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78-501: Everything known about the Tasmola culture originates from the barrows (or kurgans ) they built to bury their deceased. The necropoles involve mainly a large barrow and an adjoining small one. Tasmola kurgans were rather large during the early period (30–50m diameter, 3–5m in height), but were smaller in the later period (15–25 m in diameter, 0.5–1.5m in height). They were grouped in cluster of 10 to 15 kurgans. They were often equipped with

156-543: A "Kurgan culture" as reflecting an early Proto-Indo-European ethnicity that existed in the steppes and in southeastern Europe from the fifth millennium to the third millennium BC. In Kurgan cultures, most burials were in kurgans, either clan or individual. Most prominent leaders were buried in individual kurgans, now called "royal kurgans". These individual kurgans have attracted the most attention and publicity because they were more elaborate than clan kurgans and contained grave goods. The monuments of these cultures coincide with

234-429: A "fuzzy" term, as the idea itself of Eastern Europe is in constant redefinition. The solidification of the idea of an "Eastern Europe" dates back chiefly to the (French) Enlightenment . There are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region". A related United Nations paper adds that "every assessment of spatial identities is essentially a social and cultural construct ". While

312-581: A central passageway, or dromos , leading to the area of the burial. Kurgans of the Tasmola culture have been carbon-dated, and range from 894–790 cal BC (kurgan 8 of the Karashoky cemetery) for the earliest, to 509–377 cal BC (kurgan 3 of the Taisoigan cemetery) for the latest. Later kurgans belong to the Korgantas culture . Circa 600 BCE, groups from the Tasmola culture are thought to have settled in

390-952: A geopolitical concept that became known as the Eastern Bloc . This consisted of: With the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, the political landscape of the Eastern Bloc , and indeed the world, changed. In the German reunification , the Federal Republic of Germany peacefully absorbed the German Democratic Republic in 1990. In 1991, COMECON , the Warsaw Pact , and the Soviet Union were dissolved. Many European nations that had been part of

468-517: A gradualist manner, backed by the Soviets in many, but not all, cases. For a while, cooperative non-Communist parties were tolerated. The Communist governments nationalized private businesses, placing them under state ownership, and monitored the media and churches. When dividing up government offices with coalition partners, the Communists took control of the interior ministries, which controlled

546-434: A monopoly on managing and implementing a state's or federation's monetary policy. Besides monetary policy, some of them even perform the supervision of the financial intermediary system. In the case of a price stability function, the inflation rate, in the examined area, relatively quickly dropped to below 5% by 2000. In monetary policy the differences are based on the euro-zone: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia use

624-455: A relatively high standard of living . This period is also called the east-central European golden age of around 1600. At the beginning of the 17th century, numeracy levels in eastern Europe were relatively low, although regional differences existed. During the 18th century, the regions began to catch up with western Europe, but did not develop as rapidly. Areas with stronger female autonomy developed more quickly in terms of numeracy. Serfdom

702-489: A separate chapter deals with public finances. Generally, they soon encountered the following problems: high inflation, high unemployment, low economic growth, and high government debt. By 2000 these economies were stabilized, and between 2004 and 2013 all of them joined the European Union. Most of the constitutions define directly or indirectly the economic system of the countries parallel to the democratic transition of

780-571: Is a subregion of the European continent . As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. Its eastern boundary is marked by the Ural Mountains , whilst its western boundary is defined in various ways. Most definitions include the countries of Belarus , Russia , Ukraine , Moldova , and Romania while less restrictive definitions may also include some or all of

858-565: Is a type of tumulus constructed over a grave, often characterized by containing a single human body along with grave vessels, weapons, and horses. Originally in use on the Pontic–Caspian steppe , kurgans spread into much of Central Asia and Eastern , Southeast , Western , and Northern Europe during the third millennium BC. The earliest kurgans date to the fourth millennium BC in the Caucasus , and some researchers associate these with

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936-536: Is nearly 44%, but the deviation is great because the lowest figure is close to 10% but the highest is 97%. The trend shows that the sovereign debt ratio to GDP in most countries has been rising. Only three countries are affected by high government debt: Croatia, Hungary and Slovenia (over 70% of the GDP), while Slovakia and Poland fulfill the Maastricht requirement but only 10% below the threshold. The contribution to cover

