Conceptual and terminological history

Over the past 200 years, the concept of "Northeastern Europe" has undergone several significant revivals, albeit with relatively modest impact. A key conceptual and perceptual prerequisite was the very notion of an imagined Eastern Europe. In a seminal essay from 1985, East European historian Hans Lemberg (1933–2009) demonstrated how the ideas of "North" and "East" were radically redefined at the turn of the 18th to the 19th century.¹ Before this transformation, references to the "East" in a geographical and cultural sense typically pointed to the region known as the "Orient," encompassing Asia and North Africa. By contrast, the “North” covered not only Scandinavia but also areas increasingly subsumed under the term “Eastern Europe,” such as Russia, Poland, and even – in ways that seem hardly comprehensible today – the countries north of the Black Sea or the Balkan Peninsula. The forefather of modern historical research on Northern and Eastern Europe, August Ludwig von Schlözer (1735–1809), addressed in his Allgemeine nordische Geschichte (1771) not only Scandinavian and Slavic regions but also the Baltic countries, Finland, Hungary, Wallachia, Moldavia, Central Asia, and Siberia, as well as the settlements of the Samoyeds and Celts.² This broad concept of the North ultimately drew upon traditional ancient geography, which, in brief, referred to all lands north of Greece and the Roman Empire as the North (septentrionalia). Meanwhile, regions such as China, India, and Japan were classified as the East. Medieval scholars later adopted these sometimes conflicting geographical perspectives. There was, however, a distinct term for northeastern, non-Christian Europe: aquilo, which originally referred to the northeast wind (personified as a deity; cf. Greek Βορέας). This term encompassed regions such as Scandinavia, East Elbia, Poland, and the Baltic. Once these areas were partially or fully Christianized, they were reclassified as part of the “North.” In this context, the shift in terminology for the Baltic Sea is particularly notable. In ancient times, it was referred to as mare orientale (“eastern sea”), but during the Middle Ages, it gradually came to be known as oceanus septentrionalis ("northern ocean").³

Around 1800, the situation changed dramatically. Following the Napoleonic Wars, the Scandinavian empires were decisively weakened and shifted their focus to domestic politics. The inclusion of Norway and Finland added diversity to the concert of powers in the North, while Russia's expansion loomed more threateningly than ever toward the West. This reconfiguration of the state system led to the emergence of new geopolitical concepts. The Russian Empire was now categorized as part of the East – often in a pejorative sense – and effectively excluded from the traditional community of the North. At the same time, a diffusion space called "Northeastern Europe" emerged, marking the historical spheres of influence of the "North" (Scandinavian countries) and the "East" (Russian Empire). This term encompassed geographical, geopolitical, economic, cultural, and even "racial" notions of space. The French physiologist and anthropologist Louis-Antoine Desmoulins (1796–1828), for example, used it in 1826 to describe the settlement area of some of the "Indo-Europeans," whom he, together with "Finns" and "Turks", considered to be part of the "Scythian race". He defined Northeastern Europe as the geographical area northeast of the Rhine, the Alps, and the Danube, extending north of the Caspian Sea and reaching as far as Scandinavia. He named the neighboring areas the Orient and northern Asia.⁴

In the period that followed, "Northeastern Europe" emerged as a historiographical-discursive concept, initially with trade-political and later also with imperialist and geo-historical implications. In the German-speaking world, the Dorpat statistician Adolph Wagner (1835–1917) used the term to refer to an objectively existing geographical space.⁵ It should be noted that Wagner propagated German unification under Prussian leadership, was involved in German colonial affairs, and, among other things, was a member of the anti-Polish Ostmarkenverein. In this context, Northeastern Europe was both part of the German "cultural sphere" and a cultural outpost against Russia. It was also a geographical area that, in the eyes of the outspoken anti-Semite Wagner, was "disturbed" by Jews.

