sense of the word.
@@AFFoC Even if we are talking about only from a geographical perspective,the European side of Russia should absolutly count. It occupies almost 40% of the total area of Europe.He even counted Cyprus which is geograpcly located in west asia
I divide europe like this:
- west(france, benelux, uk, ireland)
- central(german speaking countries)
- north(iceland, norway, sweden, finland, denmark)
- south(spain, portugal, italy, greece)
- east(the rest, too many to list them all)
Many countrues consider themselves central or southern European.
Romania was at a cross rods of the 4 empires and thy saved the day every single time when one of those 4 empires tried to cross the line but never I mean never the country's who wrote the European history will say Romania was a big country for the fact they had the right to stop them when they where crossing the medieval common sens lines . And I'm not speaking about the great Romania , I'm speaking about the three principalities existent in that period of time who managed to keep the Ottoman ,Polish and Lithuanian ,Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires to cool down and to respect them .
Where is the Central Europe😏
La Russie est européenne pas la Turquie.
"The American block" ....lol...this dude is not very smart is he 😂"what do y know guys i´m not an expert"...ok step 1✅ free your mind👽
There is no such thing as the European continent, it is artificial. True, there is no such thing as western europe. The former eastern bloc countries were called eastern Europe. This is artificial.. Also, Turkey is the central country in the world. It is the most southerly of the north, the annex north of the south, the easternmost of the west, and the westernmost of the east. Before Europe became Europe, the basis of civilization and European civilization was the geography of Greece and Türkiye. Türkiye cannot be excluded from any context geographically and culturally and remains in the game. No, it is in Europe, its culture is different. Artificial structures can generate many artificial speech stories, but when it comes to reality, it is surprising to see the facts. It's a sweet story to stick your head in the sand like an ostrich and think the world is made of sand, but don't forget your butt is out. Note: Europe is a value and important, even if it is an artificial structure, it should be protected.
im gessing walsal pack eastern nato western
Why is Russia gray though 🤔
Isn't it a European country? Or the current political situation excludes Russia from Europe? Oh, the OP is British, it makes sense
Russia is not considered European becuase it is mostly located in Asia AND because of political reasons. The same can be said about Turkey, I (as a European) am not at all sure why it is not greyed out here.
@@larswillems9886 Probably because Turkey is still officially a candidate to join the EU, even though I highly doubt that it will effectively join anytime soon (or ever, given the current orientation of its government).
@@larswillems9886Let me guess, a Brit?
@@apmoy70 No Dutch🇳🇱
Russia spans the northen part of Eurasian continent, 77% of russia area is in Asia, the Western 23% of the country is located in Europe...BUT, about 77% of russia's 143 millon people lives in the territory that lies in Europe.....!
In the last 1600 years, E Europe was repeatedly overrun by Steppe people ) Huns thru Mongols. Many E Europeans are partly descended from those nomads.
Maybe hungarians (hence huns). I think you are fogetting slavs. We were the second group of people (after avars) that overrun eastern europe.
@@antondzajajurca7797 Disagree. The Bulgarians and Volga Bulgars descend partly from Huns and the Pechenegs (who came from Central Asia). Yes, there were Avars before the Hungarians, but their influence was less permanent. Slavic peoples are native to E Europe (to the Urals). The Hungarians and Finns are related, the Hungarians coming from S Urals (so marginally NE European). Avars came from Central Asia.
damn , PLEASE stop calling my country czech reoublic east . we have ALWAYS been part of west ( besides hell years under communism regime because our alies left our country behind first in 1938 and secon in 1945 ) . please learn some history . this is very rude .
Why did you stop watching Fawlty Towers bro?
That's the only relevant question in all of this :D
Greece = Western civilisation, and it's key to the discussion. Western civilisation was dominated by the United Kingdom (and Ireland), France, Spain, Portugal and the bedrock of Western civilisation... Greece! that's the real dividing line. Does anyone actually think Ukraine built Western civilisation.... no!
you forgot Germany (which in difference to many of your countries actually really dominates), not just being the biggest economy but by inventing Cars, Bikes, Computer, TV, Helicopters, Printing Press, modern Paper, Magazines, Jetfighters/Jet-Airplanes, Rockets, LCD Screen, MP3, first TV broadcast, Phone, the Globe, Dynamo, Tram/Streetcar, first LGBT/sexual science/community, Motorcycle, Glider, X-ray, Aspirin, Miniature Cam, Nuclear power, Chip Card, Relativity Theory, Periodic Table, first mRNA Corona Vaccine, and masses more .. . and dont forget that it were Germanic tribes who overrun Europe back then, caused the fall of the Western Roman Empire (not the Huns - which in reality were also mostly Germanic tribe fractions), created most of the new kingdoms and states. Why do you think is 'France' named France? Or England? Or AngloSaxons? Lombardy? Burgundy? Normandy? From where do you think got the Dollar its name from? What dynasties were ruling over Spain, Portugal, France, Austria, England, Germany (Holy Roman Empire) etc.?
@@publicminx... you're right and also forgot to mention Italy as far as inventions are concerned, this is not a "cock measuring" exercise also there is no such thing as a pure invention. You can creator a list of things invented in the United Kingdom you could have the same with France and also Italy, Germany didn't come into existence until 1871 and even then it was an Empire. Italy in 1861. And yes all of these countries contributed to what we now call Western civilisation which is really "European civilisation" but it would kill the Americans to say that.
@@anthonymullen6300 its not about an exact country but a cultural area. other example: do you think that it is a coincidence that the germanic speaking countries (i dont mean the language itself but the culture around) are all in a better shape than the romance ones? and they are tendencially better if closer to the first ones (like northern italy vs. southern). ever thought about why usa and canada and australia are in a better shape than south america / latin america? i agree that its not just the invention alone (but of course in cases like germany the pure mass shows something) but the cultural context. for the same reason you had in germany/europe not just the printing press but other things as well like modern paper. china also had independent one a guy who created a similar press but the cultural context was static, the written language with the chinese 'sign'-letters are absolutely bad for that - and there was no modern paper created. there were already methods to copy-paste things in europe (some were copied by china from europe btw. at that time) but many are not aware about how expensive it was in relation. btw, also a reason why in the thousands of years ppl often just compressed letters without much punctuation (the greek had simple ones introduced above and under some letters) . apart from all that: europe as a whole is anyway from the world view usually assocated as 'the west' even if within the 'west' there are still some pro/contra for ideological and other reasons (kinda schizophren btw..