1014-572: Is not a strict determinant for Eastern Europe, where from Croatia to Poland and everywhere in between, the Latin alphabet is used. Greece's status as the cradle of Western civilization and an integral part of the Western world in the political, cultural and economic spheres has led to it being nearly always classified as belonging not to Eastern, but Southern or Western Europe. During the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth centuries, Eastern Europe enjoyed

1092-573: Is overwhelmingly Orthodox, but is very rarely included in "Eastern Europe", for a variety of reasons, the most prominent being that Greece's history, for the most part, was more influenced by Mediterranean cultures and dynamics. The fall of the Iron Curtain brought the end of the Cold War east–west division in Europe, but this geopolitical concept is sometimes still used for quick reference by

1170-593: Is predominantly Armenian Apostolic . The Eastern Orthodox Church has played a prominent role in the history and culture of Eastern and Southeastern Europe . To a lesser degree, forms of Eastern Protestantism and Eastern Catholicism have also been influential in Eastern Europe. Countries where Eastern Protestantism or Eastern Catholicism hold historical significance include Belarus, Croatia , Greece, Hungary , Lithuania , Poland , Romania, Russia, Slovakia , Slovenia and Ukraine. The schism refers to

1248-411: Is sometimes used for a more neutral grouping. Several definitions of Eastern Europe exist in the early 21st century, but they often lack precision and may be anachronistic. These definitions are debated across cultures and among experts, even political scientists , as the term has a wide range of geopolitical , geographical, cultural, and socioeconomic connotations. It has also been described as

1326-799: The Achaemenid Persian , Parthian , and Sassanid Persian Empires. Parts of the Balkans and some more northern areas were ruled by the Achaemenid Persians as well, including Thrace , Paeonia , Macedon , and most of the Black Sea coastal regions of Romania , Ukraine , and Russia . Owing to the rivalry between the Parthian Empire and Rome , and later between Byzantium and the Sassanid Persians ,

1404-738: The Balkans , the Baltic states , the Caucasus , and the Visegrád group . The region represents a significant part of European culture ; the main socio-cultural characteristics of Eastern Europe have historically been defined by the traditions of the East Slavs and Greeks , as well as by the influence of Eastern Christianity as it developed through the Eastern Roman Empire and the Ottoman Empire . Another definition

1482-611: The Central and Eastern European member states, including the Baltic states , that accessed in 2004 and after: in 2004 the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia, and the Slovak Republic; in 2007 Bulgaria, Romania; and in 2013 Croatia. The economic changes were in harmony with the constitutional reforms: constitutional provisions on public finances can be identified and, in some countries,

1560-687: The East–West Schism of 1054, significant parts of Eastern Europe developed cultural unity and resistance to Catholic Western and Central Europe within the framework of the Eastern Orthodox Church , Church Slavonic language and the Cyrillic alphabet . The earliest concept of Europe as a cultural sphere (instead of simply a geographic term) was formed by Alcuin of York during the Carolingian Renaissance of

1638-727: The European Parliament noted that Armenia and Georgia may enter the EU in the future. Georgia and Armenia are seeking EU membership, with Georgia also seeking NATO membership alongside. There are two de facto republics with limited recognition in the South Caucasus region that exist under the presence of Russian military. Both states participate in the Community for Democracy and Rights of Nations : Former republics with limited recognition: Some European republics of

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1716-830: The Indo-Europeans . Kurgans were built in the Eneolithic , Bronze , Iron , Antiquity , and Middle Ages , with ancient traditions still active in Southern Siberia and Central Asia. According to the Etymological dictionary of the Ukrainian language the word "kurhan" is borrowed directly from the "Polovtsian" language ( Kipchak , part of the Turkic languages ), and means: fortress, embankment, high grave. The word has two possible etymologies , either from

1794-475: The Mongolian epoch. Burial mounds are complex structures with internal chambers. Within the burial chamber at the heart of the kurgan, elite individuals were buried with grave goods and sacrificial offerings, sometimes including horses and chariots . The structures of the earlier Neolithic period from the fourth to the third millenniums BC, and Bronze Age until the first millennium BC, display continuity of

