Changing Horizons in Geography Education - HERODOT Network ...

line of Europe is due to Vassili Tatichtchev, the official geographer of Tzar Peter I.,and was defined by the Urals. At the end of the 19 th century Georgian and Armeniangeographers suggested that the southern border of Europe was defined at the riverArax, located in the south of the Caucasus and representing the border to Turkey andIraq (c.f. Foucher, 1993). Based on these borderlines today 46 states are representedas members in the Council of Europe. But the definition includes also Russia witha national territory that is reaching up to the Pacific Ocean. And there are otherassociations like the EBU (European Broadcasting Union (with members in Africa)or the UEFA (with members like Israel) whose definitions of Europe go far beyondthese borders.But, by mentioning “Europe”, who nowadays perceives that this represents the“full” continent? In most cases talking about Europe is probably only associatedwith the European Union which is today covering 25 states, and thereby containsabout half of the states of the Council of Europe. By creating the European Union,a joint area has been developed uniting Malta and Northern Finland Debrecen inHungary and Lisbon. Anyway this marketing area seems to partly look like a Swisscheese, because some countries, which are located within these political borders,are nevertheless not member of the European Union, but many of them are includedin EFTA, the European Free Trade Area.Besides these three extensive definitions of Europe there are others, coveringsmaller geographical spaces: such as Euroland, core of Europe, old Europe… Thislist could be extended or completed by “Europe of Nations”, “Europe of Regions”,“Europe of Cultures”… – and we would probably never come to an end of the variousdifferent “Europe’s”.The existence of all these definitions is not arbitrary. They rather define both ageographical area and an idea. Thus there is obviously not just one Europe. Those,who call themselves European are trailers for an idea, within which one no matterhowever Europe is naturally delimited, and they identify things in common. Butwhich are those things in common?Common aspects of Europe“Europe” is older than each European nation state. The borderlines of Europe werealways blurred and over and over again they were newly defined by internal splittingand external demarcations. Europe has always lived as an area of tension between eastand west. It had already begun with the splitting of the ancient world into a Greek anda Latin speaking part. The splitting continued under the banner of Christianity witha catholic and an orthodox orientation. It was followed by further splitting due to theThirty Years’ War, which led Europe to the abyss. The last major splitting was intoa western and an eastern, a democratic and capitalist, a dictatorial and communistpart. This last division was overcome as recently as the 1980‘s. The recently achievedextension of the European Union added 10 further member states and is an attemptto finally cement the Union and overcome fragmentation.However, the various splitting of Europe as well as the three major phases ofself destructive war, which the continent has experienced in its history (the Thirty253