Eastern Europe

number of immigrants to Europe. They must suffer through the long and difficult trek from the Middle East to Western Europe and still risk being deported once they reach their goal. With larger masses arriving each day, Western Europe faces the decision of integrating the immigrants into their countries or turning them away and blocking their borders. Both decisions have grand economic, social, and political implications in those countries. As the immigration crisis in Europe continues,…

of 5 year industrial-growth plans he had implemented over the years had been immensely successful, and should be spread throughout war-stricken East Europe in order to restore it. Although it is certainly debatable how genuine these sentiments of Stalin’s were, at face value, it is clear that the wish to gain a sphere of influence over Eastern Europe during it’s restoration, was no more dangerous than that of the United States’ economic aid plans. Stalin wished to adopt a sphere of influence for…

“German-Americans” (2017, para. 15), “lynchings, beatings, and the tarring and featherings of war opponents.” One of the more memorable events of xenophobia in United States history was the rejection of St. Louis, a ship carrying almost 1000 refugees from Eastern Europe during the early days of Hitler’s reign. The St. Louis was originally intended to land in Cuba, but by the time the ship had arrived the Cuban people had enacted a ban on European refugees and did not allow the ship to stay in…

Ann Snitow ’s essay, “Feminist Futures in the Former East Bloc” is an intriguing text that presents twelve points that draw a comparison between Western and Eastern European understanding of feminism and why it has not taken shape in Eastern Europe as it did in the Western part of the world. Although I find the list portrayed by Snitow slightly subjective in tone, since the list is presented through her perspective as a Western feminist, I appreciate the effort in bringing into the conversation…

For Eastern Europe, the 20th century was nothing short of tumultuous; two world wars and stints with totalitarianism troubled the continent. Because of all that happened, it is hard to encompass the breath of the 20th century in a single work. Therefore, it seems that the question “What work best represents the turmoil in Eastern Europe during the 20th century?” does not have an answer. How can one work encompass the mess that was the 20th century? Is it possible to represent the varying…

Comparing Individuality and Conformity in Fahrenheit 451 Individuality is celebrated in modern day society, but during the Cold War, the world seemed as though there was little hope for self-expression to live another day. In the novel, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, there is a prominent theme of conformity found various times throughout the dystopian society. Conformity was a common theme in the real world during the Cold War, when this novel was written. In this society, books have all been…

history where the Christians and Muslims had their own differences, which brought them into conflict and leading to a couple million deaths. Both sides had their own perspectives that the other would not agree on. I will be explaining the Western and Eastern Christian and Muslim’s perspectives and how it brought them to war. First I will be going over a summary of this time period so one can feel empathy and understand why things happened the way they did. Pope Urban II launched the first…

The process of political, economic, and social modernization in Scandinavia and the Baltic states from the early 19th century to 1939 has both similarities and differences; similarities in the sense that moves toward modernization were taken, and differences in the sense that the processes themselves as well as the outcomes of each vary. In the beginning of the 19th century, Scandinavia’s political sphere was control largely by monarchies. At the beginning of this century, Sweden and…

etiquette of the Central Europe, Soviet Union (FSU), and Scandinavians. An interesting fact is that they were the earliest and largest groups to come the United States. There have been many great influences on American culture, especially in cuisine area. Many of them brought skills of bread baking, dairy farming, meat processing, and beer brewing to the U.S. They inspire others to assimilate their ethnic specialties, for a much greater purpose. The countries of central Europe are Germany,…

Peter Gunst focuses on why Eastern/Central Europe struggled to keep up with Western Europe technically, socially, and economically. The first peculiarity he notes is how there was no private ownership in Eastern Europe like there was in Western. Instead, the region used the idea of common land property. This isolated village communities and kept the region politically inferior to the well-connected Western Europe. These communal fields also created economic and social stasis because the system…