|
Archived Articles
Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.
He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.
In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.
Global Real Estate Project
|
 |
Eastern Europe: What's in a name?
Tracing the history back in time, the division between Western and Eastern Europe goes way before the Cold War, way before the existence of European nation-states, even before the Renaissance and the Reformation. In a sense, the breaking point between the two parts of Europe occurs 15 centuries ago, when the Roman Empire collapses into two parts, and the Western part is invaded by barbarians from the North. For several more centuries the Eastern Empire (Byzantine) dominates the landscape without changing the centralized political model, putting the emperor above the religion. In the West, lacking such political centralization, the pope could play one king against the others, thus making more room for independent religious and political behavior. The Christianity, which for a brief moment was united, was again divided into more than one main model, the so-called papo-cesarism in the West, and the cesaro-papism in the East. When the popes were strong enough to claim superiority over all Christians, they were excommunicated by Byzantine Empire and by its zone of influence. That was the first major division. It put today's Eastern Europe divided in two, between Rome and Byzantine Empire. Half a millennium later, both the West and the East underwent some major changes. In the West, the Reformation opposed Catholics and Protestants. In the East, the Ottoman invasion and the rise of Moscovy ended up by opposing two models of Christianity based on peasant communities vs. state religion. At the same time, however, another division occurred in the West. What's today known as Western Europe starts dismantling the feudalism; on the contrary, what's now known as Eastern Central Europe starts reintroducing the peasant servitude. Poland and Hungary, despite their catholic past treat the peasants, or almost 90 percent of the population, only marginally better than in Russia. Very soon the South within the West (Spain and Portugal) takes its own road and collapses economically unable to compete with fast growing nations in northwest (Low Countries, France and Britain). By the late-19th century, the West is predominantly composed of nation-states and of governments that are at least partly responsible to their populations. The East, including today's Eastern Europe, is predominantly composed of multinational empires and of arbitrary governments ruling by God's will. The big war of 1941-1918 puts an end of this dichotomy and turns it into three distinctive groups: the predominantly democratic West, the communist Russia, and the intermediate buffer zone between the two extremes. After another big war of 1939-1945 this buffer zone is incorporated as an outer circle into the Russian zone. Despite this, they show very different signs of complacency with the communist regime. Most of Eastern Europe feels much more uncomfortable and tries to break it whenever it can. At the very end of the 20th century, the West incorporates again the 'dissenting' South by incorporating Spain and Portugal into the EU. More than 2 decades after that it's fair to say that these both countries have made a significant path toward eliminating the division between them and Northwest Europe that goes back at least into 17th c. The collapse of the communism makes all 'eastern' countries theoretically equal for eliminating their separation from the West. The 'East' being itself divided into at least 3 different sub-groups, each of them needs different time for accomplishing this task. The East Central Europe, i.e. Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary, and probably the three Baltic States, will most probably need as long as Spain and Portugal, or perhaps a bit longer, to be considered as part of the West. This means that, without major unexpected events, these countries may be considered as West by 2030. They may wish to be considered as such much earlier, but this depends equally on the other Western nations, and the public opinion there is very conservative on such identity issues. As for Romania and Bulgaria, and especially for some former Yugoslav republics, the time for erasing deep cultural divisions with the West will take even longer. Even if Orthodox Greece by all economic measures stands better than Catholic Portugal, the West looks at Greece with more suspicion even if it acknowledges that the country makes part of it. Therefore, the optimistic vision for the former communist Balkans makes them part of the West not earlier than 2050, and only regarding those countries that are now entering the EU. As for the countries that were part of Russia and still follow the Russian political and economic model of development, unless they express willingness to go West; they just missed this historic opportunity to change their nature. Moscow even thinks about some recent events as representing historic anomaly, that the EU is doomed, and that it can still take back what she considers as hers, namely the entire Eastern Europe.
--------------------
See also the directory of companies providing real estate services in, and general real estate information of Europe.
|
See also:
