ABSTRACT
As the subject of this article is bias, intentional and otherwise, the best way to begin is to be open about my own identity and the perspective from which I am approaching the topic. Though it is possible to take such postmodern ideas too far, in this case, appraising one’s audience of one’s identity seems to be only good sense when discussing such fraught issues as those related to modern identity and the creation of historical narratives and regions. This particular framing of the article will result in often returning to a first person narrative that is rare in academic writing, but which better suits the points discussed here. First off, I am an American, though one who speaks more than one language and does care about history. This means that I am divorced in not just time but also space from the medieval past. None of the places where I lived or grew up had cathedrals built in the High Middle Ages or historic battlefields marking resistance against the Turks, Mongols, French or Russians. Second, but related, my roots as an American stretch back to the eighteenth century, thus despite my name I have no connections to Germany or Austria or any European kin. Third, I am comparatively young – I remember the Soviet Union, but it fell before I was in high school and I never visited there. I teach classes about Eastern Europe but I never experienced it, I have only read about it. By the time I got to college and then graduate school to begin my studies on medieval Europe there was no reason to think about a divided Europe and certainly no reason to project one back into the past. I offer all of this personal clarification by way of introducing my topic – an outsider (in many different ways) looking at the medieval European past and especially the medieval East–West divide.
