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Historical Regions in the Structures of European Union

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Historical Regions in the Structures of European Union UNIVERSITY OF ŁÓDŹ Department of Political Geography and Regional Studies GOVERNMENTAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE Silesian Institute in Opole SILESIAN INSTITUTE SOCIETY POLISH GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY HISTORICAL REGIONS IN THE STRUCTURES OF EUROPEAN UNION General issues and policy of European Union towards historical regions REGION AND REGIONALISM No. 10 vol. 1 edited by Marek Sobczyński and Andrzej Rykała Łódź–Opole 2011 CONTENTS Foreword (Marek SOBCZY ŃSKI and Andrzej RYKAŁA) .................................. 5 Section I 9 GENERAL ISSUES Gideon BIGER On nations and international boundaries ................................................................ 11 Magdalena DEPTUŁA “Europe of Regions” – the discourse on the future of Europe ............................... 15 Alessandro VITALE The re-emergence of historical regions, cities and enclaves in Europe vs. the EU’s integration concepts, processes and reality .............................................. 29 Roman SZUL Charismatic personalities of mixed ethno-cultural background and their role in national movements in Central-Eastern Europe ..................................................... 43 Section II HISTORICAL REGIONS IN WESTERN MEMBER STATES OF THE EUROPEAN UNION 67 Ryszard ŻELICHOWSKI Crises in the Brussels-Capital Region. Will Belgium survive 2011? ..................... 69 Marek SOBCZY ŃSKI Historical region of Luxembourg in the structures of European Union ................. 85 Joanna SZCZEPANKIEWICZ-BATTEK Lusatia as a subject of historical geography research ............................................ 103 Section III HISTORICAL REGIONS IN ALPEN-ADRIA REGION 115 Jernej ZUPAN ČIČ Geopolitics or geochessistics: historical regions in the Balkans between small and big players. A critical analysis ......................................................................... 117 Antonio VIOLANTE Perast, historical border town between Venice and the Slavic world ................... 129 Sandra GLADANAC Kosovo’s cultural heritage: unbearable weight or fundaments to build on? .......... 145 No 10 FOREWORD The previous, ninth tome of Region and Regionalism , released in 2009, was entirely related to the issue of historical regions. It spurred an ongoing discussion among the political geographers, which led to the conclusion that the topic should be continued in the following tome of R&R. That is why the present tome has been also dedicated to the issue of historical regions, focusing mainly on Historical regions in the structures of European Union. A large number of articles, as well as the wide spectrum of their topics, resulted in tome 10, being divided into 2 volumes (it has also been a common practice in case of the previous four editions of the Region and Regionalism series since 2003). Volume 1, titled General problems and policy of European Union towards historical regions, is mainly related to general issues of historical regions, functioning within the EU and its policy towards the historical regions. The presented tome is a result of the cooperation between the authors, mainly political geographers from Italy, Israel, Poland and Slovenia. The tome begins with the part titled General issues , dedicated to the issues of historical regions’ functioning within the state structures. The first article in this part is Gideon Biger’s On nations and interna- tional boundaries , dedicated to the tendency of nations’ distinguishing them- selves with international borders but at the same time nations being born within the arbitrarily established state borders. In the next article “Europe of regions” – the discourse on the future of Europe , Magdalena Deptuła con- centrates on the issue of the Europe of regions as one of the main paradigms of the EU’s regional policy, as opposed to the Europe of motherlands or Europe of states paradigm, in the perspective of the future EU policy. The following paper, written by Alessandro Vitale, The re-emergence of histori- cal regions, cities and enclaves in Europe vs. the EU’s integration concepts, processes and reality, is dedicated to the process of recreating historical 6 Foreword regions and enclaves within the EU space. The first part of volume 1 is concluded with Roman Szul’s article Charismatic personalities of mixed ethno-cultural background and their role in national movements in Central- -Eastern Europe , which addresses the key historical characters of mixed ethnical origin, who contributed to the development of national movements in Central and Eastern Europe. Part two of volume 1 contains elaborations on the policy of the Western EU member states towards the historical regions ( Historical regions in Western