Did Eastern Europe always a backward water compared to Western Europe or only when it's under occupation of Communism...

Did Eastern Europe always a backward water compared to Western Europe or only when it's under occupation of Communism Regimes?

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_Kalisz
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privilege_of_Koszyce
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It wasn't in either circumstance.

You rarely ever hear anything about Eastern Europe in history books besides the Russian Empire (which was a shithole), so...

>What is the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth?

One time I read the original Dracula book from 1890 or something. At the start the main dude (Keanu Reeves) is travelling from England across Europe to Transylvania, and he comments on how Europe gets worse the further East you go. So it, or at least the social perception of it, predates Communism

>Did Eastern Europe always a backward water compared to Western Europe
No

Irrelevant?

Mongols literally fucked their brains out

Today we will play: Find the protestant

I find it funny that people consider how of often a nation gets mentioned in public education as some sort of measurment on how relevant a nation is.

Uhhh...

Certainly throughout modern history. There is a meme beloved by sundry nationalistic types that Hungary and Poland were on par with Germany before big bad Stalin came along, but that's a load of trash.

Perhaps in the medieval or early modern period things were different. It's hard to get good per capita estimates for those days, most contemporary authors focused on the wealth of the court rather than the people. Certain the crown of Poland was insanely wealthy.

>France
>NATO country

Pick one

>Did Eastern Europe always a backward water compared to Western Europe or only when it's under occupation of Communism Regimes?
No&no. Communists stopped progression, not made countries under occupation poor. Poor countries from Western Europe during that time did a lot better(like Spain).
I don't know what was situation in Hungary, but I'm pretty sure Poland was devastated after WW1, during which it was a battlefield.
> In 1915 Polish territories were looted and abandoned by the retreating Imperial Russian army, trying to emulate the scorched earth policy of 1812;[3][4]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_Kalisz
> Certain the crown of Poland was insanely wealthy.
Crown of Poland was insanely poor
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privilege_of_Koszyce

Isn't this board meant to be for people into history?
Did you miss the part where western Europe was just as shit until coal, steam engines and factories popped up there?

This economic east-west divide comes from the Russian and Ottoman empires not embracing industrialization, thinking it a fad.
And the cultural east-west divide comes from the Russian and Ottoman empires not embracing enlightenment, again thinking it a fad.

Its a new development, not the status quo.

When people say popular history is eurocentric, thats not jut political correctness and tumblr trigger queens. It actually is, and its centered in western Europe and the anglosphere.

>*becomes slightly agitated*

Eastern Europe was on par with the West for quite a while.

In fact;

"What sort of barbaric country have you sent me to! The dwellings here are dark, the churches misshapen, and the customs primitive!" - Anna Yaroslavna in a letter to her father from Paris, 11th century

Yes and no. Some of the time Eastern European countries were behind their Western European counterparts, but not always and not in everything.

Peter the Great is for example remembered as the Tsar that westernized Russia, so clearly at least Russia was at the time lagging behind the rest of Europe.

However, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, for example, was relatively modern and liberal for its time in certain areas.

because we have already found the butthurt pole

"Always" is a big statement, but I'd say the East was definitely behind civilisationally at least as early as sometime in the 15th-16th centuries, when Western Europe abandoned serfdom - the East would cling to it (with various degrees of extent and severity) well into the 19th century.

This kept the peasants poor and limited the expansion of cities and native manufacture. They weren't late to industrialisation because they thought it was a "fad" - there simply wasn't any economic basis for it like labour not being tied up in agriculture, big sources of capital other than landowners, strong urban centres with a demand for consumer products...

Where industrialisation did occur in the East it required a powerful state enacting wide-spread reforms to make it possible like in Prussia.

Note that this definition of "the East" includes the bulk of German states.

ottoman presence is the reason

apart from poland which was devastated by teutonic order, swedes and ruskies instead

>its centered in western Europe and the anglosphere
That depends on where you live. Yes, if you're in the Anglosphere then popular history will focus on the anglosphere. If you live in Germany the focus will be on German history. If you live in Sweden the focus will be on Swedish history. There are people currently living in the world who know WWII as "that war between China and Japan" and know nearly nothing about what went down in Europe at the time.

>all these people talking about countries they know nothing about

>history began in 1940

>question is about if east is only shit because of commies
>pic shows that in 1940 eastern countries were on par with West and how it all went to shit because of commies
What exactly is your problem here?

Or, possibly, that massive Earth-shattering war that was mainly fought in Eastern Europe.

You mean the one that was fought in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus? Yeah, that sure fucked up Czech economy.

The west became wealthier than the east before communism.
Starting at 1940 is retarded, this was already in place back then.