During the era of the "Kulturkampf"(culture war) and state church Protestantism after 1871, the term "Northeastern Europe" primarily signified a cultural distinction: between the Protestant, Germanic, enlightened-rational "North" (Germany, Scandinavia) and the Slavic, unenlightened-irrational, Catholic (Polish) or despotic-Orthodox (Russian) East. The space of diffusion and conflict in Northeastern Europe, where these two "civilizations" clashed, could thus – in the age of German colonialism – also be understood as a colonial battlefield and a place of religious and cultural missionary activity.⁶

Since the 1890s, the term "Northeastern Europe" had become a standard part of the vocabulary of German conservatives, particularly the Pan-Germans and the Ostmarkenverein. From there, it migrated into German conservative and politically engaged historiography and geography, especially in the context of geopolitical, geostrategic, and colonialist ideologies and projects. In the 20th century, it served as a rallying cry for a purported German historical mission in the "East" during the interwar period and into the 1970s. It also functioned as a geographical frame of reference for a German-speaking population in the northeast of the German Empire, intended to be instrumentalized as a "bulwark" against Russia, Pan-Slavism, and ultimately Bolshevism.⁷

In the 1970s, the German historian Klaus Zernack (1931–2017) was the first to attempt a redefinition of the historical region of Northeastern Europe in terms of space and time⁸ – specifically as part of a broader classification of regions within Eastern Europe: "Eastern Europe", "Eastern Central Europe", "Southeastern Europe", and "Northeastern Europe".⁹ This division aligned with the research and teaching priorities of Eastern European history at West German universities. There were even separate academic chairs with corresponding denominations for Eastern Europe, Central Eastern Europe, and Southeastern Europe. Northeastern Europe, however, was primarily represented in research and teaching by Zernack himself and a few of his colleagues, as there was no dedicated "professorship for Northeastern Europe". In Zernack's framework, the Northeastern European historical region was effectively synonymous with the Baltic region. He drew heavily on research from the interwar period,¹⁰ particularly the work of the German-Baltic-Danish historian Paul Johansen (1901–1965).¹¹ In terms of focus, his work emphasized the history of "powers" and international relations, with social, economic, cultural, and religious aspects receiving relatively little attention.

Undeterred by Zernack's reconceptualization, a conception persisted among historians in the 1970s and 1980s of Northeastern Europe centered on the Baltic Sea and its southern shores as core regions. This perspective served as a collective term for the "German Northeast" of the German Reich that was lost in 1945.¹² Zernack's definition gained significant attention only after the end of the Eastern Bloc and the Cold War. While in the 1990s many representatives of the middle and younger generation broadly adhered to Zernack's framework,¹³ slight modifications were introduced by Stefan Troebst (b. 1955) and the present author. Troebst proposed a geographically broader definition that included the outermost periphery of Scandinavia, Finland, and Russia – the so-called North Calotte.¹⁴ My own contribution argued for a narrower interpretation that also included North Carlotte but understood Northeastern Europe primarily as a zone of influence shaped by Russian, Swedish, and Danish ambitions in the Baltic Sea, and, in the 20th century, by German and Polish ambitions.¹⁵ In German and international scientific research after 1990, the term often appeared without thorough reflection or consistent geographical definition. This shift extended far beyond historiography, influencing fields such as law, Slavic studies, Finno-Ugric studies, Baltic studies, political science, and even tourism literature.¹⁶ In historiography, however, the term Ostseeraum gained prominence, experiencing a surge in the 1990s, partly driven by EU policies and institutional developments. The term "Northern Europe" was often used synonymously.¹⁷ In addition to German-language research, contributions from British, Finnish, Swedish, and Baltic scholars played a significant role in the historical discourse on Northeastern Europe.¹⁸ However, not all perspectives treated "Northeastern Europe" as a coherent historical-geographical entity. As a flexible "container term", it could denote a simple aggregation of national histories,¹⁹ a segmented history,²⁰ or – particularly in the case of the Baltic states – a national history contextualized by relations with neighboring countries.²¹ In the English-speaking world, the term "Northeastern Europe" faced particular challenges, as it partially overlapped with the traditional concept of "Northern Europe" and competed with it in usage.

