Far from being mere geographical boundaries, borders are the foundation of society itself: they delimit the spaces within which certain flows of interactions, exchanges, and activities can occur, and are imbued with such a symbolic nature that they themselves define and transform social reality . A change in borders reverberates throughout reality with profound and traumatic social consequences, so societies tend to avoid frequent border changes. Conversely, in the most unstable and precarious societies, border changes are unavoidable and occur incessantly, often because the border structure itself exacerbates tensions, whereas it should instead preserve the existing social equilibrium. Border mobility is particularly acute in Eastern Europe.
The Great War: the end of a centuries-old balance
If the Great War did not cause significant changes in the borders of Western Europe, which had, moreover, experienced the affirmation of solid nation states with an established and stable geopolitical space over time, the Eastern European puzzle emerged fragmented. First of all, the Poland, whose population was dispersed among three powers, namely Germany, the Russian Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. From the ashes of the latter also arose the Czechoslovakia, the Hungary and part of the Jugoslavia, while vast territories went to the RomaniaThe situation was different for the Russian Empire, which, overwhelmed by the October Revolution, lost the war and was forced to sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany, which entailed the loss of immense territories and the birth of new nations: the Finland, the Estonia, the Latvia , Lithuania.
World War II: The Hegemony of Soviet Socialism
After the Second World War, the Soviet Russia expanded its vast land mass by once again incorporating Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, but also all the eastern regions of Poland, which had been divided between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, better known as the non-aggression treaty between Stalin e HitlerThus, a true western shift of Poland took place, which instead acquired the eastern regions of Germany. For almost fifty years, the USSR quelled the rivalries existing between the eastern nations of Europe, which joined the Warsaw Pact and effectively became satellite states completely directed by Moscow, which extended the infamous Iron Curtain encompassing all the communist regimes that had been established without interruption throughout the East of the Old Continent.
The disintegration of communism
Consumed by a slow but inexorable crisis, the end of communism brought about a geopolitical revolution no less imposing than that triggered by the First World War. From the derelict Soviet Union emerged Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania (the three Baltic republics), but also Belarus , Ukraine , and Moldova , while Czechoslovakia split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia . From the implosion and civil war of Yugoslavia, which sanctioned its dissolution, arose Slovenia , Bosnia-Herzegovina , Serbia and Montenegro , and Macedonia . Eastern Europe suffered severely from the collapse of real socialism , paying a very high price for its conversion to capitalism and becoming an economically more depressed area than it had been at the end of communism, so much so that some compared that period of enormous changes to Chicago in the 1920s, with the difference, however, that the American metropolis was, on the contrary, experiencing an economic expansion that was nothing short of astonishing in those years.
The year 2000: the post-Soviet era
Today Eastern Europe appears apparently stabilized, placed under the umbrella of theXNUMX-XNUMX business days and NATO. Nonetheless, outside the Western bloc, what now seems like a historical constant continues inexorably: the perpetual redefinition of borders has never ceased to forge new social and geopolitical balances. Moreover, there are many separatist movements, often fomented by local mafias, which take advantage of the multi-ethnicity of many countries and the presence of significant minorities to mask their plans by advocating political, ethnic, and cultural causes. In 2006, Montenegro seceded from Serbia in a referendum where the "yes" vote won with 55,5%, while in the powder keg of the Balkans, ethnic tensions often resurface like karst rivers, affecting almost every state, from Kosovo to Bosnia, from Serbia to Kosovo. On the extreme periphery of Europe, Russia has renewed its expansionist ambitions, sealed by the annexation of Crimea and the Donbass war since 2014, thus opening a new front in Ukraine after the wars that broke out in the Caucasus. Eastern Europe's borders are therefore no less fluid than in the last century, but the very delimitation of Eastern Europe remains highly problematic: how far do its borders extend? Should Europe also include Russia? And if so, all the way to the Caucasus or well beyond? Turkey Is it also a European country? And what about the Caucasian nations, namely Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan?
Stefano Ghilardi