>Nazis didn't seize all of Czechoslovakia's industry for their war machine

Yeah, bro. WW2 only had devastating effects on Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.

If anything Belarus and Ukraine were blitzed through, and didn't suffer THAT much fighting.

The West was always wealthier, but the difference wasn't as significant as it was after commies.

>using factories somehow makes economy go bad
???

>The West was always wealthier
No, it wasn't always wealthier. It became wealthier with the industrial revolution.
The Russian and the Ottoman empire made the east poor, not communism. It was already a fact before communism was concieved.

>Did Eastern Europe always a backward water compared to Western Europe
Eastern Europe fell behind when sea trade made land routes from Asia to western Europe worthless and all kinds of social, political and technological developments spawned at the end of renaissance that could out-compete medieval conventions that persisted in eastern Europe.

>using a country's wealth and labour to fund another country's war isn't bad for its economy

I am from Czech republic, i think i know what i'm talking about.

>No, it wasn't always wealthier. It became wealthier with the industrial revolution.
Well okay, this might be true, but it still means West was wealthier for the last 200 years. And point still stands about the difference not being so significant. Czechoslovakia was actually in top 10 richest countries before WW2

Bohemia is west, not east. Check your nationalism at the door when discussing history.

They were occupied for three years, lost like a quarter of their populations and their major cities (e.g. Minsk and Vitebsk in Belarus) were razed to the ground. Fucking Kharkiv had four major battles fought over it.

Nobody except few special snowflakes think that and you know it

Oh my god, it is brainwashed. Nevermind, I won't respond further.

Feudalism and serfdom

shit since Sigmundus III (aka perfidious swede)

once emperor of the HRE = west

By that logic, east Romania (Banat) is also western, since it was under Habsbourg rule

Hungary is indeed western, and Banat is traditionally Hungary.

it was never a juridical part of the Holy Roman Empire

Neither was Sweden, and its western.

Well i guess 98% of the world is wrong then and you are the true redpilled master race

You are wrong that 98% of the world shares your views.

because it's protestant
which makes the Chech even more western since they had two protestant reformations

for example

...

>Communists stopped progression
By building industry, I guess? Ffs, there were even products manufactured by Poland for USSR, and eventually that decentralization is what killed USSR. Only Russia and Ukraine out of all 15 soviet republics were the only ones making profit. You know what, instead of building schools, roads, industry they should've done what you claim they've done.

If the USSR had held for another 5-6 years, to see home computers and the internet show up to patch world economies, it would be around until 2020 at least.

can't say anything for the other staes but Latvia and Estonia both were on about thesame standards as scandinavia before being annexed by the USSR

wrong

I don't know about those, but Lithuania got a lot of investment. Basically, they were almost the only providers of TV sets and other electronics (a huge factory in Riga), all of the Baltic states were basically providers for fish products for USSR. Overall, there were huge investments that didn't pay off.

looks like I were wrong
still better than under the USSR

Wrong again, as all of the USSR experienced growth. No state was better before the USSR than after it.
The growth may have been slower than relative states outside, but it existed non the less.

Also see The USSR grew very, very well. It just started very, very poor, so the growth was not enough to compare it to the west, which was ALREADY MUCH RICHER BEFORE COMMUNISM.
This is what the thread was about, and the premise is wrong. Under communism, the east experienced more growth, it was just already so far behind that the increased growth wasn't good enough to catch up.

maybe for the economy, yes, but Estonia and Latvia did practically get turned into Russian colonies where the Estonian and Latvian languages became second class languages.

Calm down Ivan.
Taking from Poland Uranium, and in exchange also taking coal is not something I would call fair trade.

This doesn't have to do with economy, and it is entirely subjective if its a good or a bad thing.
People will argue that refugees have to assimilate to the state culture, yet complain that the USSR wanted the Baltics to accept russian culture.

Economically speaking, which was the premise, communism was not what created the east-west divide, this had already occurred under the Russian and Ottoman empires, when they delayed or refused enlightenment and industrialization.

>Wrong again, as all of the USSR experienced growth.
>The growth may have been slower than relative states outside, but it existed non the less.
Wow thanks for not killing us on sight.

>invade a sovereign country
>deport and murder hundreds of thousands of inhabitants
>FUCKING BALTICS WHY DON'T YOU ASSIMILATE

>People will argue that refugees have to assimilate to the state culture, yet complain that the USSR wanted the Baltics to accept russian culture.
you aren't serioulsy unironically nonsarcastically comparing a situation where the locals had ben present for hundreds if not thousands of years to one where they are immigrating just now?

Those countries were part of Russia within the same fucking generation as they were "conquered".
They existed between WWI and WWII, not for THOUSANDS OF YEARS WOOOO. I thought this is a history board.

