Eastern European heritage of four empires

The prerequisites of today’s successes and defeats of Central Eastern Europe lie in their history

A hundred years ago on the enormous space from Baltic to Adriatic sea, which is now defined as Central-Eastern Europe, dominated three empires – Austro-Hungarian, German and Russian. There was also the fourth empire – the Ottoman but its centuries-old governance had already come to the end, and in 1913 the defeat of the Ottomans in the 1st Balkan war reduced their presence in Europe to minimum.

Therefore, at the start of 1910 there existed only 4 sovereign states (Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro) on the territory from Tallinn to the Greek border. Nowadays there are 19 states in the region (and 20, if we’ll include Kosovo as an independent state). The political map of Central-Eastern Europe changed several times during the life of 3-4 generations. And it changed dramatically. But all these states emerged from the shade of empires, which influence is still prominent both in the political culture and on well-being of society’s regions.

The Balkan countries inherited from the Ottoman Empire weak agrarian economies and political culture prone to authoritarianism. At the beginning of the 20th century more than 90% of Albania’s population, 80% of Bulgaria’s and Serbia’s population, 75% of Romania’s labor force was employed in agriculture. The industry persistently lacked capital and raw materials. Despite of 100 years of efforts, aimed to industrialization and modernization, economies of these states are still lagging behind.

The richest states of the region Czech republic and Slovenia came out from Austro-Hungarian empire. Meanwhile, the first possessed advanced industry even in Habsburgs’ age, and the second was the prosperous but though agrarian area. Though both territories belonged to Cisleithania – Austrian part of Danube monarchy. And therefore, even internal division of empires reflected on the modern development of central European countries.

Today’s Poland combined erstwhile provinces of straight three empires. And this heritage is evident in the economic progress and every time during elections. The economic locomotive of Poland is area which belonged to Germany and, to lesser extent, to Austro-Hungarian Empire. However, the former Russian Congressuvka is chronically lagging behind.

The similar situation has been observed in the former Yugoslavia, where “Austro-Hungarian” Slovenia and Croatia were at the cutting edge of economic and social development. In relation to Romania the former Ottoman protectorates Walachia and Moldova are still the poorer than Habsburg’s Transylvania. The level of corruption is higher in Balkans that has been a part of Turkish political culture. The freezing of EU’s financial aid to the government of Bulgaria which was unable to overcome corruption has become the talk of the town in Brussels.

The last but not least factor in the development of the region was the interbellum period. Firstly, just in that period territorial disputes among almost all existing states were laid down. Secondly, the Great Depression showed immaturity and unavailability of all young states, apart from Czechoslovakia, to resist the authoritarian forces. Playing upon the domestic and interstate contradictions in Central Eastern Europe, Nazi Germany subordinated in armed or peaceful way all the region rather easily just at the starting stage of the Second World War.

The war brought significant changes in the ethnic composition of some states where the Jew and the German components almost totally disappeared. Poland became monoethnic power and shifted geographically to west. Czechoslovakia, seeing the back of the Germans and the Ukrainians, became the state of the Czechs and Slovaks. However, the Hungarians remained the powerful minority both in Romania and Czechoslovakia, so the ghost of aggressive ethnic nationalism never left the region even in the age of “advanced socialism”. Meanwhile, it was necessary for Berlin wall to fall as tension among some states popped up again. Then Yugoslavia fell into civil war.

Just the European Union has become the driving force which renewed peace and stability in Central Eastern Europe. The prospect of membership in this organization (and in NATO as well) pushed region’s states to forget about old insults and turn to reforms’ path. The changes weren’t easy and it appeared for states to roll back. Slovakia stopped its advance toward the EU because of authoritarian Prime Minister Vladimir Mechiar. The return of the left to power in the 1990 significantly slowed down reforms in Bulgaria. But the left could be different: just the ex-communist Alexander Kvasnevskiy brought Poland to NATO and the EU.

The recent years proved that Central Eastern Europe cannot be regarded more as a monolithic region once various states picked up different speeds. For instance, one of the least corrupt states in the EU are Slovenia and post-Soviet Estonia, but not Italy or Greece. And it nourished hope that a fate of each nation, especially in information age, depends less on its historical luggage, but more on the efforts of their people and elite.