
Goodbye, Eastern Europe - Thevet
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/goodbye-eastern-europe/
======
ddebernardy
> Go to Prague, Warsaw, Budapest, Bratislava, Wrocław, Debrecen, Timișoara, or
> Tallinn. Walk the streets. Visit the malls and cellphone kiosks. How would
> you know that you aren’t in Bremen, Charleroi, Newcastle, or Fargo?

As one who actually lived or traveled to several of those places, I'd submit
that the answer is quite a few things.

There's surface level resemblance between the two lists when you're in a
shopping mall or a shop heavy district. Outside of the latter, however,
Western cities and countryside stand out as much wealthier in all sorts of
ways. In particular less places that look like they're in shambles.

The contrast is comparable what you can encounter in the US countryside (which
at times is borderline 3rd world-ish) vs e.g. major US metropoles (which
compare to major Western European cities in sophistication and wealth).

~~~
koonsolo
Maybe for the most part, but as a Belgian with a Slovak girlfriend, I can say
I would pick Bratislava over Charleroi any time.

~~~
lucaspiller
As a Brit living in Vilnius I'd also agree. The city is much tidier and
cleaner than anything in the U.K., people are friendlier and the shops seem of
a higher quality (there's no high streets full of Poundland and 99p Store
here).

------
iM8t
Eastern European here.

Yes, the heritage of the iron curtain is slowly disappearing, but I would not
say that it is happening as fast as the author thinks it is.

As an example, there is still a serious division between the "nationals" and
"occupants" (Russian speaking people) in Latvia. We have different
politicians, celebrations, churches, companies and neighborhoods for people
speaking in either the Latvian or Russian language.

Youth still tries to get away from the country since the working conditions
are not the best. I'm lucky to be working in IT, where it's much better than
the for the rest of the population (developers tend to make more than our
politicians), but that's due to western countries looking for cheap IT labor
(cheap for them; but good money for locals).

~~~
Asooka
As another Eastern European, can I just say good riddance. At least good
riddance to the defeatist depressive attitude that followed the collapse of
the communist experiment. Our actual traditions and culture don't seem to be
in any danger of disappearing _cough_ excluding the immigrants _cough_ and
with the influx of western capital the ones interested in preserving them have
the means to do so.

------
PopsiclePete
I've lived in the US for a while now, but I'm still also Eastern European
(Bulgaria) and I completely disagree that it's "disappearing".

Romania, Serbia, "Macedonia" (yes, the quotes are intentional, and yes, I know
it's not cool, and yes, this is pretty typical), Bulgaria - they're all on a
completely different level of human development, corruption, values, etc.

Part of the reason is 500 years of Ottoman rule, another part is the close
proximity and close relations with the Russian Empire/USSR/Russia, but someone
who's Czech or Hungarian or a Croat is _much_ closer culturally with someone
from Germany/Austria than someone from Bulgaria is.

Being part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and part of the Ottoman Empire
_completely_ changed how those countries developed, and the situations they're
in now, even though countries are sometimes only hundreds of miles apart.

Hungary, Czechoslovakia had _revolution_ s, in '56 in '68 respectively, to
attempt to escape the iron grip of Mother Russia while a large portion of
Bulgarians _to this day_ are Russophiles and nostalgic about those days, not
to mention EU- and NATO-sceptics.

Props to Western Europe for literally _dragging_ countries like Bulgaria and
Romania and Serbia away from the clutches of the Russian Bear and into Western
Civilization, but I'm not convinced they'll be successful.

~~~
tnorthcutt
I find this kind of history fascinating. Do you know of any books or articles
that go into more detail on these differences and the history behind them?

~~~
seer
Not sure if it's exactly what you're asking for, but an american acquaintance
of mine is doing a podcast "hardcore history" style about Bulgaria
([http://bghistorypodcast.com/](http://bghistorypodcast.com/)) and since most
of that land was actually Bulgaria a long time ago, it should cover a lot of
the region.

~~~
bluetomcat
Bulgarians are actually the oldest nation in Europe and the country has
preserved its name since its founding in 681 AD. Medieval Bulgaria has had a
long and glorious history before the Ottoman invasion in 1396. During the
500-year lasting Turkish yoke we managed to preserve our traditions, language
and religion. Only a very small percentage of the population was converted to
Islam.

~~~
robotomir
The country is independent since 1908, and before that no one wanted to
convert the local population, because non-Muslims paid higher taxes. Can we
please stop it with the internet patriotism?

