Volumes published (2006) I. Thematic Work ... - CLIOHRES.net

Introduction
This volume contains a number of short chapters about the historical connections between
Europe and the World. But what is Europe, and what is the World? And what
characterized the relationship between Europe and the rest of the World from the beginnings
of human history to the present day? It is very difficult to answer these questions
for several reasons. First of all, it is not easy to define the concepts of Europe and
the World. The debates about the geographical, cultural, spiritual or political boundaries
of Europe are very well known. Does Russia belong to Europe, or not? And what
about Turkey? As a result of the emergence of the European Union as a new political
and economic entity, the political leaders and the representatives of different professions
were forced to define the boundaries and the concept of Europe. This was also
true for the historical profession, the representatives of which had to realize that it is an
extraordinarily difficult task. It is not easy to determine the boundaries of Europe in a
given moment of time, but it is even more difficult to describe the historical changes of
the concept of “Europeanness” during long periods of human history. In ancient times
for example, the “civilized world” also contained territories which belonged to other
continents than Europe in the geographical sense of the word. And vice versa, some regions
we consider the integral part of Europe in every sense of the word belonged to the
barbaricum for the inhabitants of ancient Greece or the Roman Empire. The territories
of present day Syria or Tunisia were much more familiar for an educated Roman citizen
than the wild forests of Germania, not to mention Scandinavia, or the territory of the
present day Baltic states or Ireland. The concept of Europe as we know it, was absolutely
absent, and this was also true for the medieval ages when the concept of “Christianity”
substituted it.
It is not the task of this introduction to formulate the final verdict about the historical
definition of Europe. I would simply like to call the attention to the fact that the
definition of Europe determines what is not Europe at the same time. Historically, Europe
is a fluid category and, as a result, this is also true for the “world outside Europe”.
The boundaries of Europe have been changing in history and there are frontier regions,
which were considered the part of Europe in a given period of history, and belonged
to the “world outside Europe” in another. But in one way or another, the definition of
the boundaries and the concept of Europe always contain the elements of inclusion and
exclusion. We might classify a country, a region, a culture, a nation or a religion as un-
European because we deem it different from the concept of Europe we have in mind at
a given moment of time. It means that the definition of “Europeanness” automatically
determines the concept of Europeans about “otherness”. The two concepts could not
exist without each other. In this sense, the historical relationship between Europe and
the “world outside Europe” is the history of the constant definition of the concepts of
“Europeanness” and “otherness”, but in several ways. That is, not only Europeans con-