1872-747: The Nordic-Baltic Eight regional cooperation forum whereas Central European countries formed their own alliance called the Visegrád Group . The Northern Future Forum , the Nordic Investment Bank , the Nordic Battlegroup , the Nordic-Baltic Eight and the New Hanseatic League are other examples of Northern European cooperation that includes the three countries collectively referred to as

1950-632: The Old Turkic root qori- "to close, to block, to guard, to protect", or qur- "to build, to erect, furnish, or stur". According to Vasily Radlov it may be a cognate to qorγan , meaning "fortification, fortress, or a castle". The Russian noun, already attested in Old East Slavic , comes from an unidentified Turkic language. Kurgans are mounds of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Popularised by its use in Soviet archaeology ,

2028-588: The Pazyryk culture is included in the Golden Mountains of Altai UNESCO World Heritage Site . Scytho-Siberian classification includes monuments from the eighth to the third century BC. This period is called the Early or Ancient Nomads epoch. " Hunnic " monuments date from the third century BC to the sixth century AD, and Turkic ones from the sixth century AD to the thirteenth century AD, leading up to

2106-672: The Scythians are the great burial mounds, some more than 20 m high, which dot the Ukrainian and Russian steppe belts and extend in great chains for many kilometers along ridges and watersheds. From them much has been learnt about Scythian life and art. Some excavated kurgans include: Kurgan building has a long history in Poland. The Polish word for kurgan is kopiec or kurhan . Some excavated kurgans in Poland: Eastern Europe Eastern Europe

2184-738: The Scytho-Siberian world ( Saka ) monuments. Scytho-Siberian monuments have common features and sometimes, common genetic roots. Also associated with these spectacular burial mounds are the Pazyryk , an ancient people who lived in the Altai Mountains that lay in Siberian Russia on the Ukok Plateau , near the borders with China, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia. The archaeological site on the Ukok Plateau associated with

2262-406: The 1920s, but all of them (except Czechoslovakia and Finland) gave up democracy during the depression years of the 1930s, in favor of autocratic, strong-man or single-party states. The new states were unable to form stable military alliances, and one by one were too weak to stand up against Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union, which took them over between 1938 and 1945. Russia ended its participation in

2340-408: The 1990s: free-market economy (sometimes complemented with the socially [and ecologically] oriented sector), economic development, or only economic rights are included as a ground for the economy. In the case of fiscal policy, the legislative, the executive and other state organs (Budget Council, Economic and Social Council) define and manage the budgeting. The average government debt in the countries

2418-734: The 5th century, marking the start of the Early Middle Ages . By contrast, the Eastern Roman Empire—the Byzantine Empire —had a survival strategy that kept it alive for another 1,000 years. The rise of the Frankish Empire in the west, and in particular the Great Schism that formally divided Eastern and Western Christianity in 1054, heightened the cultural and religious distinctiveness between Eastern and Western Europe. Much of Eastern Europe

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2496-532: The 9th century, limited to the territories that practised Western Christianity at the time. "European" as a cultural term did not include many of the territories under the influence of Eastern Christianity until the early nineteenth century. A large section of Eastern Europe is formed by countries with dominant Orthodox churches, like Belarus , Bulgaria , Cyprus , Georgia , Greece , Moldova , Montenegro , North Macedonia , Romania , Russia , Serbia , and Ukraine , for instance, as well as Armenia , which

2574-742: The Baltic states. The South Caucasus nations of Armenia , Azerbaijan , and Georgia are included in definitions or histories of Eastern Europe. They are located in the transition zone of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. They participate in the European Union 's Eastern Partnership program, the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly , and are members of the Council of Europe , which specifies that all three have political and cultural connections to Europe. In January 2002,

2652-487: The Bronze Age, kurgans were built with stone reinforcements. Some of them are believed to be Scythian burials with built-up soil and embankments reinforced with stone (Olhovsky, 1991). Pre-Scytho-Sibirian kurgans were surface kurgans. Wooden or stone tombs were constructed on the surface or underground and then covered with a kurgan. The kurgan tombs of Bronze culture across Europe and Asia were similar in construction to