~~~
bluetomcat
Are you one of these proponents of denying the horrifying Turkish terror and
atrocities against our predecessors, and of rephrasing it to "a peaceful and
enriching coexistence with the charming Muslims"? And that the blood bath of
children and women in Batak was just a manifestation of an odd cultural trait
from the Turkish bashibozuks?

That kind of morally relativistic BS happily doesn't ring true for the
majority of contemporary Bulgarians who haven't been a subject of liberal
brainwashing.

------
monodeldiablo
"Enough with the stereotypes..."

And then some more paragraphs of stereotypes.

People here are complex, just as they are everywhere. The washing-over of
several different empires has added even more layers to the cultures of
Eastern Europe, but to paint it as uniformly bleak is to miss the humor and
wit and diversity of this place.

The trappings of modern consumer life are just a varnish on this place. Only a
shallow reading would mistake them for anything else. Master a Slavic or
Baltic or Turkic language and then dive down the rabbit hole. It's fun. It's
weird. And it's definitely not dead.

------
TezlaKoil
Beware: historian R. J. Evans is known and controversial for having weird
theses about Central/Eastern Europe and supporting them with
misrepresentative, cherry-picked arguments.

The essay quoted in the article is a prime example:

He compares the humanisic philosophers of Austria to the natural philosophers
of the West, while ignoring the significant actual scientific output of the
Empire (things like Auenbrugger's invention of percussion as a diagnostic
technique, Semmelweis' introduction of antiseptics, Loschmidt's groundbreaking
work on ideal gases). He also deliberately mixes events from different time
periods into a confused narrative: for example, Baron Chaos' Austria was the
massively German-speaking southeastern part of the HRE, which does not fit the
description of "too many nationalities, too many fractious nobles and
rebellious provinces" more representative of the late, sprawling empire
(which, by the way, also had scientific output comparable to the West).

------
flexie
I for one am happy that we can buy (the same) clothes, do the same things and
almost live the same life in Eastern Europe as in Western Europe.

Maybe foreigners increasingly miss out on a good laugh as the horse carriages
disappear from the Balkans. Maybe a westerner is disappointed that his long
weekend slumming in Prague is spoiled by normalty. Maybe an intellectual's
romantic dream of Eastern Europe is ruined.

But for those of us who live here, it's better this way. Maybe not for many
people in the older generations, though.

~~~
smsm42
I am always irked by the people (usually well-to-to Westerners, though it
doesn't matter too much) pining for "authenticity" and shabby chic of some
place being "spoiled by capitalism". People have to live there, you know, they
are not your theme park. So if they want to drive nice reliable cars and wear
nice comfortable and beautiful clothes, it's great, even if those are exactly
the same cars and clothes you find at your place.

------
koonsolo
It's a common mistake that everything behind the iron curtain is considered
"Eastern Europe".

Say this to someone from Bratislava, Prague or anyone else of that region, and
they will correct you that they live in "Central Europe".

While we (Western Europe and probably US) associate those countries with the
Soviet influence, they themselves consider themselves 100% European, and
didn't understand why Western Europe never came to rescue them. They want to
forget the Soviet influence as fast as possible.

~~~
ddebernardy
It's not that clearcut though. My wife (Hungarian) and her friends, who grew
up before the Berlin Wall fell, tend to identify as being Eastern Europeans
(because Soviet block). I imagine it's a generational thing, though, with
elders and youngsters being cognizant about being from Central Europe.

------
squeed
The author touches on something I've often thought about - the crazy
ethnolinguistic diversity within the Austro-Hungarian empire and the fringes
of the Russian one.

Consider Lviv - Polish, Austrian, and Ukranian; Catholic, Orthodox, and
Jewish. Or, Bratislava: 40% German, 40% Hungarian, and 15% Slovak. The creator
of Esperanto, L. L. Zamenhof wrote of the conditions in Bialystok which
inspired him:

    
    
        The place where I was born and spent my childhood gave direction to all my future struggles. In Białystok the inhabitants were divided into four distinct elements: Russians, Poles, Germans and Jews; each of these spoke their own language and looked on all the others as enemies.
    

