Eastern Europe is not real

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If you call a Pole an Eastern European, that Pole is very likely to tell you that they are actually from Central Europe. In fact most people who are from what we like to call "Eastern Europe" prefer calling themselves something else, like "Baltic" and "Central European".
The reason for this is that "Eastern Europe" is in many ways a nonsense concept that doesn't really make any sense the deeper you start looking into it. In this short video I try to give you an overview as to why that is.
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You might be interested in this video too: • Neutrality in Europe a...
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[@Kraut_the_Parrot]

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[@strawberrykun6136]

Slayyy

[@JohnGeometresMaximos]

It is absolutely invalid if not out right idiotic to compare the USSR with the Russian Federation. The USSR was infected by the virus of Communism and was a largely hostile and [self]isolated political and economic entity. Russia is an extremely friendly state that has sought countless times to approach the rest of Europe to establish economic, diplomatic and even military/strategic relations. Of course the USA cannot have that. The USA would never be able to compete with a Europe Union that would welcome Russia as an equal partner. Such an arrangement would literally render the USA utterly irrelevant in world affairs, and would especially destroy its hegemony over the European continent. The USSR was never the victim of any state, and collapsed solely because of the idiocy and inherent corruption of Communism. Russia is the polar opposite of the USSR. Russia is the Phoenix rising from the ashes of the USSR, and it has been targeted by the West first in Georgia and now in Ukraine. The USA and its allies conspired to force war upon Russia, and Russia having been cornered and left without other options went to war with Ukraine.

[@Arrow14100]

Bro really did Slovenia dirty with those cat ears lmao

[@JmKrokY]

Cool

[@JmKrokY]

​@@Arrow14100Slovenes are femboys

[@vneezy]

The real eastern Europe was the friends we made along the way

[@breadcat0469]

Real

[@ReySchultz121]

Like 30+ friends

[@flapablesteak8986]

True 😂 ✌️✌️

[@user-et5ke4px8x]

And the experiences we've made, that will help us to prevent future mistakes

[@appa609]

if you get offended by being called Eastern European, you are Eastern European.

[@dwightk.schrute8696]

Hello from Czechia, please don't rob me of the opportunity to explain to you how we're Central Europe and not Eastern Europe, it's all we have.

[@BagelBoy97]

Czechia, the only country who is remembered internationally as the joke country who “is obsessed with their geography”, even though having an insane amount of history and culture that could easily rival Vienna and Paris.

[@neres5795]

Honestly, czechia is quite firmly a western nation. Us Slovaks on the other hand, yikes.

[@wolight]

To be fair I have never seen a definition of "central Europe" that wasn't missing a few countries or had a few too many

[@AngryCrazyRussian]

Терпи, лимитроф

[@shutout951]

You also have one kind of beer that you pour different ways

[@Tusiriakest]

I'm Portuguese. My girlfriend is Italian. When, in the summer of 2022, I told my 84yo granny that I was visiting my girlfriend's parents in northern Italy, she begged me not to go because of Putin's invasion of Ukraine. When I told her that Ukraine was pretty far from Italy she told me: "all those eastern countries are the same to me". So in some sense, what you call eastern, center, western, is also a matter of your POV.

[@jestfuldemigod]

Grandmothers are so pure 💓💓

[@Dyknown]

I heard a similar response where a man told his grandmother he was marrying someone from South America and he was told “aren’t they all PROTESTANT down there?”

[@eskipoI]

Se para a tua avó o norte da Itália é ligada com o conceito de europa de leste, então Portugal é a Ásia Central 😂😂😂

[@Tusiriakest]

@@eskipoI Portugal é Bálcãs xD

[@LodrikBadric]

Haha that's hilarious, I'm dying! 🤣 But I though the same about perspective; north, south, east and west are so unspecific terms to name a region.

[@Martcapt]

I'm Portuguese. You're all Eastern European to me, even though Portugal is probably Eastern Europe to everyone else. It wraps around, in a way.

[@TastyChicker1L17]

Portugal and south Italy are Eastern Europe

[@Martcapt]

@@TastyChicker1L17 it's a shame we're Europe at all, really

[@noodleppoodle]

@@TastyChicker1L17 Please we are way more organised in the actual "Eastern Europe" and it is safe here, although we envy the climate

[@franciscoflamenco]

It's a globe after all.

[@MarieAvora]

Bros in French Guyana are laughing at you

[@DuckSwagington]

There is a joke among slavic countries which is that Eastern Europe starts to the east of their own country, as no one wants to be seen as eastern european.

[@guydreamr]

To the east is Mordor.

[@LMB222]

Or east of your region 😂 "Od Konina Azja się zaczyna" - east of Konin (town) is all Asia

[@profet1385]

@@LMB222 Funny :) I'm Polish and didn't know this one!

[@freekmulder3662]

Not even only Slavic, here in Netherlands we say that Eastern Europe starts at the Ruhr and in France (from the Romans) they say that Eastern Europe starts at the Rhine

[@breezeout]

This is literally Žižek's "official geographical limit" video

[@rkt7414]

Imagine cracking the "I only eat Russians" joke in front of a judge in a real life werewolf-ism trial 💀

[@Kraut_the_Parrot]

Yep. This actually happened.

[@rkt7414]

@@Kraut_the_Parrot I thought you were doing a deadpan joke for the video! That was real?!!

[@Kraut_the_Parrot]

@@rkt7414 Yes. I'll give you some more information if you are interested. The werewolf trial happened during a protestant witchcraze in the Latvia town of Jaunpils in 1621. The accused was an 80 year old man who claimed to be a werewolf and "a man of the hound god". He claimed to protect the village crops by turning into a werewolf and hunting those who would steal the town crops. He also performed religious rituals for the "hound god". One of his defenses during his trial was "I only eat Russians". If you want to learn more you can read "Night Battles - Witchcraft and Agrarian cults in the 16th and 17th century" by Carlo Ginzberg.

[@taptiotrevizo9415]

​@Kraut_the_Parrot This was literally the 17th century equivalent of Japanese Officer going "we only killed 102" or paraphrasing.

[@letoatreides5165]

We need him on the front lines ASAP

[@wauwau4896]

“PAPER FOR THE PAPER GOD” As a German, I cannot emphasize enough how accurately this describes the German bureaucracy...

[@noodleppoodle]

Why don't you guys... I don't know... change it??

[@Enyavar1]

@@noodleppoodle change it?? Are you aware that if you want to obsolete for example form C12, this requires form A39, printed in triplicate, then scanned into a PDF then hand-signed by your superiors who then need to upload it to three different government agencies who will each have a 50% likelyhood to DENY the request!

[@FAMI-ep9ok]

​@@Enyavar1form A39?! Wasn't it form A38? Did I miss something important or did the official "office of bureaucratic nonsense" forget to update us on changes AGAIN?!

[@domexn4]

@@noodleppoodle Any changes to the bureaucracy would require it going through the bureaucracy first.

[@dano4996]

It is a great description of France too.

[@Zman44444]

As a Latvian, I can say the country ball being smooshed is a vibe. We’re all slightly squished here.

[@HanSolo__]

As a Pole, I think of Lithuania and Latvia as a family. People of the entire Europe I treat as my friends. I was treated very well in every European country I visited. Belarus included. And I love each of those countries. I visited the USSR when I was a small kid. I have never been to Russia. ps. As of now, I don't find myself visiting Russia anytime soon.

[@Anacronian]

"The French being French" is a perfectly good explanation for everything that happens in France.

[@TheAmericanPrometheus]

French people ☕

[@ChucksSEADnDEAD]

Nobody knows what it means, but it's provocative. It gets the people going.

[@amelie1287]

Honestly, I didn't understand this sentence 🤔

[@ungergabor]

I haven't laughed so hard in a long time.

[@bjornodin]

​@@amelie1287I take it, you are not french?

[@Pioneer_DE]

Rip to all Eastern Europeans who realized they aren't real.

[@karl1ok]

The rapture came early to them

[@rweebrommel3998]

"Mr Kraut, I don't feel so good..." *proceeds to turn into ash*

[@yarovitek]

Literally nobody self-identifies as "Eastern Europeans". So yes, they aren't real.

[@poltergeist69]

iam currently disolving. help

[@scasino9358]

all 0 of them. Because like Kraut says, people here don't consider themselves "eastern european".

[@LivingIronicallyinEurope]

This video still very much comes off as "fremdbestimmung" & it is heavily argued from an outsiders perspective. "Eastern Europe" is a social construct much like "Western Europe", "the Balkans", "Central Europe", arguably there is no geographic thing that unifies it. What makes it a concept is exactly life on the wrong side of the iron curtain. As an Eastern European, all I can really hear is from this video you, and westerners interpret the term as "primitive" therefore we shouldn't use it as it acts as a quasi slur. But the thing is, we've all went through a very similar experience during those 50-ish years, we've lived through similar oppression, we had similar outlook on life, we persevered together against Russian tyranny. Beyond just that, if you look at our cuisines a lot of them share similarity, our languages beyond just the Slavic ones, including Romanian, Hungarian & the Baltics intermingled. And our medieval states went to war & traded in large part with others from this bloc. This region was also under the occupation of 4 empires. Calling oneself "central, southern nordic, whatever" European isn't really going to change the overall shared experience Eastern Europeans have as a nation. And at the end of the day, it just comes down to semantics & not wanting to be associated with Russia.

[@spicyonion736]

Did not expect to find you here, however you wonderfully explained why this video reflecra kraut's usual brainrot to prove his very biased political points, stemming from historical analysis rather than political ones.

[@lobstermash]

All my life I never associated Eastern Europe with Russia, except as enduring the Russian occupation. Now, to me, "Eastern Europe" evokes the defence of civilisation against the same threat risen like the undead to bring grief and violence and ignorance, as before.

[@NeovanGoth]

"Shared experience" is an excellent description and far more important than geography or ethnicity IMO.

[@siaen]

I can add one experience of mine that defines my eastern european-ness (I'm a Hungarian): When I lived in London I've learnt the concept of 100y lease: you lease a building or property for 100 years and then you can renew. This defined to me Eastern Europe as a place in Europe where you CANNOT define a contract like that as the ruling government will be overtaken 2 times over 100y contracts will be nulled.