>it is entirely subjective if its a good or a bad thing.
Real talk even subsaharan africans can manage a state better than russians have.

see Only Japan improved more than the USSR.

>the locals had been living there for hundreds if not thousands of years
>nations
are you getting me wrong on purpose

literally anyone can have fast economic growth while they industralize if they start at feudalism, even Krokodil adicted Russians

Even mud eating Baltics, yeah. Yet they complain about it 50 years later.

People living in a place has zero legitimacy, what are you even saying?
People lived in almost any place for thousands of years, it has no inherent value or worth.

now you are moving the goal post, you accused me of saying the nations had been there for thousands of years not the people.
and it can't be said there is a difference in forcing your language on locals who live in their own communities and are largely independent from your help and forcing it on people who move into your settlements and are dependant on help from your society?

That's bullshit, or more likely - it is taken out of context
Even 400% of 1929 GDP doesn't make it automatically better.
Example with GDP (nominal) per capita:
Country A: $10k
Country B: $1k
And then 40 years has passed
Country A GDP increase is 150%
Country B GDP increase is 400%
And here some user uses this as argument
>muh progression, B beats A !
but
150% of $10k is $15k
400% of $1k is $4k
So not only B is still considerably poorer than A, even the increase of GDP in A is greater.

I admit that was a very petty comment on my side and I regret making it but I do find your response funny considering the state of the Russians both in and outside of Russia compared to that of the Baltics, especially if looking at aids and murder rates. Not that I blame this state on the Russian's themselves.

This only YET AGAIN confirms that the discrepancy came earlier, not during the communist period.
Communist growth was much better, but because the initial state was so bad, it still didn't catch up.

Read the fucking thread. 90% of people who respond to me are posturing like they prove me wrong, while agreeing with parts of what I say and ignoring the rest.

I am neither russian, nor from the baltics. I just notice the objective facts that nationalists arguing on /po... I mean Veeky Forums ignore, for example the humongous economic aid ex USSR states received from NATO to be bribed into eventually joining.
During the communists Baltic state growth was funded by Moscow, and it was rapid.
After the communists Baltic state growth was funded by Washington and it was rapid.

just because your economic growth is faster that don't mean your economic growth is better though. It may just be that you are going through a stage where economic growth naturally occurs faster, like an industralizing stage where factories are built and economic growth is faster than during other later stages.


got any stats on how much money the baltic states have recived from Washington?

>Communist growth was much better, but because the initial state was so bad, it still didn't catch up.
Wrong, because you are ignoring growth of the countries pre communist period. If that growth would be "bad" (so let's say western Europe level of your graph) then you would be right. But you are not, as for example Poland had excellent GDP growth in interwar period.

Also, that graph doesn't check up withIf growth made by communism in Easter Europe was indeed better than the one in Western Europe (and it only didn't catch up because of to much starting difference), then it would also work for poorer Western European countries, right?
Then why Austria/Spain/Portugal, initialy on par or even poorer that Czechia/Poland, in 1990 were so fucking ahead of them? They had similar starting point, and in your opinion Eastern Europe had better growth, then what happened?

>Even mud eating Baltics

This side of the 16th century there literally hasn't been a period when what is now called the Baltic states wasn't richer per capita than the Russian average.

It wasn't in late bronze age.

*late neolithic

why did this happen?

>just because your economic growth is faster that don't mean your economic growth is better though
>It may just be that you are going through a stage where economic growth naturally occurs faster

>funded by the pope
>later funded by the polish king in colonization effort
>at one point funded by the swedish king?? dont remember
>later funded by the russian tzar and he even moved his capital there

So much money thrown in such a useless area to make it acceptable.
Also lol'd at saying the Baltics are better than Russia, when for half that period the Baltics were in fact in Russia.

>tfw you realize your country is the most hated on earth

Hi, Ivan. You lost the propaganda war and will thus forever be the eternal villain of the world.

Russian here. We are shit, haven't accomplished anything on our own, I'm ashamed to be russian.

Turkey or Russia?

>turks
>hated
Not outside of their former territory.

Lichtenstein

Russian here. we are great,we have accomplished a lot. I'm proud to be Russian.

Not him, but what is so hard to understand?
You have 1000 factories, after building next 100 it will be 10% increase
You have 10 factories, after building next 50 it will be 500% increase
So, who is growing faster?

That's where you wrong, Baltics received less then they've given. You're just parroting shitty Russian memes.

Russian here.

t. useful idiot

everyone who industralize will see their economy grow faster than it did before and after industralization. This don't mean their economic policy is better than that of those who already have industralized and are experiencing slower growth than you.

>

Procentually the latter, and the change will also be a way more noticeable than in the former case.