UNIVERSITY OF ŁÓDŹ Department of Political Geography and Regional Studies GOVERNMENTAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE Silesian Institute in Opole SILESIAN INSTITUTE SOCIETY GEOGRAPHICAL-POLITICAL ASPECTS OF THE TRANSBORDER CONSERVATION OF NATURAL AND CULTURAL HERITAGE Borderlands and contemporary changes of the politics in border regions REGION AND REGIONALISM No. 12 vol. 1 edited by Marek Sobczyński and Andrzej Rykała Łódź–Opole 2015 REVIEWER prof. dr hab. Stanisław Koziarski prof. dr hab. Tadeusz Marszał MANAGING EDITOR Anna Araszkiewicz COVER Marek Jastrzębski MAPS AND FIGURES Anna Wosiak ENGLISH VERIFICATION BY Jarosław Sawiuk The publication co-financed from founds of the Faculty of Geographical Sciences of Łódź University ISBN 978-83-7126-311-8 PAŃSTWOWY INSTYTUT NAUKOWY – INSTYTUT ŚLĄSKI W OPOLU In memory of prof. Mariusz Kulesza, Head of the Department of Political Geography and Regional Studies, University of Lodz, who died prematurely on August 6, 2014 – a wonderful, unforgettable colleague and author of numerous articles published in various volumes of Region and Regionalism CONTENTS Foreword (Marek SOBCZYŃSKI and Andrzej RYKAŁA) .................................... 7 Pro memoria ............................................................................................................. 11 Section I INTEGRATION VS PERIPHERALITY – CHANGES IN BORDER REGIONS 17 Andrea USZKAI Social and economic relationships in the history of the Central-European region .. 19 Boštjan ROGELJ Western Balkans and the European Union enlargement process ............................. 41 Tomasz WISKULSKI Integration of the Southern Dalmatia. The case study of the Herzegovina-Neretva canton ....................................................................................................................... 59 Section II CONTEMPORARY CHANGES IN BORDER REGIONS – NEW CHALLENGES FOR POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY 69 Roman SZUL Border language politics and international politics (with special reference to Europe since the nineteenth century) ................................................................... 71 Ryszard ŻELICHOWSKI Language borders in the heart of the European Union: the case of Belgium ........... 91 Alessandro VITALE Borders, ethno-national tensions, and minorities – the case of the border between the Baltic states and Russia ...................................................................................... 115 Tamás HARDI and Andrea MIKLÓSNÉ ZAKAR Changes in regional approach in Romania – some results of a mental map research ..................................................................................................................... 127 Delia BAR-KOŁELIS and Łukasz DOPIERAŁA The impact of political relations on cross-border shopping tourism. A case study from Poland .............................................................................................................. 141 Jernej ZUPANČIČ Disputed and transformed: recent changes in the Slovenian-Croatian border landscape .................................................................................................................. 151 Section III HERITAGE OF BORDERS AND BORDERLANDS IN GLOBALISED WORLD 161 Jan KŁOS On the nature of borders in the context of Józef Tischner's philosophy ................. 163 Katarzyna LEŚNIEWSKA and Marek BARWIŃSKI Polish heritage in the multicultural borderland – the case of Vilnius Region ........ 179 Marek SOBCZYŃSKI The formation of the political boundary in the Karkonosze Mountains ................. 193 Tomasz FIGLUS The cultural heritage of rural settlement in Polish Orava ....................................... 207 Łukasz MUSIAKA Medieval heritage of small towns in the State of the Teutonic Order in the register of monuments .................................................................................. 219 No. 12 FOREWORD Poland's accession to the Schengen Agreement, along with eight other coun- tries, mainly from Central Europe, resulted in the abolition of controls at na- tional borders on December 21, 2007 and gave a new impulse to widespread transborder cooperation, both on state and region level. New possibilities for transborder protection of natural and cultural heritage also emerged. Up until now, international environmental and cultural protection has been tackled in literature mostly on state and institutional level. The activities of international institutions specialising in protecting the natural and cultural heritage have been analysed especially closely. The topic has been much less frequently discussed in the context of bilateral activities between specific neighbouring countries and only sporadically as part of joint research and dis- cussions by scientists from such countries. This volume aims to fill