2730-616: The Caucasus and west of the Urals. Introduced by Marija Gimbutas in 1956, it combines kurgan archaeology with linguistics to locate the origins of the peoples who spoke the Proto-Indo-European language . She tentatively named the culture "Kurgan" after its distinctive burial mounds and traced its diffusion into Europe. The hypothesis has had a significant effect upon Indo-European studies . Scholars who follow Gimbutas identify

2808-567: The Cold War Era. The following countries are labelled Southeast European by some commentators, though others still consider them to be Eastern European. Partially recognized states : Despite being frequently classified as a Central Asian country, about 4% of Kazakhstan 's territory, situated west of the Ural River , geographically lies in Eastern Europe, thus technically making it a transcontinental country . Ancient kingdoms of

2886-663: The Early Iron Age have grandiose mounds throughout the Eurasian continent. In the eastern Manych steppes and Kuban – Azov steppes during the Yamna culture, a near-equal ratio of female-to-male graves was found among kurgans. In the lower and middle Volga river region during the Yamna and Poltavka cultures , females were buried in about 20% of graves and two thousand years later, women dressed as warriors were buried in

2964-753: The First World War in March 1918 and lost territory, as the Baltic countries and Poland became independent. The region was the main battlefield in the Second World War (1939–45), with German and Soviet armies sweeping back and forth, with millions of Jews and others killed by the Nazis in the Generalplan Ost , and millions of others killed by disease, starvation, and military action, or executed after being deemed as politically dangerous. During

3042-640: The First World War was the breakup of the Russian, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman empires, as well as partial losses to the German Empire. A surge of ethnic nationalism created a series of new states in Eastern Europe, validated by the Versailles Treaty of 1919 . Poland was reconstituted after the partitions of the 1790s had divided it between Germany, Austria, and Russia. New countries included Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine (which

3120-684: The Neolithic Devil's Gate Cave specimen, suggesting them to be recent migrants from further East. The same additional Eastern ancestry is found among the later groups of Huns (Hun Berel 300CE, Hun elite 350CE), and the Karakaba remains (830CE). Kurgan Pontic Steppe Caucasus East Asia Eastern Europe Northern Europe Pontic Steppe Northern/Eastern Steppe Europe South Asia Steppe Europe Caucasus India Indo-Aryans Iranians East Asia Europe East Asia Europe Indo-Aryan Iranian Indo-Aryan Iranian Others European A kurgan

3198-431: The Parthians would invade the region several times, although it was never able to hold the area, unlike the Sassanids who controlled most of the Caucasus during their entire rule. The earliest known distinctions between east and west in Europe originate in the history of the Roman Republic . As the Roman domain expanded, a cultural and linguistic division appeared. The mainly Greek-speaking eastern provinces had formed

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3276-486: The Soviet Union declared or regained their independence ( Belarus , Moldova , Ukraine , as well as the Baltic States of Latvia , Lithuania , and Estonia ). Czechoslovakia peacefully separated into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993. Many countries of this region joined the European Union , namely Bulgaria , the Czech Republic , Croatia , Estonia, Hungary , Latvia, Lithuania, Poland , Romania , Slovakia and Slovenia . The term "EU11 countries" refer to

3354-402: The Soviet army. It included the German Democratic Republic (also known as East Germany), formed by the Soviet occupation zone of Germany. All the countries in Eastern Europe adopted communist modes of control by 1948. These countries were officially independent of the Soviet Union, but the practical extent of this independence was quite limited. Yugoslavia and Albania had Communist control that

3432-411: The Tasmola culture. The three samples of Y-DNA extracted belonged to the haplogroups R1 (two samples) and E . The eight samples of mtDNA extracted belonged to C4a1a , F1b1 , A , H101 , C4d , U2e , H10 and U7a4 . The Sakas of the central steppe were determined to be of about 56% Western Steppe Herder (WSH) ancestry and 44% southern Siberian hunter-gatherer ancestry. Hunter-gatherer ancestry

3510-442: The abolition of serfdom in Russia in 1861. Emancipation meant that the ex-serfs paid for their freedom with annual cash payments to their former masters for decades. The system varied widely country by country, and was not as standardized as in Western Europe. Historians, until the 20th century, focused on master-serf economic and labor relations, portraying the serfs as slave-like, passive, and isolated. 20th century scholars downplayed