[@Munchkino]

W Janos comment

[@ionafeldman2913]

Ukrainian-American here, living in Poland. Good background in this video on the historic negative connotations of Eastern Europe in the West, some new information for me that I found interesting! But there's something missing here. The pejorative use of "Eastern Europe" does give many Eastern Europeans an inferiority complex... and that's what makes the term quite unfashionable today and all these "Oh actually we're not Eastern Europe, we're X..." attitudes. But it doesn't need to be that way. Your video does a great job of showing the positive side of Eastern Europe. How these mental images of poverty and low standards of living aren't the case so much in many of the countries in this part of the world. So why don't we reclaim this term? Why don't we celebrate Eastern Europe? Why don't we stop trying so hard to be someone else... to try so hard to convince ourselves that we're more like "the West," when in fact, there's nothing inherently better about "Western countries" (as you show through many examples!) You articulate the diversity of Eastern Europe (religious, linguistic, cultural) as a reason for why the concept shouldn't exist. I disagree. This diversity, the unique identity of each country, the presence of different ethnic minorities... that's one more example of the richness of Eastern Europe, perhaps something to counteract some uniformed Western perceptions that it's all the same. The historical experience of resisting the domination of different empires, most recently the Russian empire... yes, that's a core part of Eastern European identity. We want Russia to go away. We very much want Ukraine to be free... And dismantling the concept of Eastern Europe won't bring us closer to this freedom, it will just leave us grasping at straws, confused about who we are, and wanting to be somebody else. Each country in Eastern Europe has its own very strong national identity. There's a negative side to this that you don't talk about here... historic enmity between everyone. If you look at the relationships between Eastern European states in the interwar period in particular, you can see a lot of bad blood. And that's not even getting into treatments of minorities, in particular antisemitism and antiziganism. For me, the concept of a larger Eastern European identity today is encouraging... because it allows to see more about what we have in common. I moved here to Poland last year, after having lived in Spain for 5 years. Spain is a lovely country in its own right, but after 5 years, it was only too obvious for me that I didn't feel at home there at all. I moved to Poland, a country where I had never lived before. And I had a good feeling about it, and so far that feeling has been justified. I was born in Ukraine, but my homeland isn't only Ukraine. My homeland is Eastern Europe. So, perhaps we should agree to disagree. :)

[@classicminer191]

yapfest

[@reddychand3]

No one is trying to „reclaim” Eastern Europe for the same reasons no one is trying to reclaim the n-word or the f-word in America. The term was always meant to be pejorative and humiliating from its very inception, and it was imposed from the outside.

[@guidomista5738]

I'm from Eastern Europe from Ukraine, I'm fine with whatever geographic term people are calling me and my nation as long as they don't call me russian

[@Hk7762Tube]

Hello my ruskay friend.

[@guidomista5738]

@@Hk7762Tube *rusgay

[@megaponful]

Hello my Russian friend

[@SirAntoniousBlock]

Russians are basically Polish vampires then.

[@antichraldo]

Amen. Being a Russian is rather a medical issue than nationality thing aniway

[@imcbocian]

As a Pole, that's fine. I'm ok with living in fairytale, or even not existing at all. As long as I don't have to live in Russki Mir

[@kisfekete]

As a Hungarian who supports Ukraine I absolutely agree.

[@jalex4251]

As an American I think Poland is a kick ass country. Winged Hussars are basass.

[@bunyaminyilmaz3798]

@@jalex4251 As a amrican :) the good dudes

[@joeyjojojrshabadoo7462]

Good luck with that

[@iustinmuresanu5616]

Amen from Romania, brother!

[@shittymcrvids3119]

As a west German, eastern Europe starts in Thuringia

[@franciscoflamenco]

Eastern Europe starts in the Rhine and Southern Europe starts in the Seine. Asia starts in the Elbe and Africa in the Pyrenees.

[@machitoons]

as a east German, I agree

[@thisguyishisface370]

@@machitoons as a polish, I say that's where central europe starts

[@user-dl7ju]

How does that matter at any rate now? Half of you are Turks and Negros now and many more are on the way.

[@wojciech9538]

@@deadlyknights1119 whar so entiriety of central europe is a fraction of germany?

[@1paris1942]

What I learned from this video is that I TOTALLY want to be a 16th century Polish vampire.

[@B1gLupu]

Reasonable

[@SirAntoniousBlock]

A Russian in other words....

[@LMB222]

You want to get my wife pregnant? Fair enough 😂

[@lookash3048]

No, you want, you would be stuck on the earth until Doomsday and become demon exhausted by too long existence.

[@csonracsonra9962]

😂​@@SirAntoniousBlock

[@ngeezy]

No one wants to be Eastern European because the label denotes a place of low quality but in reality a lot of these countries are great places with lovely people!

[@Dommifax]

This - I feel that since the 90s it has most often been used to describe the one thing they have in common: being post soviet and thus being economically devastated - which coloured the term until it always carried this slight sence of soviet-caused-decay with it even when not explicitly stated and even now when it does not apply at all to many of them anymore

[@Sunrah]

​@@Dommifax well still, we are very underdeveloped compared to western europe. there's a reason me and a lot of my countrymen live in the west, it has to do with economic opportunity. yes it's not as bad as it was but it's also not good enough to go home.

[@RTDice11]

Tbh, I wonder if the collective zeitgeist thinks the "Baltics" are the same as the "Balkans"

[@jamalisujang2712]

I once met a Slovenian tourist in my shop. His tire was flat. He is surprised I don't overcharge him. 😂😂😂

[@JABN97]

@@Dommifaxpersonally I, having been born in 1997, always considered the post-communism to be more about post-Sovjet politics & a still lingering political culture of corruption, which caused the economic difference. With the fading of that corruption in many states comes an equality of economy. If I’d had to guess I would say it would take about 30 years (a generation) of dedicated labor to fix that culture. And for most countries (outside at a guess: Russia Belarusia Serbia Romania Hungary Bulgaria and Ukraine) that is roughly correct.

[@alastorvulpes]

As a Eastern European I use the term cause I think we have a sense of unity amongst us by sharing struggles against foreign imperialists both in the west and Russia.

[@wintercoeur]

If only! It's shameful that Poles are increasingly replacing perfectly serviceable polish words with English terms because they think it makes them look educated and cool. You're literally butchering your own language. As a Pole, I'm embarrassed.

[@nicolaim4275]

@@wintercoeur That is the same in a lot of countries and is basically a historical constant; people use a secondary language partly to show off their worldliness and partly because they forget a native word and remember the foreign one. French, German and Latin have had this role before English in my country while Akkadian had that role in the Bronze Age 3500 years ago.

[@dybnik]

About two weeks ago, KZbin randomly served me a recording of Slavoj Zizek standing on a bridge outside of Ljubljana sarcastically calling it the border between Central Europe and Eastern Europe. “On this side, the women are raped and they like it, and on the western side the women are raped and they don’t like it.” I got the point of the message, but I still didn’t understand why a Pole was so worked up about how people view a bunch of Slovenians. This video shed some light on that for me.

[@nikgracanin6180]

Not eastern Europe but Balkans. Balkans should be considered different from eastern Europe due to very unique history.

[@marekjochman7400]

Slavoj Žižek is Slovenian tho

[@wiciuwiciu2783]

Slavoj Žižek is a communist. So hardly to say he's even a human. But anyway, it makes him Russian/Chinese.

[@lmao_nope]

"The dream of getting Russia to fuck the hell off is the only thing that makes Eastern Europe real" is a very bold thesis. As a Pole, I think I agree. Though we are OBVIOUSLY Central Europe, not Eastern Europe.

[@Whatshisname346]

With, dare I say it, kick ass vampires.

[@appa609]

Finland would be Eastern Europe then. And bulgaria wouldn't. For the Balkans you must replace Soviet trauma with Ottoman

[@trillionbones89]

​​@@appa609the Balkans terrorized themselves quite well long after the ottoman empire was no longer a factor, and that's 100+years And Finland is in northern Europe. East West is not the only axis you can divide Europe in.

[@DoriZuza]

@@Whatshisname346The vampires are in Romania, not Poland. (If there are any Polish ones as well, please let me know) Later edit: I only now got to that part of the video. I’ve learned something new.

[@thurbine2411]

@@DoriZuzadidn’t you watch this video?

[@jak00bspyr72]

"Poland is in Eastern Europe" Poles: *visible anger*

[@Rodzyniastyyyy]

Wait until you see the Czechs.

[@Tablis0]

Oh yes, I'm Polish, I can confirm. To this day I remember article from 2015, where they called CD Projekt (developers of Witcher series) "eastern European studio".

[@Gnefitisis]

No. Im proud.

[@golonkowiczpl]

You can see clear difference in Poland betwean polish old german lands (western civilisation) and polish old russian lands (eastern)

[@supratimdipta1585]

Yes, I also saw this in a gaming community 😂

[@NextG666]

Your argument kinda falls flat if you consider the Balkan states which are also part of Eastern Europe. In your examples for economic, social and technological development you didn't mention a single Balkan state and for a good reason. Most of them are not even close to be on par with western European states or northeastern European states for that matter. You might want to explore on why the Balkan states are behind on their development compared to their northern counterparts. Also western states still engage in a kinda xenophobic policies when it comes to the Balkan states even if they are EU members. The latest example being accepting Bulgaria and Romania in the Schengen area only for air travel. Which is a precedent for the EU and kind of a mockery to both states which statistically have been meeting the requirements to join since 2011. I'm saying this as a citizen of a Balkan state.

[@Vartrex5]

He did mention Slovenia and Croatia though

[@dannyygoogl8330]

You're right

[@JannSeb]

Coming from Scandinavia and having lived in Poland and Czechia for 7 years I have noticed that Easter Europe is a derogatory term and more often than making the Poles and Czechs angry, it makes them sad and hopeless that after hundreds of years of wars, colonisation and genocides they need to put up with this. It is simply humiliating to call them by a term coined for the degrading reasons mentioned in the video. The fact that the Soviets have pushed it through in the UN is also horrible because it forever nailed a certain picture of those countries in the minds of us Westerners, namely that they have some connection to the Russians when in fact they were colonised by them and even during the Cold War they were forcibly exploited by Russia. Never in those countries history were they willingly in line with Russia. It always happened through Russian invasions. For me they are Central, Baltic, Finno-Ugric ect. Let them define themself for the first time in their history. Love from Stockholm ❤

[@Donax695]

nicely put! I think you understand what is going on, hi from the Czech republic

[@starzainia]

As someone from Eastern Europe, I can confirm I don't exist.

[@Unwavering_Resolve]

As someone from Eastern Europe, I can confirm that you don't exist.

[@daseinzigwahrem]

My condolences.

[@aaroncfriedman]

Hahahaha classic Eastern European humor

[@bobkerman7978]

same lmao

[@NeistH2o]

😂

[@lilconfused686]

Even before watching the video I will admit that as a Lithuanian, I do ponder my existence on a frequent basis

[@karl1ok]

A most lithuanian exercise alltogether

[@munkeefinkelbeen5395]

You *do* exist. You *are* valid. ....wait.....why are you disappearing? Noooooooo!

[@starmaker75]

Well when are inbewteen sweden and Russia, their a lot things you question

[@NEO-jb7bb]

A lot of Lithuanians seem to do that

[@LidojosaisJanis]

Same, Latvian bralukai here xd

[@carlramirez6339]

If not for Putin, the abandonment of the term "Eastern Europe" would finally be complete, because when Russia is not the Western World's enemy, we'd realise how similar they are to us.

