Originally Posted by
TheForeigner
Of course there is great variety in what can be broadly called Eastern Europe and there is variety in Teutonic Europe too, with the Brits and indeed the Uralic speaking Lapps quite distinct.
What I meant though is that it's absurd to claim Finland is as Western as Scandinavia and the other core Western European countries, while equally Finnic and Lutheran Estonia is East European. Consider that both Finland and Estonia were ruled by Sweden and later by Russia for a long time. The Estonians and the Latvians too were conquered and converted to Christianity by the Teutonic Knights and Finns by the Swedes during the Northern crusades. During the Protestant Reformation of the Early Modern Age, both Finns and Estonians and the majority of Latvians became Lutheran Protestants. For centuries Latvia and Estonia had a mostly German ruling class and this lasted until well into the 20th century. So what makes Finland more Western than Estonia or even Baltic speaking Latvia? The fact that it borders Sweden? Or is it the fact that by luck it escaped communist rule, much like Greece?
Greece is so Eastern, Byzantine and Orthodox, that it's not worth trying to argue that it's not Eastern. Orthodox countries like Greece, Romania or Russia are often not even considered part of Western civilization by many intellectuals. We are often grouped with Georgia, Armenia or even Turkey, though I don't really see it. especially not Turkey. Finland is both Western culturally and East European in my opinion. It's only as East European and as Western as Poland or Hungary, but not as East European as Russia, Greece, Bulgaria or Romania.
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