3588-434: The archaic forming methods. They were inspired by common ritual- mythological concepts. In all periods, the development of the kurgan structure tradition in the various ethnocultural zones is revealed by common components or typical features in the construction of the monuments. They include: Depending on the combination of these elements, each historical and cultural nomadic zone has certain architectural distinctions. In

3666-446: The candidate countries Albania, North Macedonia and Serbia as Central and Eastern European . UNESCO , EuroVoc , National Geographic Society , Committee for International Cooperation in National Research in Demography , and the STW Thesaurus for Economics place the Baltic states in Northern Europe , whereas the CIA World Factbook places the region in Eastern Europe with a strong assimilation to Northern Europe . They are members of

3744-487: The common currency. The economies of this decade – similar to the previous one – show a moderate inflation. As a new phenomenon, a slight negative inflation (deflation) appeared in this decade in several countries (Croatia, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia), which demonstrates sensitivity regarding international developments. The majority of the constitutions determine the national currency, legal tender or monetary unit. The local currency exchange rate to

3822-503: The cultures of Yenisei , Altai , Kazakhstan , southern, and southeast Amur regions. Some kurgans had facing or tiling. One tomb in Ukraine has 29 large limestone slabs set on end in a circle underground. They were decorated with carved geometrical ornamentation of rhombuses , triangles , crosses , and on one slab, figures of people. Another example has an earthen kurgan under a wooden cone of thick logs topped by an ornamented cornice up to 2 m in height. The Scytho-Siberian kurgans in

3900-400: The eastern geographical boundaries of Europe are well defined, the boundary between Eastern and Western Europe is not geographical but historical, religious and cultural, and is harder to designate. The Ural Mountains , Ural River , and the Caucasus Mountains are the geographical land border of the eastern edge of Europe. E.g. Kazakhstan , which is mainly located in Central Asia with

3978-558: The establishment of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in 1596. However, the concept of Eastern Catholicism itself predates this. Since the Great Schism of 1054, Europe has been divided between Catholic (and later additionally Protestant ) churches in the West, and the Eastern Orthodox Christian (often incorrectly labelled "Greek Orthodox") churches in the east. Due to this religious cleavage, Eastern Orthodox countries are often associated with Eastern Europe. A cleavage of this sort is, however, often problematic; for example, Greece

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4056-433: The evils and emphasize the complexities. Before 1870, the industrialization that had started to develop in Northwestern and Central Europe and the United States did not extend in any significant way to the rest of the world. Even in Eastern Europe, industrialization lagged far behind. Russia , for example, remained largely rural and agricultural, and its autocratic rulers kept the peasants in serfdom. A major result of

4134-450: The fall of the Berlin Wall, continued to feel a moral duty to support states that have not been "liberated from the tyranny of capitalism". This shared duty collapsed when most of the former Soviet satellites abandoned socialism and adopted capitalism. EuroVoc , a multilingual thesaurus maintained by the Publications Office of the European Union , classifies Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia, plus

4212-479: The final stages of World War II the future of Eastern Europe was decided by the overwhelming power of the Soviet Red Army, as it swept the Germans aside. It did not reach Yugoslavia and Albania, however. Finland was free but forced to be neutral in the upcoming Cold War. Throughout Eastern Europe, German-speaking populations were expelled to the reduced borders of Germany in one of the largest ethnic cleansing operations in history. Regions where Germans had formed

4290-473: The finances for common needs is declared, the principle of just tax burden-sharing is supplemented sometimes with special aspects. Tax revenues expose typically 15–19 % of the GDP, and rates above 20% only rarely can be found. The state audit of the government budget and expenditures is an essential control element in public finances and an important part of the concept of checks and balances. The central banks are independent state institutions, which possess

4368-834: The former Soviet Union are considered a part of Eastern Europe: Unrecognized states : The term "Central Europe" is often used by historians to designate states formerly belonging to the Holy Roman Empire , the Habsburg Empire , and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth . In some media, "Central Europe" can thus partially overlap with "Eastern Europe" of the Cold War Era. The following countries are labelled Central European by some commentators, though others still consider them to be Eastern European. Some countries in Southeast Europe can be considered part of Eastern Europe. Some of them can sometimes, albeit rarely, be characterized as belonging to Southern Europe , and some may also be included in Central Europe . In some media, "Southeast Europe" can thus partially overlap with "Eastern Europe" of