After the end of the Cold War, transnational cooperation in the Baltic Sea region once again became both politically feasible and desirable, aiming to foster economic, political, and cultural collaboration. A key focus was cooperation between the EU and Russia, as reflected in the "Northern Dimension" strategic initiative, which sought to promote collaboration among EU member states bordering the Baltic Sea and Russia, as well as between the Scandinavian countries and the Baltic states. Historiography naturally accompanied these efforts, emphasizing research into "transnational history" and "cultural transfer" within the Baltic Sea region. These concepts had been present in earlier discussions of Northeastern Europe or the Baltic Sea region, though expressed in different terminology and with a stronger focus on international politics. The introduction of these new keywords, however, provided an important gateway to public funding for Baltic Sea research.

In the years following the EU accession of Sweden and Finland (both in 1995) and Poland and the Baltic states (all in 2004), scholarly debates on the concept of Northeastern Europe/Baltic Sea region gained momentum. This was partly because, since the "spatial turn" of the 1990s, spatial concepts have increasingly been viewed as cognitive maps and epistemological constructs rather than merely as tools for scientific categorization.²² Amid the interplay between politics and academia, it could be said that as representatives of politics, economics, society, and culture began to appropriate certain spatial concepts, the focus of debate shifted. Attention moved away from creating new categories to critiquing spatial categories as expressions of specific group interests. Scholars less invested in these politically influenced debates tended to adopt a more pragmatic approach. They were content to define the Northeastern Europe/Baltic Sea region hypothetically and to explore various fields of action that such a spatial framework might encompass.²³

If the majority of post-war historians identified Northeastern Europe with the Baltic Sea region, they typically did so by including Russia in the geo-historical conception of Northeastern Europe – unlike the historians of the 19th and first half of the 20th century. Northeastern Europe thus became a cultural, economic, and socio-historical area of diffusion, overlap, and conflict, where Swedish, Danish, German, Polish, Russian, but also Dutch and English interests converged. This happened especially in the area from the North Calotte to the Gulf of Finland, including Finland, Northern Russia, Karelia, Ingria, Estonia, Livonia, Courland– in the 20th century Latvia – and Lithuania. A narrower historiographical concept of Northeastern Europe, which places special emphasis on the aspect of the transition/diffusion zone between North and East – specifically between the Scandinavian countries and Russia – must therefore primarily discuss aspects that both integrate phenomena of the North and the East or bring them into conflict.²⁴

A Northeastern European time-space continuum?

The assumption of a historical model of "Northeastern Europe" requires a high degree of continuity and stability in the constitutive elements of this region. Historians often begin with the experience of the present and project it back into earlier epochs. This approach involves several logical steps. The historical space and its constitutive elements must be identifiable in analyses of the past across all periods; it is insufficient to simply make a "cut through time" and assess whether the constitutive elements are present at specific points. Instead, to establish a historical spatial continuum, every conceivable point in time must be examined for its spatial identity with the overarching concept. Furthermore, the analysis needs to consider the relativity of spatial definitions. The primary questions are: Is it possible to identify historical periods of relative similarity in spatial constitution? At what point does the degree of deviation from the spatial ideal type of "Northeastern Europe" render the definition of "Northeastern Europe" no longer applicable?

The temporal classification of Northeastern Europe, in turn, depends on which geographical spaces are included in the analysis. The following account is primarily based on the seven-stage sequence of epochs proposed by Zernack and Troebst.²⁵ The spatial reference, however, aligns with the narrower concept of a Northeastern European space of diffusion, influence, and conflict between Northern and Eastern Europe, as outlined above.

The Viking Age (ca. 800–1050)

The earliest period of Northeastern Europe, often known only through archaeological evidence, was shaped by the activities of Viking merchants and raiders.²⁶ Over approximately 250 years, they established suzerainty over smaller political units – clans, villages, and regional alliances – at the mouths of the Finnish and Baltic rivers and along the Volkhov and Don Rivers, reaching as far as Constantinople. Notably, the Vikings sailing eastward (Swedish: österled) integrated Northeastern Europe into the broader transportation and trade networks of the North and East simultaneously. It is important to mention that Viking raiding activities were not confined to Scandinavia but were also a regular aspect of life in the Finnish and Baltic regions.