[@MrDahamsta]

Writing as someone from the Baltics here. I can only truly speak for myself and I am not the most historically learnt guy, but I think the concept of the post soviet states (so the concept of what usually is defined as Eastern Europe, not necessarily the term) has had some value as it creates a bond between the countries that suffered together under the soviet regime (especially as it was fiscally collapsing) and ultimately became free in the 90s. That shared bond then gave way for compassion for each other and vigilance over the potential threat of those days coming again. That being said, those memories have begun to fade and will only fade more as can be seen with how some of those countries have chosen to act today.

[@BagMonster]

Putin: Russia is the rightful master of Eastern Europe! Kraut: What Eastern Europe? Putin: *Dissolves into dust Thanos style*

[@Gala-yp8nx]

Eastern Europe is a politically apathetic term used by Westerners.

[@stargazerorion9209]

When exactly Putin said that?

[@fadidous8979]

@@Gala-yp8nx bro never looked at a map

[@HelixTarot]

Summon the werewolves!!😅

[@fadidous8979]

@@HelixTarot

[@BaronVonMott]

Polish vampires being essentially drunken undead hooligans might be the best bit of old folklore I've ever heard! 😂

[@Hargrovius]

Kraut is not really correct here. "Upiór", the creature he described, is directly translated as "wraith" into english. Inspiration for modern vampires absolutely came from the Balkans.

[@mrsmartypants4541]

To be fair, there are vampires in polish folklore, they are even called "Wąpierz", and they did in fact pray on humans. There are just so many creatures created by improper burial or other practices, that sometimes it can be hard to find the creature you're looking foor among them.

[@annafirnen4815]

​@@Hargrovius as far as I know scholars believe that words wąpierz and upiór HAVE same root and relate to the same creature, those words were used just in different regions. You are thinking about modern meaning of Upiór (probably because of the translation of "Phantom of the opera" to "Upiór w operze") but if you read about the accounts in mythology they used to be essentially vampires.

[@paulinagabrys8874]

Nie no ale polskie upiory z folkloru nie są wampirami z popkultury. Upiór był kimś pomiędzy szamanem, wiedźminem (czyli żywym upiorem zwalczającym niebezpieczne martwe upiory) i chuliganem robiącym zadymę na wsi. Ale to wszystko jest na tyle płynne i zależne od regionu i czasów, że ciężko tak jednoznacznie określić kim jest upiór

[@TastyChicker1L17]

as a very patriotic Czech, I clicked on this video because I saw Czech flag in the thumbnail, and I am glad I did

[@omppusolttu5799]

Notably be aware that with both Werewolves and Vampires *also* have other origins, which could be less or more sinister and there was basically a case of "well those wolf shamans of yours are *basically* werewolves." It's not that there was a case of "Oh there's someone who can turn into a wolf? Lemme steal that concept and consider it very sinister despite your protests."

[@ribbon8677]

My mental image of "Eastern Europe" collapsed completely when I travelled to Poland with my high school on an Erasmus+ project: we had to make a simple cardboard representation of some buildings and while we, the Italian group, used (poorly made) balsa wood, the Czechs and Polish came with 3D printed 100% true-to-real-life models. From then on my view completely changed on the region and that's why I think that Erasmus projects are the most useful long-term investments of the EU on its citizens. You can't learn everything about a country from abroad, you need to visit it.

[@LMB222]

That's why I'll defend Erasmus to death, even though I'm very aware that "Erasmus Orgasmus" is a thing.

[@tree9215]

I live in an apartment with 3 rooms that often get rented out to Erasmus students. It's been one of the most enriching experiences in my live and I've made a lot of friends through it.

[@RavignonCh]

The biggest weakness of "Eastern Europe" is that it's an exonym; a term used by people outside of a community to describe the community. There is only so much you can learn about a group of people without their input - and most social sciences are moving away from that clinical, outsider analysis of societies. Ultimately this is why I'm in favour of the removal of Soviet statues as a leftist, even if people do silly things sometimes like when a Ukrainian artist retrofitted a statue of Lenin into Darth Vader. By the end of the day, the Ukrainians are saying they do not want to be understood as "post-Soviet" in the same way the first Korean Republics did not want to live to be "post-Japanese."

[@PakBallandSami]

It is not a kraut video, if it doesn't have you in comment section 😂

[@ReySchultz121]

I wish to here your Franco-Mexican voice.

[@starmaker75]

Well to me even as a American leftist (more on the center left), I see the lenin and Stalin statues the same way as Confederate statues, it better they don't exist and should as best be put in a museum as reminded of the bad past.

[@snomcultist189]

As he says, it is a “fremdbestimmung”

[@munkeefinkelbeen5395]

@@starmaker75 ya know? Honestly since the BLM protests, I've been rethinking the use of statues as a whole. I'm a lover of art, but it's weird to glorify someone in statue from for one or two good things the public perceives they did, and in spite of a career of what are now, or were already then, misdeeds. Like statues of Juan de Oñate in the Southwest. He "founded" New Mexico, but committed a slew of atrocities to the Native population.

[@rimankis8087]

Hello! I'm Russian and for me for many years phrase "Eastern European" was kinda connection to European family. Bc it's no other option to identify yourself except "Slav" or "Russian" or "Eastern European". And even I am "mostly" Slavic by ethnicity, born in Moscow, these names are kinda distant. So I used the last option. But still I never perceive people from Poland or Macedonia as "same as I am". For all my life I thought that it's just geographic stuff. Thank you for the video!

[@carpathianwolf3523]

Looking at the term eastern Europe as a Romanian my views are kind of mixed on it's use. A part of me views it with a certain pride, because all eastern european states have been for most of their history victims of foreign imperialism, so to me it sometimes feels like a symbol of pride seeing through how much we suffered but we still stand tall. Meanwhile I have to agree that through the development on both the technological and economic fronts I believe that eastern Europe is slowly dying as a concept and it's being replaced with just Europe.

[@heyons2808]

I share some of these feelings as Macedonian. I left a similar comment about how the term feels conflicting

[@BuckNut-ck1sl]

@@heyons2808 I feel the same as a Serb.

[@NeoCavo]

Paper for the Paper God fucking killed me and I've never even been to Germany.

[@Yora21]

I am from Germany. And it is true.

[@sapheiron]

@@Yora21 Seconded!

[@Viruseek1337]

I am from Poland, and while some of my friends are or have been working in Germany, all of them spoke of unspeakable horrors one has to endure to buy a can of coke

[@Otek_Nr.3]

INK FOR THE INK THRONE!

[@antonnurwald5700]

​@@Viruseek1337when you walk into a shop or a cafe, invariably you will see either a sign "no cards, cash only" or "no cash, cards only" and you have no way if knowing beforehand which one it is.

[@Artur_M.]

Fun fact: the Polish word "upiór" and related words in other Slavic languages, which are the origin of "vampire" (edit: including the Serbian "вампир", which seems to be most directly related to it), are themselves perhaps of Turkic origin. Meanwhile, the word "vampire" came back to Polish as "wampir". An average Polish speaker might not even realize the connection between "upiór" and "wampir".

[@Hadar1991]

Isn't "wąpierz" an original Polish word for a vampire?

[@Artur_M.]

@@Hadar1991 Kinda, an alternative term/synonym.

[@Beefy_B0y330]

In English it's borrowed from the Serbian word vampir

[@Gratell]

@@Artur_M. zawsze udaje mi się ciebie gdzieś w głębi komentarzy znaleźć, z ciekawymi informacjami - jest pan wszędzie xD

[@fulopmeszaros5330]

I would like a participation trophy for hungary, as the leader of draco knights, dracula was also an inspiration for the first western vampire (and not vlad the impaler, who didnt kill traitors at night, didnt have a castle in transylvania, etc)

[@darthimperious8661]

I say this as respectfully as possible. I often praise Poland for its conservatism and I myself am an American conservative (not a neocon) that being said, I find the idea that one liking conservatism in Poland is some sort of talking down insulting. You can agree with someone without belittling them. Additionally conservatism isn’t necessarily halting progress but when it is reasonable it is a view that progress should be careful and measured and shouldn’t come at the expense of values that have held nations and cultures together for centuries.

[@geoffreydesena587]

Though their history of being in the Soviet/Russian sphere of influence may be the only thing "Eastern Europeans" share, that's quite a shared experience. The term is still descriptive, even if it has taken on a very different meaning than it had a few decades ago.

[@Giorgi.Koberidze]

As a Georgian, the easternmost European nation, thank you for covering this topic. Most of the people who criticize Eastern Europe have never been to that place. In general, Eastern European cities are safer than some cities elsewhere. Eastern Europe can only be hated by two groups: 1. Putinist Russia, which considers Eastern Europe as its property and does not necessarily want to be a part of the rest of Europe; 2. A pseudo-nationalist raised on Russian propaganda. The Central, Baltic and Eastern European countries such as Lithuania, Estonia, Czechia, Poland, Romania and others form the umbrella of European security and future development.

[@quuirrel19_-sz9pj]

easternmost european? what about Kazakhstan?

[@riperr384]

Well there is an elephant in the room as to why their cities are much safer

[@TSGC16]

There's a reason many Eastern European cities are so safe compared to Western European cities and i think we all know it

[@raguelelnaqum]

@@quuirrel19_-sz9pj Kazakhstan may have what are now considered culturally European minorities such as Russians and the Volga Germans, but in terms of both historical geopolitics and literal geological position it and its surrounding region is and has always been Northwestern Asia. It is east of not only the Anatolian ranges, but the Caucasian and Ural ranges, which means that tectonically speaking it is firmly on the Asian half of the Afro-Eurasian superplate. It is also East of the Caspian Sea, meaning that it is already well past the cutoff point for the the furthest east stretch of Nortwestern Asia, both in terms of historical record and geology once again. The areas once recognized as part of Europe in central Eurasia only stretch as far as Samarkand, and the habitable parts of Kazakhstan are on the opposite side of said historical polity. Thusly, Kazkhstan is firmly an Asian nation. After all, if having a Eurocentric culture or minority was all that qualified a nation to be European geopolitically, nations like Australia or Tunisia or Lebanon would be considered one as well, and at that point the geopositional classification of European becomes meaningless. To be clear this isn't me disparaging Kazakhstan, because I find its history fascinating, but if Siberia isn't considered geopositionally European even though most Uralic peoples within Europe including Sami, Magyars and Finns come from there, than neither can Kazakhstan.

[@appa609]

@@quuirrel19_-sz9pj I assume you're trolling. Right?

