Why has Eastern Europe been less developed than Western Europe for so much of history?

Why has Eastern Europe been less developed than Western Europe for so much of history?

>Hard mode: No explanations that involve the Soviet Union

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Geographical_Pivot_of_History
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Lack of a strong national identity/central governments?

>Oriental despotism from the Mongolians
>Lack of wealth from colonialism
>Colder climate, less agricultural output
That's all I got.

I'd agree with the first two, but not the third.

I'm pretty sure EE has some of the most fertile land in Europe, at least in Ukraine

Generall more ravaged by warfare especially in the early 20th century, also empires clingin to anachronistic systems in the face of modernity and forcing their idiocy onto loads of other nationalities

>Oriental despotism

Oh no! The Mongols get paid once per year and approve of the princes we choose to lead us!

THIS IS NAZI GERMANY!! HEEELP!!!

Held onto feudalism and serfdom way longer.

Invasions by Muslims.

>>Lack of wealth from colonialism
How would you explain Scandinavia, Switzerland, Germany and Portugal?

Ravaged by steppeniggers.

Not even the Mongols, the Mongols were the best of the bunch.

I am talking everyone from the Huns to the Pechenegs and onwards, just 1500 years of constant village/city burning by massive zergrushing horsefuckers.

Also, the Ottomans for the Balkans.

They liberated their serves in 1861, two years before America.

You, listen to this guy
Also they were extremely resource rich. Their agriculture with the Ukraine included could've been massive with the Stolypin reform. Russia today is a massive agricultural producer since it's made itself more efficient since ____times.

Truth.

They had a very strong central government and the communist doctrine of "planting roots" that lead to the balkanization of the ____. Russia a century ago had enormous social cohesion cemented by the Orthodox religion.

They instituted a Duma before the revolution. Niki actually disliked ruling.

>Portugal
Nigga u must be trippin

Portugal had colonialism, and so did germany from a lesser extent.

But if a neighboring country had colonies, thats going to lead to a higher amount of economic activity in that country, and thus more trade with them, hence higher gdp for the country with no colonies.

>inb4 serfs*

youtube.com/watch?v=xzPMOYG7gs4&list=PLgRhjj2D3x_MjzhDrWY-90OZ-0MkmpFBk&index=5

meant to add this on top of my jams:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Geographical_Pivot_of_History

It's impossible to talk about without mentioning communism.

Portugal is a shithole despite its colonies. Spawin isn't much better
>But if a neighboring country had colonies, thats going to lead to a higher amount of economic activity in that country, and thus more trade with them

Then most of Eastern Europe should be decent. Also, are you saying that Franceis a huge factor contributing to Germany's prosperity.
What ahout Scandinavia?

> Also, are you saying that Franceis a huge factor contributing to Germany's prosperity.

Yes. Trade has a tremendous amoto do with any country's prosperity.

>What ahout Scandinavia?

A very short route to the UK, the biggest transcontinental empire ever, by sea, which is still the mode of transportation by which the majority of modern day international commerce takes place.

No, I'm not saying that trade is the sole reason for the prosperity of any one place, but it is a very huge factor.

>amoto

amount to do*

Look at where it is. it's sort of in the middle of nowhere. The South has the Medeterainian, and the West, has the Atlantic Ocean. Those are two big trading routes.

Is it any wonder that having access to the sea is one of the biggest correlates of economic prosperity?

Balkans has the Mediterranean too.

Sweden had the largest copper reserves in the world at a time when copper was arguably the most valuable resource in the world.

Ironically given the context of this thread, Denmark-Norway prospered immensely from the trade other nations had with Russia; the sound toll for sailing through Oresund was by far the largest source of income for the kingdom of Denmark.

Of course, both of these nations wound up using their wealth principally to fuck each other other, so it's doubtful how much it was really worth in the end.

>middle of nowhere
>connects Eurasian civilizations together

Holy shit user.

>What's 2+2?
>Hard more: don't say 4

2 + 2 = 5

also fucking checked my mate

Bohemia and Hungary were not undeveloped. Balkans were a shithole because centuries of depopulation and Ottoman retardation, and Russia has the shittiest climate and geographic location in all of Europe, and didn't really have any great resources until they discovered oil and minerals in Siberia in the 20th century.

have you ever heard of an autoregressive process?