Christianization, early monarchies and the emergence of the Hanseatic League (ca. 1050–1400)

The second epoch in chronological order is the first to be documented in written sources (mostly of ecclesiastical origin). From the west, starting with the Irish missionaries and later the Bishopric of Hamburg and Bremen and the Scandinavian kings, a process of Christianization took place in north-eastern Europe, and thus also in the former Viking territories, between the 10th and 13th centuries. This was sometimes gradual (monks, merchants) and sometimes violent and abrupt (crusaders). The Eastern Church largely abstained from active missionary work, but also secured a certain influence with the military expansion of the Novgorod Empire into Northeastern Europe (since the 11th century). In both northern and eastern Europe, power structures emerged that were fundamentally legitimized by the Christian Church. Against this backdrop, the invaders active in Northeastern Europe established political, social, economic, and religious-cultural systems modeled on the structures of their regions of origin. The western border south of this Baltic frontier was defined by the decisive defeat of the Livonian Brethren of the Sword by the Grand Duke of Lithuania in 1238. The eastern border took shape after several defeats of the Teutonic Order by Novgorodian armies, most notably in the famous Battle of Lake Peipsi (1242), which became the central part of the border region. Further north, the Peace of Nöteborg (1323) established the border between Sweden and Novgorod. This border extended from the Gulf of Finland directly north to Lake Saimaa and then faded out into the Sami settlement areas.²⁷ After the conquest period had ended, Northeastern Europe came under the rule of bishops of the Western Church, knightly orders, and, in the case of Finland, the Swedish crown. From the mid-12th century, the former Viking trade routes were increasingly dominated by Hanseatic merchants. The pre-Christian clan and village communities of Northeastern Europe were replaced by estate-based social orders. Novgorod played an increasingly minor role in this transformation. Although, after the disintegration of the Kievan Empire in the 12th century, it was able to maintain a large degree of independence – unlike other parts of the former Rus'. Its influence in foreign policy, however, remained limited to Karelia, Ingria, and the White Sea region. The occasional incursions into Livonian territory do little to alter this overall picture.

The age of unions and corporations (14th and 15th century)

Military and foreign policy pressure from the Holy Roman Empire and the Moscow Empire led to the unification of several monarchies in Northern and Eastern Europe during the 14th century. The Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania formed a (personal) union in 1385 through the "Union of Krewo", which underwent various modifications over time. Ultimately, in 1569, the two states merged into a single political entity through the (real) "Union of Lublin", achieving legal, cultural, and religious unification. Meanwhile, in 1397, the Danish crown succeeded in uniting the kingdoms of Denmark, Norway (including the Faroe Islands and Iceland), and Sweden under the Kalmar Union. The Hanseatic League, as an association of merchants and cities, also represented a form of union, though its focus was less on foreign policy resistance to the Holy Roman and Moscow Empires and more on achieving economic and legal objectives. The colonization of Old Livonia by German knights and bishops introduced German law and German socio-economic structures to the region, though it did not result in formal annexation by the Holy Roman Empire. Finland was integrated into Sweden's political, economic, social, and ecclesiastical systems, simultaneously serving as a buffer zone against Novgorodian incursions. In North Calotte, a fiscal condominium emerged between Scandinavian and Novgorodian rulers. Thus, Northeastern Europe was largely integrated into the domains of neighboring powers in the north and east, which subjugated local elites and employed them for their own political purposes.²⁸ Only the Church and the Hanseatic League, with their transnationial administrative and transport structures, provided a degree of cultural unity in the region. The Church achieved this through its insistence on the binding nature of the Christian faith, canon law, church administration, and its ecclesiastical infrastructure – such as churches, monasteries, schools, and almshouses – modeled on Western Roman traditions. This influence extended even into areas under Novgorodian dominance, such as Finland and Old Livonia. The Hanseatic League contributed to this unity through a robust trade network, its branches in northeastern European Hanseatic cities (e.g., Riga, Reval, Dorpat), partner cities (e.g., the Hansekontor Novgorod), and the widespread use of a Low German lingua franca, which was spoken and understood in nearly all trading cities of Northeastern Europe at the time.

