TRAVEL IN UKRAINE AND EASTERN EUROPE: August 2009

Eastern Europe is associated with the Slavic people who moved into the region between 600 and 800 AD...after the Germans had moved further into Western Europe...

And also with two non-Slavic "Asiatic" people who settled ...later...among the Slavs...namely the Hungarians and the Bulgars...

The Hungarians settled down in the Danube valley...and gave up the nomadic ways of the Asian Steppe.. Although is is often said that, even today, Hungary "dreams of Asia."

The Bulgars moved into the region that is now Bulgaria--as conquerors of the Slavic people who were already settled there. But the Bulgars assimilated into the Slavic population totally-- because they were fewer in number...and in effect the Bulgarians became a New "hybrid" Slavic Race...although with many Asiatic traits. This assimilation process was completed by the year 1000.

The Albanians and the Romanians are remnants of the Old Roman Imperial population long before the arrival of the Germans and the Slavs.

By the 900's each future "nationality" of Slavs had a kingly dynasty... But these original Slavic Dynasties eventually died out...because they spread their land holdings between too many sons, who usually fought among themselves...weakening their State.

So the original Slavic Dynasties became weaker and weaker...and were subject to conquest. First, by the Mongols around 1240 AD...but later by their more settled neighbors.

In General, many Slavic Races "peaked" around the year 1000...about the time when most Slavic peoples converted to, either Orthodox, or Roman Christianity.

As a result of this weakness some Slavs literally became "nationalities" without a "state"...

Consider:

The Chezks of Bohemia were dominated by the Germans of the Holy Roman Empire and later the Germanic Habsburgs of Austria...

The Ukrainians were totally taken over by the Russians and the Poles...

And the Bulgarians were the first to fall completely to the advancing Ottoman Power.

Worse, the hapless Romanians were a geopolitical football for about 500 years...more so than any other people of Eastern Europe! At least the Bulgarians were solidly in the Ottoman Empire for that time period...

All of these peoples did not achieve a national "state" again until after World War I...

In the 14th Century the Poles joined the Baltic Lithuanians to form a large medievel state...that managed to hold off the Russians, the Germans and the Ottomans-- for a while--but eventually the Poles and Lithuanians were partitioned by their powerful neighbors--the Russians, Austrians and Prussians....in the 1770's.

Certain parts of Eastern Europe became mere pawns in the geopolitics of the day... Wars between Europe and the Ottomans became frequent...with many Europeans power playing the Ottoman "Eastern Question"...to their own advantage.

What is now Romania and Eastern Hungary and parts of Western Ukraine were routinely divided and re-divided...by war... among the Great Powers of Russia, Austria and the Ottomans...

The Romanians...a non-Slavic remnant population of Roman times...were also a "nation" without a State for much of their history...and more often the pawns in the Great Game of Geopolitics in Eastern Europe.

Much of Eastern European history seems to be a Great Game... between the Russians, the Germans (Austria and Prussia)... and the Ottomans...

Many "nationalities"-- like the Bulgarians, Ukrainians, Romanians, Balkan Serbs, Albanians and Romanians (two non-Slavic Roman remnants)...and to some extent the Chezks, who were the most Germanized of the Slavs...and later the Partitioned Poles...were simply out of the game...and were simply rural peasants in their own lands.

In the case of Bulgaria--that period of "non-statehood" lasted for 500 years...!

It was the decline of the Ottomans in fact that gave us much of our 20th Century history...as the New Imperialists from Western Europe...France and England...sought to become players in the Eastern European "Great Game." because of their interests in Africa and the Middle East.

This brought the only strong and "Independent" Slavic nation at that time...the Russians...in direct conflict with the New Imperialisms of the day...

Russia had been steadily increasing it's power since breaking free of the "Mongol Yoke" in the 1500's...as the Czarist autocracy in Moscow become more centralized. And greatly benefited from the increasing disorganization of the Polish-Lithuanian state.

Indeed, it was a rather minor dispute between Austria and Russia over the fate of Serbia that started the First World War...which as they say: Changed Everything.

And set the historical course for much of the 20th Century...