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Comment by askonomm | Hacker News Reader

I don't know why does everyone on HN think that Estonia is Eastern Europe when it is actually Northern Europe (https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Europe). All of the Baltic countries are Northern.

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A subset of Northern Europe is in Eastern Europe. They’re not disjoint. In particular all Baltic countries are in Eastern Europe (as is visible on the map in the article you linked to (CIA World Factbook)) Eastern Europe has been historically defined by the Iron Curtain. Other definitions are fairly arbitrarily just trying to put a line somewhere on the map without regard for history and its effects on culture and politics.

It's the same as Czechia, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary being Eastern European when they are Central European. Soviet legacy, west vs east.

The popularisation of the concept of Central Europe stems from some people being ashamed of being from Eastern Europe and feeling inferior to Western Europe. Eastern Europe is defined by the Iron Curtain whose effects are still visible today, while Central Europe is a category created purely by selecting a region on the map without regard for political or cultural factors, just to push Eastern Europe further East and exclude some countries from it. It’s fairly arbitrary. I don’t see Eastern Europe as inferior and am not ashamed of being from a part of it, so I see no point in using an arbitrary term like Central Europe.

Mitteleuropa is an old concept, much older than the Iron Curtain. For example, the old boundaries of the Austro-Hungarian empire catch quite a lot of it. I've been told that places like Slovenia are pretty different from places like Serbia, and similarly for western vs. eastern Ukraine.

In the case of Poland though only a tiny fraction of it was captured by the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The largest portion was captured by Russia. Second largest by German Empire. I have great-grandparents from each of those.

Moreover prior to the fall of the Iron Curtain the term Central Europe wasn’t used much. After that though some people like Milan Kundera started popularising it much more out of sense of inferiority.

East and West used to be be not only a geographical distinction, but also political one.

Estonia belonged to the East, even though not voluntarily.

They actively left the Eastern block when they had the chance (like most of the others, so the block is no block anymore), but the terminology lives on, especially used by people who did not suffer from it.

A couple of years I went to a technical event. The event T-shirts were red. Someone from an "Eastern" country felt very negative about that: "We had communism, I will never wear a red T-shirt."

Those in the "West" who don't have the history of suffering don't have any strong feelings about those old things. Many of those who suffered (either personally or at least in stories from their parents) can be rather sensitive about such "mistakes".

To me it's just about what was taught in schools to me, and what I can find on my own. If you Wikipedia Estonia, it says right in the opening paragraph that it is Northern Europe. It's also what was taught to me in schools. Admittedly, being born in '92, I am a first-generation free Estonian and never experienced the soviet union so I don't have any strong feelings of East or the color red, but it is true that Eastern Europe is often talked with the vain of ex-soviet block countries that are corrupt and stuck in time, which is simply not the case with Estonia and I feel just minimizes the work we've done since.

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