[@Szyperak]

To be fair, I'm from Poland and in 90s it was literally plagued by car thieves, and stories of people going to Germany to steal cars were nearly a daily occurence 😄

[@B1gLupu]

There was a joke in Finland in the 80s "Come to Estonia, your car is already here"

[@NuSuntSerb]

now the car thief, pickpocket, gangster, and prostitute strereotypes all are for romanians. Its like all of europe shoved all its negative streotypes onto romania for some reason

[@blueodum]

I lived in Poland in the 90s. Confirmed.

[@arturodiazcoca7408]

You can tell when someone has not lived a certain time.

[@Szyperak]

​@@arturodiazcoca7408 Is this directed at me? Because I clearly remember my dads Polonez getting stolen from outside of Smyk in Warsaw while we were shopping for christmas gifts in the 90's, so I'm not sure from where your comment comes from :)

[@gmodrules123456789]

I never thought of Czechia as being eastern europe

[@lilnunu1553]

we became apart of it in the 1940s

[@carpathianwolf3523]

Yeah, big misinformation about the accuracy of the folklore surrounding werewolves and vampires. Firstly, the werewolves are pan-european not specifically Baltic, but similar stories can be found in Greece, France, Germany e.t.c. Secondly, vampires are not Polish. The idea of an undead creature rising from it's grave to cause havoc through immoral and insidious behavior is present throughout central and south eastern europe. So vampires are present in Polish folklore, but they aren't unique or inherently Polish.

[@christianpetersen163]

THANK YOU! I immidiatly picked up on this too. This guy has no idea how to discern facts, apparantly. It's ironic that he's doing the exact fremdbestimmung that he argues "western europe" has done to "eastern europe", by crying ripoff and blatantly overlooking that every country that has wolves has a rich folklore about werewolves, thus denying them the opportunity to define themselves!

[@dannyygoogl8330]

Exactly!​@@christianpetersen163 I thought of this video to be an amazing one....until he said that about vampires and werewolves and ruined everything.

[@MiSt3300]

Kraut, as a Pole 🇵🇱 I thank you so much for this video. The region between Germany and Russia has always been neglected and ignored, and painfully lumped together as just "eastern Europe", or more honestly: backwater, a land to divide between the "big" players. People don't realise that it is precisely the fact that these smaller countries are independent that makes Europe a more stable and democratic place. This video is very important, so that people finally realise this.

[@profet1385]

As a Pole, I support this comment wholeheartedly.

[@DrunkChaosMind]

Smutna prawda

[@ForOne814]

>more stable place >literally plagued by wars and genocides since the 90s.

[@MiSt3300]

@@ForOne814 Europe plagued by wars and genocides?

[@ForOne814]

@@MiSt3300 Eastern Europe.

[@ALatvian]

As a 16 year old Latvian, I think that the concept of eastern europe doesn't really exist in my generation. Having travelled to Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Chechia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, I see these countries as unique and different NOT as one. Sure, there is some connection felt between these places but it is more from a historical than cultural or geographical view. I believe it is because me and my peers have been born in free countries with established independent identities. Also, internet is a major factor for easy consumption of worldly news.

[@backwardsbandit8094]

All of Europe has crossover in between nations. This goes for Africa, Oceania, Asia and the Americas as well. Nothing worthy of note tbh

[@LMB222]

You have travelled. That is *the* difference. Do you want to know the %% of French and Germans who never left their region, and perhaps have never even met an "Eastern European"?

[@margin606]

The concept of Eastern Europe is not dependent on you, as an individual, liking or accepting it. The term (obviously) existed long before you arrived on the planet and will, in all likelihood exist after you have left it. It is your prerogative not to use the term if you so choose, but you are certainly not in a position to wish it away.

[@tommeiner9983]

Weird point to make. I mean we still call Western European countries Western European, despite the fact that they're also very different from each other.

[@jaxerman5965]

Obviously I am tired of the "Middle east", "The west", etc... People generalize and incorporate things to names. Great video as always.

[@AndreiZisu]

As a Romanian, I never really thought about baggage of the term "eastern European" until now. I am debating with myself whether I still want to use it or not to describe myself. As a millennial, I do find that there is a shared childhood experience with most of the countries under Soviet influence. And I do find thst westerners still have weird Russian fetishes that they still hold on to, even to this day. Perhaps the biggest thing that brings us together today is a hatred of Russia.

[@theknightskyisi]

The freeze frame of the singer drawing a tractor pulling tanks (in black and white) gave me absolute chills.

[@jamesmccaul2945]

Maybe you left a window open and there is a draft?

[@victoriaporter6586]

Wdym

[@trygveplaustrum4634]

*The medieval Polish legends of vampires remind me quite vividly of my times playing Dwarf Fortress!* Always give your dwarves proper burials, people.

[@Waristheonlyanswer]

In the last few years, there were several graves found in Poland where supposed vampires were buried, shackled , staked and with stones, or irons on their chest and cut legs/arms so as to not dig out.

[@Hadar1991]

But it some sense it survived to modern day. While nobody believes in vampires, the idea of having ashes of your deceased relative at home in a urn is just bonkers, furthermore it is a criminal offence for which you can go to prison. Regardless if the body is burned or not (and Catholic Church do not like burning the corpses) you have to bury ALL of the remains in a cemetery. You are not allowed to scatter any amount of the ashes or keep them as part of them in your house. And for me, as a Pole, it is just completely bonkers what Western Europeans thinks is acceptable to do with somebody's remains. ;P

[@aravindpallippara1577]

​@@Hadar1991 Well that comes from us I believe, hindu tradition demands a proper cremation and scattering the ashes in the ocean or a river. That's proper burial for us, can't imagine taking up space forever on a burial ground till eternity and then keep having to discomfort the alive folks with taking care of the burial grounds - the setting most horror films have to visit atleast once. Case in point there are very few myths about beings returning from the dead in Hindu tradition because of that.

[@Hadar1991]

@@aravindpallippara1577 You can bury multiple people in one place. In Polish law it I think that 20 years must past. Tombstone is some sense is optional - if cemetery lacks free space, then abandoned graves will be given to recently deceased.

[@Josukegaming]

My friends that moved to the Netherlands from Ukraine told me themselves the best way to refer to their country and the nearby area is Eastern Europe. It's just the easiest way to roughly group those countries together, and they do share a lot of history all being affected by an oppressor in some way. It's WAY better to say Eastern Europe rather than Ex-Communist or Ex-Russian countries, as that absolutely does associate them with their past oppression and Russia, rather than Eastern Europe just being a general way to refer to the region, similar to Western or Central Europe.

[@user-ug1ez8ws5l]

Here in Estonia we only refer to ourselves among ourselves as "Eastern European" when "westerners" are being racist towards us. Mockingly of course. Things are way better than what they used to be in terms of how we are treated though, most people from "The west" are polite and sensible.

[@PoliticswithPaint]

As someone who has extensively traveled across Eastern Europe, I do have an opposing opinion of the term and the conclusion of your video. I think you are totally correct regarding the history of the term and how it was used to look down upon an entire half of a continent. However, I don’t think that the term ‘Eastern Europe’ is obsolete and that the only thing that gives it meaning is an opposition to Russia. Instead, I would argue that Eastern Europeans are actually reinventing the term for themselves. To see that in practice, you only have to spend a few minutes browsing through ‘Eastern European’ content on the Internet. There are thousands of videos of people from across ‘Eastern Europe’, sharing things about their daily lives and cultures that they all can relate to but would sound strange to the vast majority of people from Western Europe or other parts of the world. Despite all the differences you mention (and there are many between the diverse peoples of Eastern Europe), there are also so many mutualities that connect them - how these exactly came about is of course a long and complex story, but nonetheless, they are there. That’s why many creators from Eastern Europe who immigrated to the ‘West’ and post about it will have followers and comments from across all of what we call ‘Eastern Europe’, from Latvia, Croatia, Romania, Ukraine…and also Russia. There are many differences between Eastern Europeans. Politically, Religiously, Linguistically. But isn’t that true for ‘Western Europe’ as well? I think we can all agree that how one defines Eastern Europe is subject to debate and there is no definitive right or wrong - but that's true for basically all geographic categories. Can we really define Western Europe so much better? I would say no, we can’t. The term Eastern Europe may be unfashionable politically, but when travelling across that vast region, its hard to not recognise that there are reasons for why it's still in use, especially among the Eastern European diaspora, which probably knowns the differences between Eastern Europe and any other world region the best.

[@matijastanivukovic8744]

Yeah, I agree. As a Serbian, sure, geographically, I may actually be a balkan danubian southern eastern indo European, but I definitely identify with Eastern Europe rather than anything else. Sure, there are the Balkans, which I also identify with, but it's the same with Western Europe and its Benelux. If we are going by a strict East and West divide, the Cold War devide serves the best. It is the most recent and impactful part of the entire Eastern part of the continent, and for that, it can be grouped together. That's why many don't consider Greece to be really Eastern Europe. Besides that, Greeks are very different to almost all other people's in Eastern Europe they also have far greater cultural influence to the West. So I don't really understand what the point of this video, yes it does have arguments over how we use some terms and what their implications are but generally, everyone knows what us West and what is East Europe. Even if you asked a Czech and Pole to define what part of Europe he is, ignoring Central Europe, just based of West and East, they may not like to be called Eastern Europe but they would definitely be reluctant to call themselves really Western Europe.

[@TheGermanDoc]

I agree with this - though my perspective is different. I'm an American that lived in Bulgaria (& speak the language) when I was ages 9-16 and go back to the region frequently to visit family. My dad moved us there for work, and in seven years he never learnt the language beyond curses and ordering alcohol whereas I did and I noticed a very different level of respect between him and I. He always viewed Bulgaria as somewhere "exotic" and liked to party & make a show out of being American and I hated that. I went to Croatia for the first time last year and found that I could have a broken but functional conversation with the locals (though thankfully most speak English and we could switch to that if there were blocks). I have dark hair & eyes, and was told a few times they wouldn't have guessed I wasn't "Eastern European" but couldn't quite place the accent when I spoke Bulgarian. They could have meant differently, but it struck me as a term of endearment & a compliment; I don't think they get many Americans visiting to experience the culture rather than view from the outside. I've mostly spent time with Slovenians, Croatians, Romanians, Bulgarians and haven't met many who aren't proud of where they're from (albeit largely angry with the politics of the latter 3). I think ultimately the usage of the term comes from the context and intention. An American who "wants to visit Eastern Europe" is very different than one who "Is visiting Croatia but is amazed at the shared culture and heritage of Eastern Europe." There are deeply ingrained biases from the breakup of Czechoslovakia that still linger, but the shared history (which yes, Russian oppression is part of this) is largely something that brings people together, at least from what I've seen from younger Europeans.

[@oliverpasztor788]

Very good point. As someone living in one of the countries considered Eastern European I think the term changed meaning in the last decade from a somewhat derogatory term describing a less developed region formerly belonging to the former Soviet sphere of influence to something used to distance ourselves from Western Europe and their dominant progressive political and cultural ideology.

