ABSTRACT
The research design of historical meso-regions is a transnationally comparative method resembling a middle-range theory. It was developed by historians of, in, and from East-Central Europe. Meso-regionalizing historical concepts identify, by way of construction, non-territorialized units connected by time that cross the boundaries of states, societies, nations, and sometimes even civilizations. In his book The Limits and Divisions of European History, Oscar Halecki differentiates not only between an ‘old Europe’ based on the ancient world and a ‘new Europe’ beyond the historical boundaries of the Imperium Romanum, but also between four modern European historical meso-regions with roots in the Middle Ages: Western Europe, West-Central Europe, East-Central Europe, and Eastern Europe. The fact that one historical meso-region is constituted, among other factors, by ‘neighbouring’ historical meso-regions is only one of several transregional features. The others are flows of ideas, people, goods, and so on, from one historical meso-region to another and this not only within.