4446-464: The geopolitical impact of the "iron curtain": From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe: Warsaw , Berlin , Prague , Vienna , Budapest , Belgrade , Bucharest , and Sofia . Eastern Europe after 1945 usually meant all the European countries liberated from Nazi Germany and then occupied by

4524-413: The highly urbanized Hellenistic civilization . In contrast, the western territories largely adopted the Latin language . This cultural and linguistic division was eventually reinforced by the later political east–west division of the Roman Empire . The division between these two spheres deepened during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages due to a number of events. The Western Roman Empire collapsed in

4602-426: The historical break of communion and theology between the Eastern (Orthodox) and Western (Catholic) churches. Later developments meant that the divide was no longer solely between Catholic and Orthodox churches. From the 16th century, both Western and Eastern forms of Protestantism began to emerge in Europe. Additionally, Eastern Catholic Churches began to spread in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries, following

4680-443: The increased role played by the rulers of Bohemia and Poland . The conquest of the Byzantine Empire , center of the Eastern Orthodox Church , by the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century, and the gradual fragmentation of the Holy Roman Empire (which had replaced the Frankish empire) led to a change of the importance of Catholic / Protestant vs. Eastern Orthodox concept in Europe. Armour points out that Cyrillic -alphabet use

4758-407: The local majority, creating upheaval regarding demands of self-determination. Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania likewise were independent. Many of the countries were still largely rural, with little industry and only a few urban centres. Nationalism was the dominant force but most of the countries had ethnic or religious minorities who felt threatened by majority elements. Nearly all became democratic in

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4836-570: The local police. They also took control of the mass media, especially radio, as well as the education system. They confiscated and redistributed farmland, and seized control of or replaced the organizations of civil society, such as church groups, sports, youth groups, trade unions, farmers' organizations, and civic organizations. In some countries, they engaged in large-scale ethnic cleansing, moving ethnic groups such as Germans, Poles, Ukrainians and Hungarians far away from where they previously lived, often with high loss of life, to relocate them within

4914-533: The local population majority were re-settled with Polish- or Czech-speakers. The region fell to Soviet control and Communist governments were imposed. Yugoslavia, Albania (and later Romania) had their own Communist regimes independent of Moscow. The Eastern Bloc at the onset of the Cold War in 1947 was far behind the Western European countries in economic rebuilding and economic progress. Winston Churchill, in his well-known "Sinews of Peace" address of 5 March 1946, at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri , stressed

4992-489: The media. Another definition was used during the 40 years of Cold War between 1947 and 1989, and was more or less synonymous with the terms Eastern Bloc and Warsaw Pact . A similar definition names the formerly communist European states outside the Soviet Union as Eastern Europe. Historians and social scientists generally view such definitions as outdated or relegated. Many former Communist states in this region, although their formal alliances were severed by

5070-486: The methods of house construction in the culture. Kurgan Ak-su - Aüly (twelfth–eleventh centuries BC) with a tomb covered by a pyramidal timber roof under a kurgan has space surrounded by double walls serving as a bypass corridor. This design has analogies with Begazy, Sanguyr, Begasar, and Dandybay kurgans. These building traditions survived into the early Middle Ages, to the eighth–tenth centuries AD. The Bronze Pre-Scytho-Sibirian culture developed in close similarity with

5148-435: The most western parts of it located west of the Ural River , also shares a part of Eastern Europe. In the west, however, the historical and cultural boundaries of "Eastern Europe" are subject to some overlap and, most importantly, have undergone historical fluctuations, which makes a precise definition of the western geographic boundaries of Eastern Europe and the geographical midpoint of Europe somewhat difficult. After

5226-401: The new post-war borders of their respective countries. Under Stalin's direct instructions, these nations rejected grants from the American Marshall Plan . Instead, they joined the Molotov Plan , which later evolved into the Comecon (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance) . When NATO was created in 1949, most countries of Eastern Europe became members of the opposing Warsaw Pact , forming