[@starmaker75]

Yeah when i see the term eastern Europe as the same as Western Europe. Just a term for a board sense Europe geography.

[@EvilSmonker]

Great point, it felt almost patronizing listening a British man speak on why the only thing that makes us different from the west is being anti-Russia (which is mostly un true at least in Bulgaria, not to mention they directly are to thank for our independence from the Osman). Culture alone unifies us, while also having many other factors that help.

[@Horny_Fruit_Flies]

There are few pleasures greater in an "Eastern European's" life that facing a western tankie and saying straight to their face that the fall of the Soviet Union was the greatest thing that has happened to your people and nation, and that you wear your Russophobia like a badge of honor. They didn't live through it, no matter how much "theory" they swallow, the subconsciously know they have no idea what they're talking about, and that's why this confrontation pushes them into a fit of rage as they watch their entire worldview flash before their eyes

[@anchiarogeile6679]

Quite apart from being a banned organisation until 1968, the Communist Party of West Germany always had a difficult time campaigning in elections since the audience tended to say, if Communism is so great there's a Communist Germany next door, so why don't you go and live there? Needless to say, hardly any of them ever did.

[@Serboboi]

So i dont exist!? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOƠ̵͍̝̼̩͑̓̐̌̀̓̈́̐̈́̄O̵̭̘̳̯̘͔̦̲̣̱̰̳̾͆͊͐͜Ơ̵͓̓͐̇͌̐̌̂̔̑̆͛̓̚̕Ó̵̧̧̙̲̬̮̮͙̓̋̄̋͌̍̋̔͗̋̇O̸̖̹̫͇͈͈̠̮̙͆̕ͅỌ̴̤͓̮͛̋̌̎͆͛Ố̷̫̤̞̲̬̭̮̪͉̘͙̱̜͎͙̾̍̀̋͋͊́̎̏̔̎͐Ǫ̵͈̠͒̓̒͂̓̀̇͐̓͆͘͝Ơ̷̙̖̩̄͌̓̓̎͒̌̉͋͘͝͝Ȍ̷̧̱͉̺͖̝͓͚̤̣̮̳̌̑̈́̓̋̈́́͊̓͆̇̏̕͝O̶̧̩̲͙̬̰͇̹̣̳̤̟͑͊̌̅̒͒͌́̌́͝Ơ̷̫̠͈̠̳̱̲̳̝̬̣̘͇͊͋̾͑͌̈́̂͋͗͋̒̃̇Ǫ̴̢̧̛̰̘͓̭̩͚̝͇̫̆̎̄̀̀̀͆̿̿̓̚͘͜͠͠Ǫ̶̭͉̬͈͈͕̯͍̣̪̪̊͆̌̎͛̂̈͜͝͠͝ͅͅO̴̧̬̥͖̼͇̖̎̏̆̌Ǫ̷̨̥̰͕̞̯̲̪͉̼͖̤̎́̀͐̍̓̄̒̌͝͠͝

[@user-iz2tq3dx5d]

How did you wrote that ?

[@setoki2838]

@@user-iz2tq3dx5d Just google how to do weird characters in youtube comments or smth

[@josuemanuelparejacontreras6004]

** dies in Mongolian **

[@Oblivisci........]

@@user-iz2tq3dx5dDon’t worry you can translate to English thanks to google.

[@user-yh1nm1vy3i]

Vietnamese lookin ahh accents

[@tellder1]

In Vilnius University (I am a bachelor in history) professors and lecturers always said that we're not eastern europeans. We could call ourselves Eastern Central Europeans or Southern North Europeans, but not Eastern Europeans. Some lecturers defined "Eastern Europe" (in 2012) as Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, back then all three were buddies. Soviet influence did leave is somewhat frozen, and it's not true that our social and societal development didn't stagnate. It did. Soviet culture was purposefuly conservative, and any liberal ideas were suppressed. But after USSR's collapse the development has exploded. Soviet influence and russian culture still persists unfortunately, mainly among russian speakers or older people. Young people tend to be extremely pro West, but mainly pro-american in culture, and aforementioned russian speakers or culture lovers are seen as kinda backward street mobs. I also want to note how safe and evergrowing Lithuania has become (sidenote, we always complain how everything is going to shit, but in reality, it's the opposite). When GFC happened in 2008 it became cool to emigrate from Lithuania and seek the fortune elsewhere, as life here was hard and salaries small. Good and bright people have left. Now it's the opposite. You practically don't see emigration of smart and able. Now, educated people are staying in the country or coming back, as living standards skyrocketed, and some of our less educated and aggresive (I'll get to that in a moment) manual labor working people emigrate. Lithuania became very safe, while our emigrants tend to cause more and more trouble elsewhere. 15 years ago there were places in Vilnius where you couldn't set foot at night. Now, at the same places you can see women, completely alone, walking dogs, at midnight. T

[@tomaszmankowski9103]

Ok, but notice one thing - the Euro 2012 mentioned in the video was in Poland AND Ukraine. Ukraine was already on its move away from Moscow for quite some time and even Yanukovych couldn't change that.

[@tellder1]

@@tomaszmankowski9103 Yes I know. Ukrainian people were becoming more and more West-leaning, but politicly, at that time, it was stuck with russia.

[@karkevicius]

Lithuania is not Eastern European as a country. Vilnius is though. It’s a shame that it’s our capital because Kaunas is in a much better spot, feels more Lithuanian, and has a lot more potential in my opinion. But anyways Northwestern Lithuania (where actual Lithuanian tribes lived) has much more in common with Latvia and the surrounding region than the rest of Lithuania. Vilnius to me is the northernmost city of Ukraine. That’s how it feels to me. Even the people that live in Vilnius don’t look Lithuanian, they look Eastern European and have striking Eastern European features.

[@kharakternyk_]

@@tellder1 Why do you make the segregation between people and politics? One is reflection of other. Speaking as Ukrainian. That's why 2004, 2014 and 2022 phenomenons happened here.

[@oh_ASMR]

​@@karkevicius you might be right or not with your opinion on feel - I both don't know and don't care enough to form an opinion - but I can 100% guarantee that Ukraine has nothing to do with it. If what you're saying is true it's because it's historically been a transitional area between Balts and Slavs and local Belarusians and Lithuanians both contributed to the genetic pool of the region for ages (and also recently the "vibe" could be influenced by the whole political refugee influx if you're talking about very recent times). How you managed to include Ukraine here is beyond me.

[@user-ds8no1ro2q]

Years ago I came to believe Eastern Europe was just a shorthand way journalists used to lump together all the unfortunate European countries caught in the grip of Communist Russia. Historians tell us that two of the five great civilizations around today are Western European civilization and Eastern European civilization. Our own civilization is Western European (called the West for short). What created our civilization was Greek Thought, Roman Law, Latin Christendom (the Catholic Church), and Germanic Political Institutions. From Finland to Croatia to Malta to Portugal to Iceland and back to Finland is a region of common culture and sensibilities. Much of the common way of thinking is due to the influence of the Catholic Church, even in areas now Protestant or secular. Eastern Europe has roots that are similar, notably Greek Thought and Roman Law. It has roots not so similar like Greek Christianity (which is more mystical than the more logical Western Church). There are no Germanic Political Institutions. From Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine though Moldova and Romania and across the Balkan lands of Serbia, Bulgaria, Montenegro and Macedonia to Greece and Cyprus stretch the region of Eastern European Civilization. I lean toward including Albania and Bosnia as Eastern European but I do not know their original dominant religious make up before the Turks brought Islam. Before closing, I have to add I have not yet read this article.

[@radubaninca7533]

I am Romanian. I agree with Kraut on most points with some exceptions. ✅️ What I agree with: 1) Culturally Romanians are latin, I find it very easy to make italian friends and make fun of the quirks in the two languages as well as having a shared heritage to Roman times to further joke and bond on. 2) We do not have as much in common with our neighbouring countries. We have a saying that "We are an island of Latins in a sea of Slavs" +the Magyars. Their languages are very unfamiliar say for a few borrowed words. Eastern Europeans are not alike, especially linguistically as pointed out by Kraut. 🚫 Where I disagree: 3) Despite all the differences, there is a strong tie between us Eastern Europeans. More specifically the shared subjugation our people's have endured throughout most of history. Tough times are best at bringing people toghether, no matter how different. This I can see not only through my bonds with slavic friends over similar stories of how we fought the Russians, Turks and Germans. 4) This united struggle is seen even in the economy and landscape. From the Soviet blocks to the fortresses built to defend from the Ottomans. What makes us similar are the shared influences we have endured from larger neighbours. Conclusion: Eastern Europe is a thing. United not because we are similar but because we share similar struggles. The United States became united only through the similar struggles for independence. The Internarium became a concept, yet again, not because Romanians and Poles are alike as people's, but because we fear the same empires.

[@fulopmeszaros5330]

I feel you on the different nation in a sea of slavs point, although i hate that many hungarians are very racist towards you. Please give tips how to throw out a xenophobic christofascist dictator.

[@NuSuntSerb]

​@@fulopmeszaros5330racist isnt the right word, because romanians and hungarians are the same race. They are simply diffiernt ethnicites

[@captainchaoscow]

I see that the language is a strong cultural influence. It bonds people together. But "We do not have as much in common with our neighbouring countries. We have a saying that "We are an island of Latins in a sea of Slavs"" is very strange to me. Do you have more in common with Brazilians, Mexicans and Haitians - they speak Portuguese, Spanish and French then Hungarians, Ukrainians and Bulgarians? Aren't the Dacians not related to Thracians - a people group who the Slavic Bulgarians and Bulgars mixed. Haven't been the territory of Romania not part of the first Bulgarian empire? Don't you share Ortodoxy and the first written text in Romanian was in the cyrillic alphabet: the Neacșu's letter? And as you said - there was a lot of history together: fighting of Russians, Turks and Germans. But not only. And I am sure climate, food also leave their traces in the common culture. So I am really confused about this "Island in an Sea" proverb. I know everybody wants to be special - but feels also quite condescending.

[@radubaninca7533]

@@captainchaoscow It is very true that there are several similarities brought on due to proximity. Ranging from food to language to climate and history. I cannot deny that Ukranian borsh is a key ingredient in most Romanian soups or the similarities in the Hora dances with other neighbors. To analyze this, one can look at the Cyrillic alphabet used in old Romanian and on the most famous of Romanian churches. These are just some of the characteristics borrowed from our Slavic neighbors. Throughout the 19th century, however, Romanians have been distancing themselves away from the east and once closer to the Western Latin countries. We used to be a lot closer to the sea of Slavs, but we decided we want to be a lot closer to the sea of Latins on the other side of the continent. Our accents and words have been drifting towards Italian. Our constitution, monuments, new words and philosophies, even our flag is a near copy to that of the French. So, in response to one of your questions, I would imagine we may have at least common philosophies and ideals in common with the Haitians. With the Slavs, we have a lot in common, but we wish we did not, and sometimes even change our language in order to draw that line.