By Western Europe surely you must mean only France, Germany, and the U.K. Ireland and the Iberian Peninsula are largely rural backwaters punctuated by the odd great city.

Balkans is actually experiencing depopulation right now, far more devastating than under Ottomans.

I'm not sure where I read it but most of the Spanish countryside remained the same for centuries until after WW1, both in technology and in mindset.

The centralised resource abundance firstly of Rome "all roads".

From this, a centralisation of technological accumulation, as the empire spread through the Carolingians, the HRE (see: small fragmented quasi libertarianesque states producing progress and then protestantism), then the mighty eternal anglo from the safety of england being able to orchestratedly engineer global dominance.

I thought not. Fucking brainlets on Veeky Forums

>>connects Eurasian civilizations together

Does that matter? If you want to ship something from the East to West, you don't go over cold as shit Russia to Eastern Europe to East. It's moved through the medeterainian.

No based Castillians in EE that lead all their nations to a wave of prosperity through global comerce

If all of the US were the southern US, we'd be a backwards shithole too.

Hard geography to work with, civilized neighbors are far away and when you build something it gets razed by mongols.

Bohemia was doing great, until you guessed it, communism. They were one of most industrially competent regions of austria-hungary
Poland was doing economically great, it was probably on equal footing with the west when their main export (wheat) was in high demand, until western europe diversified their plants with stuff from new world
Then partitions happened right before they would experience cool chad era of erurope which made them miss industrialization and then you this situation with three different currencies which was obviously horrible for economy (but Russian partition has still managed to be one of best provinces in the tsardom nonetheless)
Then of course muh ww2/gommunism but thats kinda obvious.

>you don't go over cold as shit Russia to Eastern Europe to East
You could've if Russia closed the 30 year gap and integrated with Eurasia unlike the USSR which utterly failed to do the second and did the first but very late. Basically that dynamic you mentioned is a result of political failure.

Why do you say that? I know things aren't spectacular given the stats, but what do you think those root causes were?

>Why has Eastern Europe been less developed than Western Europe for so much of history?

It wasn't. The Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth was pretty successful. East Europe didn't start going to shit until the rise of Russia and Prussia and the collapse of the Commonwealth, which hobbled Eastern Europe's ability to stand on its own.

Your problem is thinking Eastern Europe is or ever has been a homogenous region. Bohemia for a long time had the same degree of industrialization and development as the low countries, only Britain and Germany were ahead.

Because of emigration. That doesn't mean the Ottomans didn't keep them back ESPECIALLY after the 18th century

I don't know, maybe being a fucking battlefield for every important war might be the reason.

> Why do you say that? I know things aren't spectacular given the stats, but what do you think those root causes were?

Different user, but to me, the fundamental difference cones down to wealth from land, and wealth from people.

When your wealth comes from resource extraction/farming, you tend to be less developed because work and innovation have limited returns.

When your your wealth comes from the work and skills of people, independent from any natural resources or bounty, there's much greater incentive to push for efficiency, mass education to get more workers, and innovation.

This is more so the case with highly mentally demanding work like trading. It's basically the resource curse applied to a more fundemental level.

Eastern Europe was dominated by powerful landowning nobility that actively hindered the development of centralized labor-focused sources of wealth to protect their own wealth. Much like how Southern planters blocked Southern industrialization to maintain their own relevance and power.

Czech Republic is more developed than Portugal

Ever notice how the border of Eastern Europe moves hundreds of miles depending on the topic of a conversation?

It's just Westerners coping with their existence as beta providers

See

Eurasian steppes Gate Theory.

My history 195 professor taught us about this theory this semester at the community college I go to, hes actually the guy who got me interested in history.

Anyway the Eurasian Steppe Gate is the acient passage way guided by star and cellestial maping between the Asian steppes into lower Eastern Europe
It was Acessed by the Hun, Gothics, vandils and mongolians all during their pillaging. It was said that the Turkish were the last to pass through before being destoryed by erosion in the area.

