Thread: Theorising Medieval Geopolitics Impact on Today

Theorising Medieval Geopolitics

I have never quiet formulated my thinking along such a succinctly focused title but that is what reflects a lot of my thought underpinnings. So to a large degree I agree with the title and but the general direction of the article is not really what I was thinking about.

Review – Theorising Medieval Geopolitics
{article is not that good in my view but it(headline) set me off on a good tangent}

A lot of what we perceive and view today is built on a foundation of perceptions shaped by not only our ancestors through genes but historical views we were fed in school and elsewhere. Everyone has a bias even if you write without one the expression of words limits whom and how much can be shown and in what order and that impacts our thinking.

I'll give you an example. One of the first things we learned in school in Russia before I left to go to the states were poems and whatnot, besides me reading a lot of fairy tales on my own. By a lot I mean quiet a few books (very prolific reader I was when younger)...

First poem was the Battle of the Ice etc. All of this shapes your reasoning and thinking to a degree, and almost every culture has one of these. It is in essence one of the first times kids view conflict in a historical glorified or mystified context. Where by this happened in such and such a time, people, place, impacts you today because etc... This underlying aspect is very powerful and influences your id and ego to a large degree.

Thus one can go into very cool thought experiments to attempt to see what actually happened, could have happened, was told to happen by one side, another side, third side with a bias for one side or another, and what you actually think happened.

Think about the East/West, North/South divide in Europe.
Tolerance lower in areas with large migrations and border wars and high in northern countries which always strove for novelty and had very homogenous groups of people, while at the same time. Differences that are seen and upheld in the north were so minute but extremely pronounced in relations while in the south generally undercurrents of someone doing something or being something different.

As you go from East to West the amount of tribes forming nations actually fell and amalgamation of larger tribes that were more similar occured. So something like Czechs being 3 tribes, Poles 7+, Russians 20+, etc... Also actual tribes were likely to be smaller ergo the 3 tribes were larger individual than 7, and 7 were larger individually than the 20+.
I can't really get good links for this perhaps I am making it up and its all wrong but thats how I see it. Yet regional and cultural differences fracturing within countries are more prominent in the south due to language and I guess other things. So while the people may be more similar ethnically, cultural division is more pronounced.

I am trying to pin a point to a concrete example but everything is kinda intertwined and having a tough time in my mind to unwind a few specific examples.

Serbs and Croats are basically the same ethnic group, all speaking almost similar language perhaps different by regionalization and whatnot. Separated by cultural perceptions of made up nature like Religion etc. Southern placement so lots of concern about foreigners and lots of little undercurrent things separating one group from another even among larger groups but the ethnic differences are quiet low. Lots of historic battles of religious nature throughout middle ages so the supposition of identity is predicated on what was most assaulted, ergo religion or culture. Thus all these medieval undercurrents come out today in a somewhat high strung view of self and others. In reality it is very likely that a lot of political and physical boundaries were enforced by third parties who constantly fomented this feeling of "identity under attack", think ottomans (religious), austrians(religious, cultural), byzantines (cultural), and in some way what worked out was a self defense mechanism. Every battle mattered to some region or city more than another and so the imprint of that behavior carried through to whomever was left alive and it influence the survivors genetically as well as culturally through oral and written histories. The other perception is the necessity of having that outside third party to legitimize either opposition or agreement much more than someone else. Ergo self sufficient identity building became one that was fostered more through struggle against the outside and built on that. Russia/Eu/ countries around all becomes these aspects of necessity as a reference point instead of a contention point. Since viability of going at it alone and contesting the world view yourself is downtrodden from past experience over and over again.

Now I went into a somewhat philosophical tangent I think.