[@Zullyan]

@@radubaninca7533 Borsul ca ingredient e ceva romanesc. Borshtul ucrainean e un tip de ciorba...

[@kevincronk7981]

19:42 lmao carrying on the tradition of German speakers inherently hating the French

[@JABN97]

The Germans hate the French, the English hate the French, the Dutch love complaining about the French, I don’t know about the Swiss Italians, Basques and Spanish, but I presume they also love making jokes about the French. I guess it’s a European thing to joke about the French. Maybe they won too many wars and everyone is still salty about Napoleon or something. But it’s and interesting phenomenon to say the least

[@avengerulsasuke5814]

@@JABN97 As a Romanian I also joke about the French, the main reason being those 8 bloody years I had to learn French when under 1% of the jobs in this country require French ( 5% require German mind you) and not be able to say 1 sentence.

[@JABN97]

@@avengerulsasuke5814 well, guess I spend my years more productively then you. Only 3 years and I know 2 entire sentences: “sorry I don’t understand” and “I’m Dutch, I don’t speak French”. Very productive years, yes. 😂

[@kevincronk7981]

@avengerulsasuke5814 reminds me of trying to learn spanish, I took it my entire life up until I was 15, and still barely knew any. Then I tried one year of French, and that made me forget all the Spanish without learning any French

[@kevincronk7981]

@@JABN97 I'm American and can confirm we also love making fun of the french, despite how we owe our independence to them and have been pretty much always allies with them for our entire history

[@ZR-cj2fm]

I've only ever used Eastern Europe as a geographical descriptor. As I am American I didn't realize it had this kind of history.

[@galaxypl7756]

As a Pole, I am VERY happy that we have elected a liberal government to replace the old conservative one, not only because of internal consequences, but also the external ones. The moment I saw a first ever End Wokeness' twitter post that not only didn't drool over supposed based religious trad MAGA values that every single Pole holds, but also criticised Poland for "falling to wokeness and feminism", was the moment I achieved inner peace. This was the moment I knew the image of "based anti-gay" Poland can no longer be used by western extremists and that we can finally be taken seriously by the rest of the world. Btw, like half of the new "woke libtard" coalition government are moderate conservatives. The "Left" party underperformed in the elections and is the weakest out of all coalition partners. I'd describe the government as pro-EU centrist-liberal, definitely nowhere near the woke joe biden gay atheist hell that the extremists think it is

[@phelanii4444]

As someone from Bosnia, I think the only thing we can still use "Eastern Europe" for is to say "formerly colonized parts of Europe". Having to fight for our right to be independent is one of the few things that bind us together and I hope that soon even that won't be necessary anymore.

[@Kraut_the_Parrot]

Hey. Since I have you here, I'd like to pick your brain a little more. I know that Bosnians get really upset when people ask them about their ethnicity, because for some reason some people are unwilling to accept that Bosnians are Slavs who just happened to convert to Islam a few centuries agao. So you are subject to this entire awful thing of being framed as "Even less than Eastern Europe" in a way. I'd like to ask you if you do not mind, what do you have to say about the misconceptions that others have about you? And how would you define and see yourself as a Bosnian in releation to your neighbors and Europe at large?

[@DrIvanBest]

​@@Kraut_the_ParrotYou're mixing up Bosnians and Bosniaks.

[@JmKrokY]

​@@Kraut_the_ParrotNot a Bosnian but, Boskians (Muslim Bosnians) are basically Croats and Serbs that converted to Islam and or mixed with Turks. Their country is very divided (despite the population being very similar) and has three main ethnic groups, those being Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs. Basically the whole thing is mostly kept alive by the Dayton agreement. There are definitely plenty of bad stereotypes about us South Slavs and people from the Former Yugoslavia (although it's much less of an issue here in Croatia, however it's still prevalent).

[@phelanii4444]

@@Kraut_the_Parrot I'd say we are very much Slavic still, especially those of us in the borderlands and smaller communities. Bosniaks (as in the Bosnians who converted to Islam when the Ottomans came) used to be heretical Christians believing in a dualistic version of Christianity, where the good God Jesus was creator of the spiritual world and the bad God Satan created all material. They were quite austere, had simple churches and you can still find some of their stone monuments, mostly in the south (stećci). They almost had a crusade called on them by one of the Hungarian kings ('don't remember which one anymore, long time since i had this in school lol) if they did not convert to proper catholicism, so a treaty was signed at Bilino Polje to convert the Bosniaks under Ban Kulin. They mostly resisted through the middle ages because the opulence of both east and west did not suit them. So, once the Ottomans came with this religion that preached and mostly practiced humbleness and prayer and many other similarities to the old heresy, the people accepted it in order to avoid even more persecution. So yes, we are heretical Christian Slavs, converted to Islam, who have had a lot of that Islam washed out by time, distance and communism, who are being made invisible by our neighbours who claim we are Serbs or Croats or some weird mix of the two so they might split our lands and subsume our culture. We have been under the Turks for 400 years, the Austro-Hungarians for 40, under our neighbours for 80 and under the thumb of the Americans for 30 now. We are a colonized people as much as our neighbours themselves are, whether its the ones closes to us, our brethren we share our mother tongues with, or our extended neighbourhood, of the Balkans and our farther Slavic cousins. There are many things wrong with my home country, I cannot even list them all, I have left it and moved to Germany like so many others and it pains me. But I had no future there. My father, my aunts and uncles, my grandparents and their siblings, they stayed there during the war, they fought and died so that I could grow up and live in a country that was finally, after more than 500 years our own once more. But the system is so messed up that in 2021, 26 years after the end of the war, my father and mother drove me out to the bus station with as much home as I could carry in a suitcase and said goodbye to me, because they knew I would never be able to live a good life in the lands they spilled blood, sweat and tears for. So I hate it, and I hate the politicians, and I hate the prejudice against us, and I hate everyone who lays a claim on us. But I also love it, I love the people, and the land, and the memories I have of it, I love my neighbours who are so fundamentally messed up in their own rights, I love the world who gave us a chance to govern ourselves, and took the bastards who harmed us at least partially to court. I wish there could be a future for us, that my grandfather, and my uncle and my 2 great-uncles did not die in vain. That my aunt did not take the shrapnel in her arm to her grave. That my father could sleep at night. That my cousins had a father during the hardest years of their lives. That the messed up kids in my elementary school class had parents who could stay sober enough to see past the pain and to love them. That my great grandfather did not have to be separated from the land and the house he loved, only to die of a broken heart before the war ended. The past is the past is the past and the future is bleak and there is no one left to fight for it. Only old, bitter men, with broken hearts and broken minds who cannot let go of their grudges for long enough to see that a new millennium has dawned upon us and that life goes on and that we can forgive and still not forget. And at the bottom of the box, there is only left hope. That I could ever be seen by my peers in Germany as anything more than a civilised savage, an accentless curio, a model of what kind of enlightened western citizen can be shaped out of the eastern gutter trash. That my parents will live out their years in the home my great-grandfather built, my grandfather built up, my father renovated. That I could return some day to the lands I've inherited as last of my line and work those lands the same as my ancestors and find peace.

[@phelanii4444]

sorry for going off all poetic and shit at the end there, it's almost midnight and I am a bit homesick so I just kinda let the words flow out of me 😅

[@awesomehpt8938]

Ukraine could use some good werewolves

[@vitaliitomas4057]

@@EuroMaidanWasAnInsurrection because the SS doesn't end and wants them speaking russian

[@BuckNut-ck1sl]

But they would eat Ukranians too.

[@Enyavar1]

@@BuckNut-ck1sl Why would they? Remember the video, they are _protecting their community_ that means not harming it. But really, nobody should start a werewolf resistance movement in Ukraine. Guess what the Nazis called their "resistance fighters" when Allied troops reached homeland territories in 1943 and began occupying them? Yes, Werewolves. Once a term has been sullied by Nazis, you must throw it away. Work shall never set anyone free again; blood and soil is just bad and nobody can gain power through joy, ever.

[@jozopako]

A a politologist from Slovakia i must say countries of V4 does hate the term "Eastern Europeans" but all Eastern European countries have tendency to vote for autocratic leaders in democratic elections. In Western Europe socialism means to social democracy, in Eastern Europe socialism is seen nearly as fascism. Eastern European term is not outdated because from the socialist regime we have developed liking for strong political figures.

[@leuk2389]

I think, as a west European, I have taken much more of a look at the East of Europe because I think the recent war has reminded me more and more how much all of our lives are dependent on eachother for our peace and stability, and how much we should stand shoulder to shoulder with all our European brothers and sisters to defend the things we care about and that many countries fought so hard to achieve especially those neighboring Russia. Self-determination and human freedom. Shedding the idea of eastern Europe as a monolithic cultural group let me see so many distinct and unique peoples and cultures, with their own unique histories. I think everyone in Europe owes it to eachother to get to know eachother and find what we have in common. Especially now. We should have listened to Russia's neighbours when they told us over and over again that Russia is a threat, they knew because they have had to suffer an imperial and expansionist russia for most of recent history. We we're stupid to ignore them. And I think that ignorance is fueled by this idea that our brothers and sister in the east are somehow less than us. They fought hard to take control of their own destinies, and work hard for their freedom and prosperity, they deserve nothing but our respect for it.