Confessionalization and Dominium maris Baltici (ca. 1500–1700)

As in many parts of Europe, the Lutheran Reformation was a central event in Northeastern Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries. The new doctrine and the movement to establish a state church dominated throughout much of the region. However, in Poland-Lithuania and parts of Ingria, it remained a temporary episode, while in Karelia and northwestern Russia, it had no impact at all. In the areas of Northeastern Europe influenced by the Reformation, the medieval particular orders of the Church, the Teutonic Knights, and the Hanseatic League began to lose their power. Sweden's secession from the Kalmar Union under the leadership of the Vasa family in 1521 also symbolized the "victory of the modern state over the medieval corporation".²⁹ This secession marked a significant shift in the balance of power in the region, with Sweden asserting dominance during the era of the Nordic Wars (1558–1721), primarily against Denmark but also in conflicts with Poland-Lithuania and the rising Moscow Empire. In the 17th century, Sweden emerged as a military state and a dominant northeastern European power, supplanting Denmark in its claim to a Dominium maris Baltici (Baltic Sea dominion). This claim was defended not only in the Baltic Sea region but also in the North Calotte and the Arctic Ocean, particularly against Moscow. Sweden capitalized on a dynastic crisis in Moscow, known in Russian as the smuta ("Time of Troubles"), which began at the end of the 16th century and extended well into the 17th century. The essentially mercantilist economic policies of Swedish Chancellor of the Exchequer Axel Oxenstierna and other government officials displaced the Hanseatic League as the primary economic regulator of the Baltic Sea trading cities. These policies redirected the economic power of the cities to serve the needs of the central state. Military intervention in nearly all conflicts in the Baltic and Norwegian Seas after 1561 enabled Sweden to expand far beyond its original borders, turning much of Northeastern Europe into a dependency of the Swedish crown. During times of war, Sweden's Baltic possessions increasingly exhibited colonial characteristics. However, the transfer of laws, administration, people, and culture was not entirely one-sided. Sweden's numerous domestic reforms during this period were influenced by the legal, administrative, and cultural traditions of the Baltic and Prussian Baltic provinces. Notably, Baltic German nobles and commoners contributed specialized skills that were crucial for Sweden's empire-building efforts.³⁰

Russian domination (ca. 1700–1900)

After the Great Northern War (1700–1721), the Swedish Baltic provinces (Kexholm County, Ingria, Estonia, Livonia) were ceded to Russian rule under the Peace of Nystad (1721). Thus Russia under Peter I and his successors, sought not only to take over Swedish Dominium maris Baltici but also to adopt elements of Sweden's internal state structure, though with limited success. The resistance of Sweden, which remained an influential naval power even after the peace treaty of Nystad (1721), along with repeated interventions by Western maritime powers (the Netherlands and Great Britain) against unilateral Russian Baltic domination, curtailed Russia's direct control over the former Swedish territories in Southeastern Finland, Ingria, Estonia, and Livonia. Furthermore, Sweden did not entirely concede to Russian authority in North Calotte. At the same time, Russia exerted significant influence on the foreign and domestic policies of Poland-Lithuania, culminating in the partitions of Poland-Lithuania (1772–1795). These partitions, which included the annexation of Courland, Lithuania, and eastern parts of Poland, marked another westward expansion for Russia . Similarly, the Finnish War (1808–1809) resulted in Sweden's loss of Finland, providing Russia with yet another advance to the west. But these territorial gains proved to be largely superficial successes. The Russian Empire lacked the financial, legal, administrative, and educational infrastructure necessary to effectively govern its new territories. Throughout the 18th and parts of the 19th centuries, the Russian government relied heavily on the cooperation of regional elites to manage these provinces. Furthermore, it depended on their expertise to support the transformation of the Russian core territory into a more functional and modern state. For this reason – but also because it was engaged in several wars against the Ottoman Empire– Russia, from the mid-18th century onward, pursued a foreign policy strategy known as the "Calm of the North" toward the kingdoms of Sweden and Denmark, as well as the Baltic neighbors of the Holy Roman Empire. This strategy occasionally took on invasive characteristics, such as when Russia sought to manipulate the domestic politics of Sweden or Poland-Lithuania. Significant outcomes of this international policy included the Russian-Swedish-Danish neutrality-at-sea treaties of 1780 and 1800. These treaties aimed to secure the Baltic Sea – and, by extension, Northeastern Europe – under the influence of these three powers while keeping it out of the reach of other naval powers, particularly Great Britain and the Netherlands. In the 19th century, however, Russia was compelled to acknowledge that Northeastern Europe was more than merely a pawn in the great power game, to be manipulated with the help of more or less cooperative regional elites. National movements, arising from popular enlightenment, liberalism, and the drive for freedom among peasants and tradesmen, also reached the Northeastern European territories of the Russian Empire in the first half of the century. The Russian government’s attempt to exploit the supporters of nationalist ideas – primarily from the bourgeois camp – against the traditional, nobility-dominated elites ultimately failed. The revolutions in the Tsarist Empire in 1905 and 1906, driven by a combination of social, economic, and nationalist goals, highlighted this failure and served as a clear indication of the decline of Russian dominance in Northeastern Europe.³¹