I had to write a 5pager on this topic based off the notes from class so my brain still hurts thinkin about it but, I know the reasons that Europe was so bad for so long was because the Eurasian Steppe Gate was open to many raiders that basically just scouraged the earth. Kinda like how when you put a peice of wood or a tarp from your pool on your grass and forget about it and after a few days its all yellow and ramen noodle looking with dirt in the most basic literal sense. Basically Eastern Europa proper looked like that and as you may know, it takes weeks for the grass to grow back in that one area so you have to imagine hundreds maybe even thousanss of miles of dead life

Does Byzantine Empire count?

I don't consider Bohemia Eastern Europe. The break for that part came in 1946. Eastern Europe begins where the HRE borders ended.

Those fucking digits tho

lol

And this is why this thread is a fucking joke, everyone has his own definition of Eastern Europe. If it turns out a country was actually rich or developed, it magically stops being Eastern Europe.

this post is just wrong. Russia was a massively powerful nation from 1720 to 1850 and the PLC Common Wealth had to be genocide in the deluge to stop being relevant. The idea that eastern gryos are economically less off than central and western nations is a contemporary situation.

The flower of France wasn't there to enlighten them, like how France spread civilization to England (which even the English, debased as they are, managed to take some advantage of)
Instead they got the G*rmans as their """"""civilizing""""""" agents

No Roman Empire legacy
Getting hit by the migration hard + later implementation of christianity = It was unstable region up until 13th century (when Lithuania took control), meanwhile West already had established nation-kingdoms for hundreds of years
Mongols
Ottomans
Spread out population meaning no urban centres that would support development
Colonialism caused our trade to become secondary
and of course, commies, who did the most damage, concerning contemporary EE

>No Roman Empire legacy
All of Southern Europe has Roman Empire legacy and they're all shitholes except for Italy, where only the southern part is a shithole.

Have you ever been in Spain?

spain isn't a shithole
the rest of southern europe had ottoman legacy which explains why they're shitholes

>and they're all shitholes
In your autist brain, maybe

>"in Spain"
>not "to Spain"
Hello Pedro

Portugal doesn't have Ottoman legacy, they're just mixed with niggers and Arabs.

well i obviously included portugal with spain because they're in the same area

Southern Europe was pretty damn great up until about 15th century, they being shit is fairly modern thing.

>ywn live in a world where Mongols, T*rks and all assorted steppe niggers never existed

always drinking problems

First of all, that picture doesn't show the development but the population density. Eastern Europe has lower population density, partially because it is a larger land area and partially because of the many brutal wars, especially in the 20th century.

Second, Eastern Europe wasn't historically less developed. During Roman Empire and up to late Middle Ages, Balkans and Anatolia were far richer than any other place in Europe besides maybe North Italy.

Third, in for centuries good chunk of Eastern Europe was split between Ottoman Empire and Russian Empire. Both of these empires relied on their incredible size and large population to provide wealth for the elite, leaving most of the land undeveloped except the capitals and some larger cities.

For comparison, in Germany every princeling strived to improve his miniscule holdings as much as possible because he was very unlikely to ever expand them. France and Spain were always halfway between being like Germany and being like Russia/Ottomans.

Also, Russian and Ottoman empires (and Poland-Lithuania) never developed cities like the western Europe and thus never developed a proper bourgeoisie. I don't really know why.

>Anatolia
>Eastern Europe
Fuck off burger

Less people hence less towns I.e. civilization
Further from trade routes and old cultural centers (i.e. Mediterranean)
Harsher continental climate, i.e. less food and population growth

This, lmao.

t. Balkan nigger

I am Balkanese you butthurt fuckwit.

OP is talking about the eastern bloc

>Hard mode: No explanations that involve the Soviet Union
But that is the explanation. They were quite wealthy and famous states until Communist rule. Sure not Belarus and those other wheat field states, but Czech, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, etc.

Lack of trading, large spaces between settlements and no roads, cold climat, no colonies.

>Lack of a strong national identity

kek extreme nationalism is one of the reasons why they are so backwards

>le nationalism makes you poor and undeveloped may may
t. cuckold

>no colonies
What the fuck do you think Siberia is

>t. cuckold

great argument, back to /pol and the_donald

You provided no argument behind your idiotic statement either.

nationalism lead to the yugoslav wars

name 1 fucking positive effect of nationalism I dare you burger

Why do nations suffer under it and perform better without it retard?