[@furki7589]

„The East. An invention by the West.“ -Unknown

[@TheAndertejker]

Haha. Your wife is pragnant by not you."It was a vampire Bazyli, I swear! You know we did not give him proper funeral!" :D

[@Buczysz]

Hey, Pole here. BA and MA in international relations. Rn doctoral student of politics 1st year. From my point of view, I can tell that calling Poland Eastern Europe is maybe the first thing that academia roots out of us. But there is still a strong way of thinking in, e.g., history literature, where we reflect on the Polish People Republic (PRL) period and think of ourselves sometimes as easterners. So, we’re given a map, and we measure the distance from Warsaw to Brussels and again to Moscow. That’s 1150 km. If we define the east-west divide of Europe by the distance to these two capitals, then Poland is in the middle. It’s in Central Europe. Then we measure from Cabo da Rocka, Portugal, through Royal Castle, Warsaw, to Norges østligste punkt, Norway. It’s 4860 km. Divide it and you get 2430 km. You will end up in Rusko village, Lower Silesia Voivodeship, Poland. If we feel lazy, let’s just measure the distance from Lisbon to Moscow. Around 3900 km. Now we can laugh, because in the middle we land in Herrnberchtheim, Germany. But this is tricky. Let’s divide this 3900 km evenly - 1300 km from the most western point is Western Europe, and 1300 km from Moscow is Eastern Europe. Now, if we think about Central Europe in this way, it starts around Blomard, central France on the western side and ends up in Koło, central Poland on the eastern side. So we do get some quirks like: Paris is in Central Europe, not in the west, Brussels is in Central Europe, Amsterdam, almost London. Zurych is central, Monaco, Marseille, whole Germany and still, half of Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, almost whole Czechia, Slovenia, Croatia… But not Kraków, not Warsaw. Gdańsk and Stockholm barely fits in the Central Europe. Turku and Helsinki won’t fit. Nor will the Baltic States. That’s nonsense. That’s why Kraut is right in his video. This divide is a relict of the past political divide of Europe and a ZSRR’s and old “western” way of thinking. And certain ways of thinking are merely just tools of conducting big policy. Geopolitics is a Russian tool for explaining their conquest and fits only in their exact situation. Big country, huge landmasses, oppressive regime that conquers “limitrofs” to gain a feeling of security. Liberalism as a British-American tool for enacting certain rules of conducting politics and economic exchange, but with their veto on the ways in which it’s performed. Realism in the European struggle for power, rethought in the USA on Cold War period, to give a name for cooperation with illiberal regimes around the globe. Today we may use some old terms in explaining the modern world, like great power, spheres of influence, bi/tri/multipolar world, but they don’t tell us very much about reality. Those are simplifications, just like the Eastern-Western Europe divide. They are nice, ok. But when the Baltics, Romania or Czechia quickly develop and grow quickly and social mobility increases, where should we put our lines on the map next? Through Ukraine? Belarus? Maybe indifferent of political map, by geographical criteria. But what about mass communication improvement? And the total length of motorways? Country borders will still remain, but the Western-Eastern social divide will smooth out as the years pass. And new criteria of divide will emerge, and all of them will be somewhat politically based. So stay sharp on that, because “Easterners” were “barbarians” not long ago, and maybe in future your country will be called “barbarians” for no other reason than pure ignorance mixed with political interest. Cheers.

[@pax6833]

The term "eastern europe" is in fact basically a stand in to refer to "former warsaw pact"

[@joeyjojojrshabadoo7462]

That's mainly true but there's a few exceptions of communist countries we're still not aligned with the Soviet union. Tito thought Stalin went too far and made Yugoslavia neutral bridge between east and west. Albania's leader decided he didn't go far enough and sided with Mao. While romania's dictator to make enemies of basically everyone with predictable results.

[@tomasvrabec1845]

That's because the Warshaw Pact was modelled on the Imperial concept of Eastern Europe...

[@Fruzhin5483]

Vampires aren't Polish. They are a slavic folk story and myth and can be found in many Slavic cultures, including Bulgarians, as we have archeological evidence for such burials in the 12th and 13th centuries. It is true however, that the original vampires were much more different than what is currently in people's minds

[@TomfooleryOfTheTrolls]

Everyone knows that vampires are just Hungarians on a normal Tuesday.

[@HouseOfKung]

As an uneducated American, isn’t ‘vampyr’ originally Bosnian?

[@kamilszadkowski8864]

@@HouseOfKung No, the word vampire came to English from the Serbian language, as for the original term for vampire, it probably already existed in Old Slavic. I believe the reconstructed Old Slavic word is "upir" which is the closest to old/middle Polish "upiór".

[@paulinagabrys8874]

W Polsce takie istoty nazwywaliśmy upiorami. Upiór=phantom. Jeszcze za takie upioro-wampiry byli uważani ludzie, którzy urodzili się z zębami czy włosami. Albo miał włosy na klatce piersiowej ale nie pod pachami. Albo to że mówił do siebie to też miałabyć oznaka bycia upiorem ale w rozumieniu szamana, bo miał dwie dusze i one się ze sobą dogadywały. I tak dalej. Generalnie polski upiór był bardziej takim szamanem, który wiedział o wiele więcej o świecie niż zwykli śmiertelnicy i z reguły był postacią pozytywną czy neutralną. Ale w XIX wieki na obecnym pograniczu polsko-ukraińskim wybuchały epidemie i zdarzały się przypadki odkopywania grobów i ćwiartowania zwłok by te upiory nie straszyły i nie sprowadzały katastrof na okolicę.

[@itap8880]

@@kamilszadkowski8864 There's also a case of the word "wąpierz" being wrongly considered an early version of the word "wampir" (vampire). It actually meant a pillow filling made of feathers.

[@Schmutte90]

If I were a Polish or Czech person I would agree. But being a Hungarian, I'll have to say 'too soon'. Eastern Europe basically meant 'post-communist backwater' since the late 80s, and sure, some countries you mentioned (Poland, Estonia, Czechia etc.) have moved past that and caught up, but most of them definitely haven't. At least not yet. I believe the time will come when that backwater label won't apply to the majority of the block anymore, but I'd give it 20 more years if we are being generous. Especially since we have a resurgence of nations saying 'we love being Russian puppets actually'.

[@2SSSR2]

I don't know where you found that 'Vampire' was originally Polish thing when the word itself has roots in Serbian. "The term "vampire" is the earliest recorded in English, Latin and French and they refer to vampirism in Russia, Poland and North Macedonia. The English term was derived (possibly via French vampyre) from the German Vampir, in turn derived in the early 18th century from the Serbian вампир (vampir). The Serbian form has parallels in virtually all Slavic and Turkic languages: Bulgarian and Macedonian вампир (vampir), Turkish: Ubır, Obur, Obır, Tatar language: Убыр (Ubır), Chuvash language: Вупăр (Vupăr), Bosnian: вампир (vampir), Croatian vampir, Czech and Slovak upír, Polish wąpierz, and (perhaps East Slavic-influenced) upiór, Ukrainian упир (upyr), Russian упырь (upyr'), Belarusian упыр (upyr), from Old East Slavic упирь (upir') (many of these languages have also borrowed forms such as "vampir/wampir" subsequently from the West; these are distinct from the original local words for the creature). The exact etymology is unclear." But I do agree that the term basically means the same in Serbia as in Poland - a person who cannot go to either heaven or hell but is cursed to live eternally and such blood of the living becasue of the bad life he has led.

[@siii1164]

Kraut: Eastern Europe isn't real, it can't hurt you. Eastern Europe:

[@bobkerman7978]

Boo!

[@avroarchitect1793]

There is one very real way it will continue to exist, the divide between the Western (Latin) Christians (Catholic and Protestant) vs the Eastern (Greek) Christians (Eastern Orthodoxy). Even among non believers the cultural influence of the church in both regions affects the cultures to this day. In the West Modern Atheists basicly took Christian morals and ethics and tried to logic god out of the system (It wont work because the entire thing relies on God's judgement). In the East its the tradition of Eastern Orthodoxy that still defines alot of it.

[@roadent217]

@@avroarchitect1793 You're redefining Eastern Europe to not have Poland, nor the Baltics in it, nor Hungary. You just shrunk Eastern Europe in about half.

[@avroarchitect1793]

@@roadent217 I agree Poland is largely Western and always has been. The Russians and their various attempts of imperial occupation have devistated the whole region. The latter countries are effectively the exclaves of the Latin church. As for redefinition yeah I am, the continent is changing. Everything east of the iron curtain is finally catching up to the rest of the continent, and I am so very happy for them. Now all we need to do is deal with the Russian imperial perogative and we may actually see a longer term peace on the continent.

[@NeovanGoth]

He he he :D

[@hemidas]

Mr Kraut, I don't feel so well.

[@logancowie]

Recent events have made the difference between western and eastern Europe more apparent. (Defining eastern Europe as the NATO aligned post soviet states). Western Europe has been ignoring the warnings of eastern Europe for years, perhaps decades

[@shzarmai]

please include more sources 🙏 in your videos, please

[@ratoh1710]

On werewolves, your characterization was not quite correct. While I'm sure your characterization of the werewolf in the relevant cultures is correct, your characterization of werewolves in the rest of Europe is not quite correct. Firstly, werewolf legends are very old and were spread throughout Europe for pretty much all of European history. For example, there are multiple ancient Greek stories about people becoming wolves. At the time as you pointed out these stories were mostly neutral or positive about it thinking that it was just a thing that some people were. The change in the image of werewolves did not come from any hatred of Slavic cultures but rather from the influence of Christianity. They claimed that only god had any real power so obviously the people who claimed to be werewolves were heretics. I am sure that there would have been specific hatred for the Slavic werewolf, which fun fact was the same thing as a vampire in certain legends and Dracula used the name about himself in the novel claiming his family was the origin of werewolf myths, but non-slavic werewolf myths were also demonized like the Irish legends of the Werewolves of Ossory.

[@aleksandarristic889]

Thank you for sparing me the work of typing this out. Also I would add that the term werewolf was also used as pseudonym for serial killer in German speaking lands, as many people would be accused of being a werewolf when they committed multiple murders. Knowing that Kraut studied in Austria, he might have even come across the childrens game werewolf, in which you try to find the person who murders the villagers at night in their sleep

[@pawel198812]

Same can be said about vampires really. Vampire stories have been recorded as far south as Albania and Turkey, and as far north as Russia and Latvia. The word itself seems to be a strange wanderword with unclear etymology

[@Alias_Anybody]

​@@pawel198812 I've also read that the "modern" version of the Vampire probably originated more in the Balkans. But alas, it doesn't really matter who had them, it only really matters what inspired *Dracula* and *Carmilla*, because that's what later stories were usually inspired by, and that's largely the mythology in and around Transsilvania.

[@fulopmeszaros5330]

@@Alias_Anybody please dont say vlad the impaler. Dracula was a hungarian general, Dracula was his position, leading the draco (dragon) knights of king mathias. He murdered rebels and traitors at night, was polite, and had a castle in transylvania. I hate the vlad misconception.

[@dannyygoogl8330]

​@@fulopmeszaros5330lmao this is just Hungarian propaganda

[@DiskusGames]

I live in the far east of Germany, close to the borders of Poland and Czechia. I never understood why these two countries in particular were considered Easters European. I always felt a closer cultural connection to Czechs and Poles than to Italians, French of British people. Sure the whole ex-socialist nation part probably has something to do with it, but it's probably more noticable for me in Saxony, since quite alot of our town/city names have slavic origins, as do some words in our local dialect. Specifically Sorbian origins.

[@sakakaka4064]

As a Pole, I also feel closer to Germans (more to Austrians tbh but I'm from Krakow so maybe that's why?) than to, let's say, Lithuanians, Romanians or Dutch.

[@oiytd5wugho]

Our peoples are joined by the Salzgurke

[@cosmosyn2514]

imo the main qualifier of “central europe” is for a nation to have been at ruled by germans for a significant period of time.

[@oiytd5wugho]

@@cosmosyn2514 so, like, Namibia is central europe?

