ABSTRACT
What and where are the lands of which we speak? To ask this question is to open up a Pandora's box of conflicting and contested spatialities. These lands are marches. Marches are disputed borderlands. Disputes over borderlands cause fierce rivalries, military conflict and bitter distress. The eastern marches of Europe have been disputed by religions and branches of religions; by internationalism and nationalism; by powerful neighbouring states; and by political ideologies. ‘Everything about the area continues to be disputed’ ( Banac 1990: 142). This chapter will explore the production of Central and Eastern Europe as Marchlands of Europe, and Marchlands of Modernities by reference to six discourses:
Scholarly perception and representation of the ideas of Central Europe and Eastern Europe.
The meaning of Europe, as continent, culture area and modernity.
Modernity and the cultural invention of the east as an imagined place contrasted with the west.
The theory of prime modernities.
Russia, Europe and the communist project of modernity — the view from the east.
The global arena of conflicting political and military ideological modernities.