I can see you right in front of me sitting in your parents smelly basement 250pounds heavy a disgusting alt right virgin .... end your pathetic life.

You lost this discussion after thr moment you used the term cuck.

>burger
Ne seri pederu

Not him but
>nationalism lead to the yugoslav wars
Yugoslavia fell precisely because they didn't have a strong Yugoslav nationalism in the first place but kept their ouga-bouga tribal identities.

>Why do nations suffer under it and perform better without it retard?
You mean the entire period when the Western nations basically ruled the world from the 19th century to the mid 20th century?
The hip Western anti-nationalists of today are living in countries build by past nationalist.

Cliffs:

Hungary had nobles who were too powerful and stifled innovation and refused to pay tax for a common defense.

Russia had a Tsar who was too powerful and who stifled innovation through absolutism.

Neither dealt with freeing their serfs effectively, and nobles had too much leverage over city dwellers and serfs relative to the West.

It wasn't sure spread of technology. The United States was the most industrialized nation by 1890 and it started as mostly wilderness in 1800.

It wasn't all those invasions prior to 1800 because Western Europes religious wars are far more numerous and deadly as a share of population.

It was shit institutions. Also, Austria actually didn't begin to fall behind until the Industrial Revolution got into full swing while Germany didn't get it's advantage until then, so blaming it on Mongols is far fetched. America had to start as small colonies of criminals, profiteers, and religious fanatics and even btfo the UK in the end.

savages from the east fucking with them all the time

Get cucked faggot.

Ottomans were not steppeniggers you fucktard, they were a sedentary civilization.

digits confirm

shit

This is largely due to the product the Ottomans spewed out after the respective revolutions, Balkan wars and Greco-Turkish war. The region got fucked hard in a lot of ways, not leaving many national tools to recover after... lets say... a financial crisis.

spot:
>Romania
>chain of rural Bosnia, rural Montenegro, Albania
Lmao

...

>The idea that eastern gryos are economically less off than central and western nations is a contemporary situation.
Slovenia and Czechs are ahead of some Western countries already.
Also in terms of crime, Cemtral Europe is already safer than Western Europe

>kek extreme nationalism is one of the reasons why they are so backwards
Poland has lower homicide than UK, France and Germany.Per capita.

Eh not really, unless you mean ahead in couch casting. They're definitely doing well, just not THAT well

Slovenia has higher GDP per capita than Portugal.

this

The people just have a shitty mentality
Don't appreciate when they have something good and can't hold on to it
Can't rebuild it when it's gone
Lazy too
What the origin of this mentality is, I don't know

>portugal
WOW

Speaking from the perspective of the pre-communist east, Eastern Europe's woes are mostly attributed to indefensible borders and long, long travel time between cities and other civilizations.

The main reason the Mediterranean region was a hotspot for development was because of the speed in which cultures and states could exchange ideas. Going from Milan to Venice was a 2 day journey in medieval times and both states could easily trade with relatively little road to keep secured and the time it took to exchange goods and profit from it. Same with a ship journey from Venice to Alexandria or Constantinople, just a few days by ship and you're trading wine for exotic spices from the east, with that trade comes contact with people and exchange in ideas that help connect people and make states thrive.

Eastern Europe however, is a much further journey from any major trading center which are much fewer and further between. Moscow, Krakow, Novgorod, and Riga were major trading hubs, but the journey to transport goods from Riga to Moscow was both long and dangerous, whether from the harsh climate or the threat of bandits who could attack long stretches of road that can't be guarded.

With the east's case, isolation from outside influences was pretty much the norm, and the exchange of both goods, money, and ideas was stifled by these conditions.

Russia's Czars realized this and forced open a window to outside powers by founding St. Petersburg as a relatively easy access point between Russia and the rest of Europe, and this worked, Russia's economy exploded with the easy-to-access ports and the benefits from it, by spreading that wealth to the vast steppes is still a challenge, with the sheer distance between major settlements slowing development in comparison to the West's more compact centers of trade and exchange.