Transcript Chapter 8: Cultures of Europe and Russia

Chapter 8: Cultures of Europe
and Russia
Section 2: Cultures of Eastern Europe
Introduction and Movement
• Movement throughout Eastern Europe is very easy
– Why?
– There are no major natural barriers in Eastern Europe.
• Migration: movement from one place to another
• Reasons for people to move include:
– People move to find places with a good supply of natural
resources
– People moved to escape enemies
– Fled places where their religious beliefs put them in
danger
– Moved to find a better life (jobs, family, environment)
Ethnic Groups in Eastern Europe
• Among the groups that migrated to Eastern
Europe were the Slavs
– This group first lived in the mountains of modern
Slovakia and Ukraine then spread south to Greece,
east to the Alps, and north to the coast of the Baltic
Sea
• Slavic Cultures
– Ethnic groups: groups of people that share things,
such as a culture, ancestors, language, or religion
– There are 10 Slavic languages
• Dialect: a different version of a language that can be found
only in a certain region
Ethnic Groups in Eastern Europe
– People can speak the same language, but different
dialects (dialects often change based on a region)
• Religious difference among the Slavs
– Eastern Orthodox, Protestant, Roman Catholic,
Islam
• Have some similar customs
– Eastern Europeans still live in rural areas and work
as farmers because there are fewer factories
– A rural area’s culture changes much slowly than
an urban area does
Ethnic Groups in Eastern Europe
• Other Ethnic Groups
– Poland, Croatia, Slovenia, and the Czech Republic
are almost entirely Slavic
– 90% of Hungary are Magyars
– Romania is made up of Romanians, Albania is
made up of Albanians, and Bulgaria is made up of
Bulgars
Ethnic Conflict
• Czechs and Slovaks: A Peaceful division
– The two main ethnic groups of Czechoslovakia were the Czechs
and Slovaks
• Czechs lived in a western region called Bohemia
• Czechs and Slovaks lived in the central of Moravia
• Slovaks lived in an eastern region called Slovakia
– After WWII, the Soviet Union controlled Czechoslovakia and the
Communist party took over
• Many protests forced the communist government to become a
democracy
• Velvet Revolution: a nonviolent change in government from
communism to a democracy
– Vaclov Havel was elected President
• The nation broke into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in
1993 in a peaceful manner.
Ethnic Conflict
• When Ethnic Groups Clash
– Yugoslavia broke up into Bosnia-Herzogovina,
Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Montenegro, and
Macedonia
• Wars broke out, when the nations began to fight
• NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), which is an
alliance between the U.S.A., Canada, and other western
nations to help keep the peace in the world, helped to
bring peace to the regions in 1995
– War broke out again in 1999, which forced NATO to intervene
• The nations have broken apart even more into the early
2000s. Kosovo became an independent nation in 2009.