Soviet period (20th century)

After the First World War, national movements in Northeastern Europe led to the formation of nation-states and interrupted Russian hegemony until the late 1930s. With the resurgence of the war losers, Germany and the Soviet Union, in the 1930s, the Northeastern European states came under renewed pressure. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (1939) and subsequent non-aggression pacts with the Baltic states (1939) led to the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states. Finland, however, escaped a similar fate. But after the Finnish-Soviet Winter War (1939/1940), Finland lost a considerable part of its territory to the Soviet Union. The eastern part of Poland also became part of the Soviet Empire under the secret clauses of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. After the Second World War, these developments culminated in a new Soviet domination over Northeastern Europe: The Baltic states were forced by the Kremlin leadership to transform themselves into Soviet republics; Poland and Finland, although formally able to retain their sovereignty and statehood, became directly dependent on Moscow in foreign policy and economics.³² By 1990, the Baltic Sea region had been divided into an eastern sphere of influence under the sovereignty of the Soviet Union, supported by the Warsaw Pact system, including the Northeastern European territories, and a Western sphere of influence under the aegis of the United States and NATO states. Nevertheless, the northeastern European states and societies also acted as mediators between East and West during the "Cold War" in politics, economics, and culture – culminating in the Final Act of Helsinki (1973) and the reform and independence movements of the Baltic states in the 1980s.

The period since the upheaval of 1990

It was also the Northeastern European states that advanced the process of disarmament and rapprochement between East and West in the second half of the 1980s and played a decisive role in the erosion of the "Eastern bloc" and the Soviet Union (1990–1991). The Nordic countries, especially neutral Sweden and Finland, which had increasingly cooperated with the Scandinavian nations, played an important mediating role in this context. The 1990s were marked by the transformation of the former communist states of Northeastern Europe into democratic capitalist societies and their economic boom. Estonia was particularly successful in this process, while Latvia and Lithuania struggled with the legacy of Soviet hierarchies, social traditions, and outdated economic systems. The Northeastern European territories that remained under Russian rule (northern Russia, Karelia, Ingria) tried, but failed, to win more freedom from the center in Moscow. In the transition countries, on the other hand, the nationalist values of the 19th and 20th centuries were often recalled. These tendencies are unmistakable and increasingly expressed in national egoism and xenophobia, following a pan-European trend. Symptomatic of this are the growing success of right-wing populist parties, a politics of history with a strong national slant, and the delaying tactics or refusal to fully implement EU standards for the reception of asylum seekers. This attitude on the part of the Northeastern European states is due not least to Russia's renewed claim to world power since the beginning of the new millennium, which in this case manifests as a claim to regional hegemony. Nevertheless, this claim is hardly enforceable for the time being, as a NATO border is now being defended on the eastern border of the Baltic states, and Finland, with its close Northeastern European cooperation, cannot be controlled without a loss of military strength and reputation. Nevertheless, the traditional bridging function of Northeastern Europe between the North, West, and East seems hardly realizable.