5304-443: The region included Orontid Armenia , Caucasian Albania , Colchis and Iberia (not to be confused with the Iberian Peninsula in Western Europe ), of which the former two were the predecessor states of Armenia and Azerbaijan respectively, while the latter two were the predecessor states of modern-day Georgia . These peripheral kingdoms were, either from the start or later on, incorporated into various Iranian empires, including

5382-416: The same region. David Anthony notes, "About 20% of Scythian – Sarmatian 'warrior graves' on the lower Don and lower Volga contained females dressed for battle... a phenomenon that probably inspired the Greek tales about the Amazons ." In Ukraine, the ratio was intermediate between the other two regions, therefore approximately 35% were women. The most obvious archeological remains associated with

5460-439: The southern Urals, where they contributed to the development of the Sauromatian culture . Characteristic finds are bronze arrowheads, daggers and belt ornaments. The bronze and golden wares show influences from the preceding Begazy–Dandybai culture . A genetic study published in Nature in May 2018 examined the remains of eight Sakas buried on the central steppe between ca. 900 BC and 500 BC, most of whom were ascribed to

5538-407: The third millennium BC. Later, Kurgan barrows became characteristic of Bronze Age peoples, and have been found from Ukraine, Belarus, Bulgaria ( Thracians , Getae , etc.), and Romania (Getae, Dacians ), the Caucasus , Russia, to Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and the Altay Mountains . The Kurgan hypothesis is that Proto-Indo-Europeans were the bearers of the Kurgan culture of the Black Sea and

5616-439: The word is now widely used for tumuli in the context of Eastern European and Central Asian archaeology. Some sceptre graves could have been covered with a tumulus, placing the first kurgans as early as the fifth millennium BC in eastern Europe. However, this hypothesis is not accepted unanimously. Kurgans were used in Ukrainian and Russian steppes, their use spreading with migration into southern, central, and northern Europe in

5694-654: Was soon absorbed by the Soviet Union), Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. Austria and Hungary had much-reduced boundaries. The new states included sizeable ethnic minorities, which were to be protected according to the League of Nations minority protection regime. Throughout Eastern Europe, ethnic Germans constituted by far the largest single ethnic minority. In some areas, as in the Sudetenland , regions of Poland , and in parts of Slovenia , German speakers constituted

5772-544: Was a prevalent status of agricultural workers until the 19th century. It resembled slavery in terms of lack of freedom, with the distinction that the landowners could not buy and sell serfs separately from the specific plots of land that they were permanently attached to. The system emerged in the 14th and 15th century, the same time it was declining in Western Europe. The climax came in the 17th and 18th century. The early 19th century saw its decline, marked especially by

5850-542: Was created by the Cold War , as Europe was ideologically divided by the Iron Curtain , with "Eastern Europe" being synonymous with communist states constituting the Eastern Bloc under the influence of the Soviet Union . The term is sometimes considered to be pejorative, through stereotypes about Eastern Europe being inferior (poorer, less developed) to Western Europe ; the term Central and Eastern Europe

5928-689: Was independent of the Kremlin. The communists had a natural reservoir of popularity in that they had destroyed the Nazi invaders. Their goal was to guarantee long-term working-class solidarity. The Soviet secret police, the NKVD , working in collaboration with local communists, created secret police forces using leadership trained in Moscow. This new secret police arrived to arrest political enemies according to prepared lists. The national Communists then took power in

6006-549: Was invaded and occupied by the Mongols . During the Ostsiedlung , towns founded under Magdeburg rights became centers of economic development and scattered German settlements were founded in parts of Eastern Europe. Introduction of German town law is often seen as a second great step after introduction of Christianity at the turn of the first and second millennia. The ensuing modernization of society and economy allowed

6084-856: Was primarily paternal. They displayed a higher amount of southern Siberian hunter-gatherer admixture than other peoples of the Scythian cultures , including other Sakas. It was suggested that the Sakas of the central steppe were a major source of western Eurasian ancestry among the Xiongnu , and that the Huns emerged through the conquest of Sakas by the Xiongnu. Another study from 2021 modeled them as roughly 50% Khövsgöl LBA , 45% WSH, and 5% BMAC -like, with three outlier sample ("Tasmola Birlik") displaying c. 70% additional Ancient Northeast Asian ancestry represented by

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