In the aftermath of WWII, the populations within the former Austrian empire
became extremely stratified, with the notable exception of Yugoslavia, which
retained it's multi-ethnic character.

Now that we have an open Europe, the once-strict are starting to become less
meaningful again. I wonder to what extent the populations of Europe will again
intermix. Sadly, seeing the Balkans subdivide in to smaller and smaller states
does not give one hope.

------
yakshaving_jgt
I'm only half Polish, but I live in Poland and I drive a miniature Fiat.

So don't worry. Everything is still fine.

~~~
sevensor
My wife (American) lived in Poland with her family during 1989-1990. My in-
laws still talk about their big family getting rides in a "mały Fiat".

~~~
yakshaving_jgt
I bought mine for 2000 PLN, in cash. I had only wanted to buy one for the
novelty value, but when my friends asked the seller if he'll miss his Maluch,
he said “well, I'm 86 now, and I can't drive anymore.”

I was heartbroken, so I just gave him the money and took it off his hands.
Here's my little baby:
[https://www.instagram.com/p/BHKiB4Qg3pi/](https://www.instagram.com/p/BHKiB4Qg3pi/)

~~~
sevensor
Lovely car, lovely story :)

------
kharms
Curiously few mentions of Ukraine, Belarus, Russia in the first half. You'd
think they've produced enough literature to be mentioned, but no.

Then this gem:

> A haphazard construction, held together by little more than dynastic loyalty
> and a touch of baroque magic, the realm of the Habsburgs had an essentially
> comic nature. Its chief sins lay less in violence than in needless
> complication, an endless and pointless elaboration of court ritual and
> bureaucratic protocol.

------
niftich
Not sure where this essay is headed; it starts off by noting the increased
cosmopolitanization of contemporary Eastern Europe as affected by peacetime
capitalism, while pointing that the psychological stereotypes live on in fewer
and fewer places that are more rural and further from the malls and
thoroughfares of second-tier cities. But then it winds through a retrospective
of many decades of literature defined by different circumstances of the time:
a multi-ethnic hodgepodge of people living in alternating periods of peacetime
and war who often dipped down to dry humour to maintain some semblance of
normalcy and sanity in spite of the political, military, and economic
conflicts hanging over their lives.

Perhaps more so than in any other part of the world, Eastern Europe's people
have been more acutely defined by economic inequality than anywhere else:
whether from the Empire days when one's ethnicity was secondary to one's
status as a serf or civis or nobility until it came time to kill each other in
someone else's war, or from the Eastern Bloc times when socialist governments
handed down a bureaucratic and unremarkable forced egalitarianism that applied
only to the masses but not the ruling class, even if it gave them affordable
housing and education and healthcare and womens' and workers' rights, or today
when middle-class people in Timișoara and Debrecen can buy world-class
consumer goods but good jobs are few and far between, and lucrative
opportunities lie in few fields, or on the other side of the continent, or in
remittances.

Yes, perhaps the stereotype of Eastern Europe is dead, and its cities are more
lively to the untrained eye. But plenty of problems still exist; they're just
hidden beneath a veneer of disposable spending of South Korean goods to absorb
people's momentary desires while being unable to cultivate lasting wealth.
It's still a deeply troubled place, albeit in ways that the banlieues of
France, the run-down districts of Brussels, the declining Midlands, the small
towns of America can relate.

------
orloffm
Well, the same can be said about Western Europe. When did you last see a
person in a national costume in Austria?

~~~
thatfrenchguy
That doesn't mean they aren't Austrians anymore though.

There is a big difference between the facade, "there is American stores
everywhere", and the deep culture behind, which clearly still is very present.

~~~
beachstartup
none of the stores listed in the first part of the article are American.

~~~
thatfrenchguy
Ah ! I thought H&M was American, I stand corrected, thanks :-)

------
d1ffuz0r
Good that my country (Russia) stays the same and we keep our own culture and
everything.

~~~
vixen99
And everything? Presumably not a life expectancy for males of 64.7, females
76.3 and total life expectancy of 70.5 giving Russia a World Life Expectancy
ranking of 107.

~~~
d1ffuz0r
Obviously any country has problems. Good job, you found one

~~~
vixen99
Sorry I only found a trivial one! Will try harder. Seriously though - this is
a dreadful statistic isn't it? I've marked you up - feeling better?