Beyond these temporal differentiations, historical phenomena of long duration can be identified for Northeastern Europe, which are mentioned here in brief:

1. For centuries, the history of Northeastern Europe can be understood through a center-periphery model, where the peripheral powers (Russia, Sweden, Denmark, and later Poland and the German Empire) alternated between serving as protectors or threats, depending on the political context. This dynamic, however, allowed the Northeastern European territories to function as a bridge between Eastern, Northern, and Western Europe, facilitating the transfer of political cultures, legal, economic, and social systems, cultural norms, and developments, as well as the exchange of religions and worldviews.
2. Closely linked to the center-periphery model is a stable binary power structure: The peripheral powers transitioned much earlier into centralized monarchies with advanced technical standards. Meanwhile, the Northeastern European countries served as borderlands and transition zones, often becoming conflict zones for these powers. This left them constantly under threat of war and enduring the relentless depletion of their resources. Independent states in Northeastern Europe emerged relatively late, only taking shape during periods of peripheral power weakness, such as after the First World War. Until the 20th century, the societies of the regions dependent on overlords gradually developed a sense of political self-awareness. In the 20th century, this region of small states drew on its long history of dependent pre-statehood to exploit conflicts between the great powers and the periphery for its own benefit, while also fostering close cooperation with other small states. No single state in Northeastern Europe has managed to establish a foreign policy grounded in consistent principles.
3. The history of Northeastern Europe reveals two significant socio-economic cleavages that reflect both its dependence on great powers and its enduring traditions, highlighting its role as a border region characterized by conflict and cooperation. The first dividing line concerns the centuries-old difference between the freedom of the countryside in Finland, Karelia, northern Russia, and North Calotte, on the one hand, and the serfdom that prevailed in Ingria, Estonia, and Livonia from the late Middle Ages until the 19th century, on the other. The second dividing line concerned the sovereignty of cities within the framework of pre-state corporative premises. The larger cities of Estonia and Livonia enjoyed numerous freedoms and privileges since their membership in the Hanseatic League (from the 13th century), which were unknown in northern Russia, Karelia and Ingria, and in the areas ruled by Sweden (Finland, Northern Karelia, North Calotte), and which brought them closer to the Central European model of the city as an independent legal entity. These dividing lines only began to fade in the mid-19th century, with the abolition of serfdom and the introduction of free exercise of trade and craftsmanship in the cities.
4.  As a space of religious and cultural transfer and conflict, Northeastern Europe had been strongly influenced by the Western Church (Catholicism, Protestantism) since the 13th century, despite the persistence of pre-Christian beliefs. Ingria, Karelia, and Northern Russia, on the other hand, came under the influence of the Russian Orthodox Church. Since religious and cultural formation was directly related to Northeastern Europe's political dependence on the peripheral powers, and since political conflicts often manifested themselves as religious and cultural disputes, this dynamic left distinct marks on the culture and mentality of the region. The lines of conflict deepened as the Reformation transformed the Western Church and formed the basis of the Swedish state, affecting Finland, Estonia, and much of Livonia. Meanwhile, Poland, along with Lithuania and a smaller part of Livonia (Latgale), remained committed to the old faith, while reforms within the Russian Orthodox Church (1660s) had only a limited impact. Christian missionary activity and aspects of the formerly aristocratic and bourgeois culture of the German, Swedish, Polish, and Russian upper classes are still regarded with suspicion and disdain in Northeastern European societies as elements of a "master culture".

Northeastern Europe as a pragmatic construction

There is no doubt that any historical region can be interpreted and critiqued as a scholarly construct. But this does not imply, even from a radically skeptical or constructivist perspective, that it lacks "truth" or "reality".  The model of a Northeastern European historical region facilitates propositions and discourses that transcend the aporias and dilemmas of the nation-state paradigm often prevalent in historical scholarship, or at least provide a broader perspective. In particular, developments in international politics and transcultural phenomena often escape nation-state frameworks. Similarly, knowledge categories shaped during the "age of the nation-state" (19th/20th century) hinder a nuanced view of pre-national or potentially post-national historical contexts.

The formulation of a Northeastern European historical region in the years after 1990 is, of course, rooted in conscious or unconscious political interests: the dissolution of Cold War dividing lines, the effort to rediscover older historical layers of the region, fostering economic, social, and political cooperation across EU and NATO borders, the concept of a "Sea of Peace" – developed in the GDR and embraced by Baltic Sea neighbors after 1990 – and the need for an identity that is not only cultural, social or economic, but also spatially fixable. The conceptual framework of "Northeastern Europe" is, therefore, subject to historical evolution and may be modified, rejected, replaced by other regional models, or entirely disregarded by future generations.

Ralph Tuchtenhagen