member states of the European Union ). It begins with an article by Ryszard Żelichowski, titled Crises in the Brussels-Capital Region. Will Belgium survive 2011?, dedicated to the current political situation in Belgium, where a world record on the “lack of government period” has just been beaten. It results mainly from the conflict on the border of the autonomic regions in the so-called Brussels-Halle- -Vilvoorde (BHV) area. The second article in this part of the present tome is written by Marek Sobczy ński and is related to Historical region of Luxem- bourg in the structures of EU . It is a case study of Luxembourg, as both state and, in a wider territorial sense, a historical region. This chapter is concluded with Joanna Szczepankiewicz-Battek’s article on Lustatia as a subject of historical geography research . The last, third part of volume 1 is titled Historical regions in Alpen-Adria Region . A significant share of this topic in the Region and Regionalism series results from the fact that Department of Political Geography and Regional Studies of the University of Łód ź is participating in the Upper Adriatic Geographers’ Forum, which resulted in establishing contacts with political geographers from Italy, Slovenia, Austria and the Balkans, who actively contribute to the R&R series. The first article in this part is the elaboration by Jernej Zupan čič, titled Geopolitics or geochessistics: The historical borders of the Balkans between small and big players. A critical analysis. The author presents an interesting analysis of geopolitics and “geo-chess game” (“geochessistics”) played by the superpowers in the Balkans. The next article, by Antonio Violante, is dedicated to the historical role of the town of Perast in Montenegro, as a transition zone between the Slavic and Venetian civilisations ( Perast, historical frontier town between Venice and the Slavic world). The tome is concluded with Sandra Gladanac’s work, titled Kosovo’s cultural heritage: unbearable weight or fundaments to build on?, where the author deals with a very up-to-date issue of Kosovo’s cultural heritage and the future of this geopolitical unit. Foreword 7 The editors hope that the articles, gathered in this tome, will broaden the knowledge on historical regions and their functioning within the political- administrative structures of the modern world and above all, within the member states of European Union, and will become an inspiration for further investigation and research of this phenomenon. Marek Sobczy ński and Andrzej Rykała Department of Political Geography and Regional Studies, University of Łód ź 8 Foreword Section I GENERAL ISSUES Gideon BIGER Department of Geography and Human Environment Tel Aviv University, ISRAEL No 10 ON NATIONS AND INTERNATIONAL BOUNDARIES 1. INTRODUTION Our world today is divided between more than 200 different independent countries and the numbers seem to continue to grow ( The World ..., 2010). Much of the new independent states, which were formed during the last decades, were formed according to national criteria. Thus, united, multina- tional Yugoslavia became six or seven (the independence of Kosovo is still under debate) independent states, not to mention sixteen new national states, which emerged out of the former Soviet Union. The creation of Czech Republic and Slovakia as well as East Timor, was also based on the national criteria. Moreover, the revival of ethnic nationalism with many people fighting for political freedom and territorial integrity on the basis of ethnic identity and solidarity can create more independent states in the future. On the other hand, there are many independent states, which are not based on national or ethnic criteria, such as Canada, South Africa or even Belgium. The European Union as a multinational entity, as well as the worldwide discussion about “borderless world” might point to another direction, in which the national identity would not be a major character of a state. There is no single definition of what constitutes people, nation or ethnic group. The Encyclopedia of the peoples of the world (Gonen, 1993) used some criteria for definition, either alone or in combination: common history; distinct language, shared traditions, religion, or folklore; common identity maintai- ned in the face of strong pressures to assimilate; self-designation and territo- rial concentration. There are about 2000 entries, dealing with different people presented in this encyclopaedia as compared with less than about 150 nation states. This raises a question – who is entitled to have an independent state? 12 Gideon Biger The aim of this presentation is to deal with the overall pattern of the nation states versus the non-nation states in a global view, especially with the relations between nations, boundaries and states. 2. NATION STATES VERSUS MULTINATIONAL STATES The majority of independent states of
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