~~~
guard-of-terra
You've just highlighted the sort of reward that you get for the greatest
bloodless revolution in history to remove the Soviet regime and freeing the
world from Nuclear War fears and offsetting the Doomsday Clock by full 11
minutes.

------
f_allwein
Looking at a physical map of Europe is an interesting way to visualise how
arbitrary the split into Western and Eastern Europe used to be:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe#/media/File:Europe_topo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe#/media/File:Europe_topography_map_en.png)

When I grew up in Western Germany, the world seemed to end at the Iron
Curtain. Would be great if this is indeed changing now.

------
projektfu
I once referred to Czech Republic as part of Eastern Europe to a Czech and was
swiftly corrected. He felt it was Central Europe. I was grouping it as
'formerly Communist', but I'm sure Kafka would find more in common with
Germany than Serbia. These definitions shed little light. Reading Hasek, even
concepts like Austria-Hungary are nearly useless beyond knowing where the
taxes go.

------
MaxfordAndSons
What a poorly timed article...with Russian aggression given implicit license
by Trump's election and the rising tide of far right nationalism in Western
Europe, the author just might get their (very bizarre and offensive imo) wish
of a return to "a shared experience of occupation and exclusion, the
permanent-seeming weight of economic backwardness, treasured memories of
defeat".

~~~
vixen99
It seems that HN is an acceptable political platform mostly if Trump's in the
firing line. Does a statistical analysis of comments support my contention.
No, it's just an impression. If I've got this wrong, I'm sorry.

~~~
MaxfordAndSons
I don't think my point is very political - Trump has made his sympathy with
Russia and Putin, and his preference for foreign non-intervention (except in
the Middle East) abundantly clear. I mean, yea the tone of my comment
indicates that I don't think it's a good thing, but are you really going to
argue that Trump and the other ascendent right wing leaders in Europe are
going to decrease Russian expansion and aggression?

And as far as your comment, I think you are wrong. There are plenty of
centrist and right wing voices on HN. I get push back on a lot of my leftist
political comments. I mean we're making competing anecdotal arguments to take
it for what it's worth, but just look at this thread:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13663629](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13663629)
The top comment is claiming to find the ideal of a globalized community is
"deeply cynical".

Don't be a snowflake who worries that everyone's biased against you because of
your politics, just make good and good-faith arguments.

~~~
vixen99
Have you done the statistics? If not then should we not agree to disagree? I
guess we both have other things to do than read HN all day. One could write a
scraper I suppose.

On your snowflake accusation (wow - I've never been accused of that; usually
the other way round! I don't recognize the concept of being 'offended' as
anything other than a triviality so I'm mystified by the present turn of
events in the West) I will add that my comment was not political. Any neutral
observer will note the animus (irrespective of its level on HN) against Trump.
That's not taking a side.

On the other hand I'm a snowflake insofar as understanding that political
views are not welcome on HN and it's nice to relax into another world where
politics are largely absent unless closely connected with an IT issue. That
was my point. You might think that I didn't have to read your comment and
you'd be right! I'll have to get over it. Thanks for the response. Making good
and good-faith arguments - I'll go with that!

~~~
mempko
This brings up an interesting value that is part of HN community. That
politics and IT are separable. I personally believe they are not and that it
is a fantasy to think so. But we try anyway.

~~~
smsm42
It depends on actions. If people try to politicize technology, they'll
succeed. If they try to avoid it, it'll likely succeed too.

------
pingec
I don't know about our neighbors but us Slovenes consider ourselves as Central
European. Even Wikipedia says so
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Europe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Europe)

------
_nalply
Go to rural areas of Ukraine and Belarus. Eastern Europe is still kicking
there hard.

------
elastic_church
An amazing fetishization of the "psychogeography" of what is colloquially
called Eastern Europe. Borders which represent a bastardization of cultures
and partitions for empires long past.

It starts off by playing on stereotypes of dirtyness, grit, and sanctuaries of
sexual promiscuity whose location changes by which first world country you
ask. Before diving into existential questions and nuances of a variety of
cultures in the former second world. A term whose meaning is largely erased
from the collective conscious and lost for a colliqualism of first and third
world ambiguity.