these gaps. Particular emphasis has been placed on the issues of protection of cultural heritage in the context of cross-border cooperation, which is reflected in the collective title of the two volumes of Region and Regionalism No. 12 – Geo- graphical-political aspects of the transborder conservation of natural and cul- tural heritage. The issue of conservation of cultural heritage was the object of research interests of prof. Mariusz Kulesza, who died prematurely on August 6, 2014, Head of the Department of Political Geography and Regional Studies, University of Lodz, the author of numerous articles published in various volu- mes of Region and Regionalism, whose memory this volume is dedicated to. To commemorate him and his research achievements, this volume opens with a short scientific biography of prof. Mariusz Kulesza, penned by Marek Sobczyński. Volume 1 of Region and Regionalism No. 12, edited by Marek Sobczyński and Andrzej Rykała, is devoted to Borderlands and contemporary changes of the politics in border regions. The papers collected in this volume have been grouped into three thematic chapters. 8 Foreword The first chapter of this volume discusses the problem of Integration vs peripherality – changes in border regions. It opens with a paper by Andrea Uszkai from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Pécs (Hungary) entitled Social and economic relationships in the history of the Central-European region. The author focuses on the area of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, once referred to as Centrope, which was characterised by highly dynamic economy linked to the central hub of Vienna. Today, this space is a cross-border urban area, and its role in the global and regional economic dimension is steadily growing. In the next article, entitled Western Balkans and the European Union en- largement process, Boštjan Rogelj from the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia) discusses the European Union's policy with regard to enlargement of this organisation in the Western Balkans in the context of global aspirations of the Union. The author argues that integration policy is linked to a broader context of global trends and in that it should be considered as such. The very timely question of European security is also not insignificant. Next article by Tomasz Wiskulski from the University of Gdańsk (Poland) entitled Integration of the Southern Dalmatia. The case study of the Herzego- vina-Neretva canton also refers to the Balkans and discusses the historical integration of the contiguous Dalmatian area inhabited by Croats on both sides of the Croatian-Bosnian border. The situation in this region has changed after the accession of Croatia to the EU, while Bosnia and Herzegovina remains outside this organisation. The second chapter of this volume is entitled Contemporary changes in border regions – new challenges for political geography. It begins with an article by Roman Szul from the University of Warsaw (Poland) discussing Border lan- guage politics and international politics. Border language politics is construed as the situation and politics of language in borderland areas. The author dis- cusses the subjective and objective factors such as: the issue of the spread of languages in the borderlands, self-definition of ethno-linguistic groups and their identification, ethnic and linguistic policies of state and regional authorities in relation to the population of borderlands, as well as cross-border relations between countries in the same aspect. The paper by Ryszard Żelichowski from the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw (Poland) entitled Language borders in the heart of the European Union: the case of Belgium discusses the complex issue of language policy of the government of Belgium and its regions, including its capital, in historical perspective, showing the complexity of the issues and historical entanglement, which strongly affect the current political situation of Belgian federal monarchy and its language policy. Foreword 9 Alessandro Vitale from the University of Milan (Italy) devotes his paper, Borders, ethno-national tensions, and minorities. The case of the border between the Baltic states and Russia to the specific situation in the Baltic Sea region, where political borders established unilaterally by the Soviet authorities differ- ently than during the first independence of the Baltic states, as well as a targeted policy of Russification by mass migration of Russian-speaking population have created a situation where political boundaries do not coincide with ethno-lin- guistic ones. The Russian minority in these Baltic states pose great social and political problems, and has become a threat to their existence in the current poli- tical situation in Eastern Europe. A. Vitale suggests that the creation