[@user-oh9pj2wo4g]

Saxony "sasíci" is a very special case, You guys were pretty much always our (Bohemian) allies for hundreds and hundreds of years. Before Prussia pretty much forced the union there were even talks about joining the two countries, at the time we had more in common than you did with the rest of the germans. For me as a western czech i feel much more closer to Saxony/Austria than even the Slovaks, We share a hell of a lot of history with Germany and we were pretty much one country for like 400 years with Austria, Slovakia on the other hand? like 70 during Great Moravia and then it was just hungary for pretty much a 1000, also one of the reasons Czechoslovakia was doomed to fail from the start and we should have stayed with austria instead, apart from language we have barely anything in common.

[@artuspower]

I am Polish and I never minded being called Eastern European but thanks for this video - you might be right that this term might have no longer sense.

[@adam346]

"There are too many stereo-types about the nonexistent Eastern Europe" *later in the video* "The French being The French".

[@MisterFoxton]

Can't have a Kraut video without gross generalisations and hypocrisy!

[@Wertsdsf]

​@@MisterFoxtondifferentiated opinions and sources? not in my kraut video!

[@B1gLupu]

@@MisterFoxton French being french isn't exactly a stereotype. They are. very much

[@Xalerdane]

I’m pretty sure that even the French would be like “yep.”

[@obliviongigan6360]

​​@@B1gLupuHis points are still pretty terrible, like almost no here in Eastern Europe is complain about being called that way except maybe for the Baltics.

[@CroveauxdelaFeatherette]

I'm Polish and I always saw the term "eastern europe" as essentially synonymous with "slavs", with the balkans typically being called "southern europe" or "southeastern europe".

[@bobkerman7978]

Unlike us We are the "Eastern most part of Middle Europe"

[@paratame105]

As a German, I think you're right. And the reason why non-slavic nations (Hungary, Estonia, etc) were included in that is because Westerners never gave a fuck about differentiating between them

[@MisterSpeedStacking]

@@paratame105 *because they are heavily influenced by slavs. romanians literally say da for yes

[@pigeonman6434]

One thing that surprised me the most while traveling is how you can't always pay with card in the west, meanwhile in Poland you can pay with card anywhere. I even do it in my local vegetable store which is just a metal shed ran by a grandma.

[@ivanivanofivansson8551]

I still refer to eastern Germany, East-Germany. Even though it fell 10 years before my birth. In my view, East-Germany serves as a nice example of how 40 years of Russian rule and communism distinctly shapes a society. This shared history in Eastern Europe, i believe, shaped the different peoples in similar ways, so thats why it would still make sense to me. The region has a shared history. I don't really concern myself with stereotypes, assumptions and generalisations. Eastern Europe makes as much sense to me as Western Europe. It is a region with some general similarities, no more no less. I'm only commenting because you asked. I enjoyed the video.

[@jirislavicek9954]

Former GDR is a very different to the rest of Eastern Europe / ex Soviet satellites. All of Eastern Europe is more or less happy with free market capitalism, democracy and concept of national ethno. And they all share opposition to communism, hostility towards Russia based on historic experience. (Possibly with exception of Serbia which is Orthodox country) Former Eastern Germany is a hotspot for a radical left-wing ideologies, woke, marxism, neo-marxism, with Berlin being one of the Europe's worse leftist hell holes.

[@wojciechkowalski8061]

> "Some English Guy" implies that Eastern European culture naturally creates subservience to authority My brother in Christ, the nobility of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth literally had the right to an armed rebellion against the monarch that in their opinion infringes on their other rights or interests (the so-called "right to confederation"), and would allegedly on occasion straight up tell their king to get lost in the middle of a Parliament session. One anecdote I have heard depicted the King of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth shouting angrily on a noble criticizing him, asking something along the lines of "who the hell are you to oppose me?", to which the noble's answer was "I am a free citizen, who can elect kings and bring down tyrants."

[@sircatangry5864]

And if we look at Hetmanate, the entire administration was elected, from lowest town levels to a regiment commander, second in rank after Hetman himself. So authoritarianism in Eastern Europe (excluding russians) is weird arguement.

[@Gala-yp8nx]

My family is from north-western Ukraine. I was taught by my grandparents that Eastern Europe refers to the areas of Europe colonized by Russia.

[@Aevanne]

@@Mortablunt your fake country is malo, you dingus

[@GrayStrider]

@@Mortablunt you really have a kink on using colonial terms huh

[@Icouldnteventellyouthat]

Fremdbestimmung basically means exonyom

[@hestan723]

As a french i can confirm that we indeed have a hobby of being french

[@conmara6492]

Just a short pedantic note. Werewolves, or Werewolf like creatures, are common fixtures in a number of different cultures in Europe and beyond, they're not strictly Baltic. Ireland for example has a long history of werewolves, although funnily enough the perception of werewolves and the early discourse around them is eerily similar to the baltic version. Perhaps there's a broader and earlier historical link between the two.

[@AchtungAffen]

A couple years back my parents took a tour called "Mitteleuropa". They went from Hungary to Hamburg.

[@Luxai]

Wild idea: Maybe some just call it east europe because the countries being referred to is in the eastern half of europe?

[@lihchong2267]

The original vampires sound like characters in what we do in the shadows

[@JongeKroost]

Mans made a whole video to explain the concept of regions and how they aren't accurate. Turns out the world is more complex than: "those guys to the east of us"

[@paratame105]

That's not what I got out of the video. As a German, I can attest to the fact that Eastern Europe™ is almost always used in a derogatory context

[@256shadesofgrey]

@@paratame105 Only by various kinds of socialists.

[@JongeKroost]

​@@paratame105 That's just how exonyms work. Terms like Africa, the orient, Asia, and eastern Europe were all conceived of to designate people as "not us" and "different" and to lump them together. People from Indonesia and the Korea are both Asians. Does that make sense? Not at all. The distance between those countries ~4300 km. The distance between France and Nigeria is ~4175 km. Why is te Levant considered to be 'different' from Europe? Do they not share the same Greco-Roman history? Both are majority Abrahamic religious. Why are people from Lebanon Asian? What do they share with people from the Philippines? Why are people from Cyprus Asian? It's because all those names were created from the perspective of western Europe. People just wanted to draw lines in the sand and they based those lines on race, religion, and ignorance. I'm not saying he's wrong. I'm just saying that in the grand scheme of things Eastern Europe is a very reasonable and fairly accurate term. I know it's used in a derogatory manner but compared to all the other terms we use, 'Eastern Europe' is one of the most benign.

[@IvanSakun]

​​@@JongeKroost you think too much about what terms are and very less about how they will be used. And the video is just debunking, so of course it is meant to tell us about irrelevant concept in this case

[@yukko_parra]

i thought i was alone in thinking the term has some uses. for me it's useful to explain to friends and family about a place. Mediterranean might still be a stretch of knowledge for some peoole.

[@bryancomlor1435]

I know it Kraut. You consider the art used in videos like these as "cheap" and cost saving but please use this more its really the best style that made me and i bet alot of others attached to your channel. Just the old Kraut videos. Easy to understand topics and funny countryball art.

[@profet1385]

Supported.

[@jeishua]

I've never called the balkans, baltics, or central europe "eastern europe", I've always only included Ukraine, Belarus, & Russia in the eastern europe context. I don't know if there is a better term for these countries feel free to inform me. (maybe the Rus countries?)

[@schutsheer_des_vaderlands]

They're East-Slavic

[@just_inker2584]

No, it's like calling Greece and Turkey Byzantine countries. Also, moscow stole the name of Rus' which belongs to Ukraine only.

[@janicnevim3969]

@@just_inker2584 I have better idea: Russia, one of the Golden horde countries.

[@just_inker2584]

@@janicnevim3969 I agree brother

[@GunnGuardian]

I think the moment I realized how useless the term "Eastern Europe" was, was when some people were criticizing Resident Evil 4 for depicting Eastern Europeans as backwards despite the game being set in rural Spain.

[@roadent217]

Well, Spain isn't far off in GDP per capita from Slovenia, Czechia or Estonia, so...

[@cqpp]

​@@roadent217Spain is a lot more wealthier than those countries and has been for the entire cold war.

[@jajajahodova2001]

@@cqpp well, cold war ended 20 years ago

[@Alias_Anybody]

I mean, Portugal is basically just Eastern European again. And people say the world is flat and stuff.

[@ChucksSEADnDEAD]

​@@roadent217 there's a Portuguese subreddit r/portugalblyat that's dedicated to infographics showing Portugal to be falling behind Western Europe on any metric you could think of but weirdly enough matching Eastern Europe.

[@rahulraghu4928]

For that matter, Europe is also not real but nobody's ready for that conversation

[@ronan5228]

If europe isn't real how come You're a peein'

[@moartems5076]

Idk, the place that colonized all of the world at one time seems kinda noteworthy. Good to have a name for

[@paratame105]

Psh, you're gonna make the yellow-star blue hoodie crowd cry

[@appa609]

​@@moartems5076It was really just Britain, France, Portugal, Spain, Netherland, and Russia. By your definition, the rest are not Europe.

[@appa609]

Well by the definition in thus video Europe does exist because people identify as Europeans. Eastern Europe doesn't exist because nobody identified as Eastern European (Except I assume Russians)

[@afz902k]

As a non european, I just use the concept because I'm incapable of remembering the names (let alone capitals) of every country east of Germany. It's a blanket term, gradually being peeled back by travel and discovery.

[@Aloyz3n]

as a Pole I look at a term Eastern Europe with certain pride, but not that weird far-right fetishism, I in my lifetime I could observe how we entered XXI century, newly liberated, figuring things out in chaos, looking up to the west, and with my own eyes I saw the monumental change that happened over the last 20-30 years, I frankly don't reckognise the streets I grew up on, that term "Eastern Europe" just reminds me of this journey and I feel like this shared experience (as well as our common enemy that is imperialist russia) brings us "easterners" together

[@xenamorphwinner7931]

There’s also the debate, that the geographical center of Europe is in Lithuania.

[@appa609]

I read it was in Belarus

[@Hadar1991]

@@appa609 It depends what method you choose and what you will classify as Europe. It can be in Poland, Lithuania or Belarus, depending on approach.

[@Mendogology]

@@Hadar1991 There are many supposed centers of Europe, but there is only one that is recognised as it is in Guinness Book of World Records. And it's Lithuania. Also it's the only center of Europe that is claimed by a foreigner scientist (French in this case). For the rest of countries, is a national scientist who claims "my country is in the center

[@Daniel-jm7ts]

@@Mendogology accualy the centre of europe is in my garden

[@Hadar1991]

@@Mendogology Not really. I am mathematician and the problem is that what is Europe is not well define. There are multiple different definitions there are borders of Europe and depending which borders we will assume are correct, then the centroid point moves a little bit. Also there is difference if we count only continental Europe or islands also (then extremes as Svalbard or Azores will have quite big impact)

[@mav4892]

Kraut : Describes the origin of vampires Netflix : Write that down, write that down

[@enderman_666]

describes it incorrectly, unfortunately