AiF correspondent Georgy Zotov: “If the consequences of May 9, 1945 are so bad, illegal and terrible, then all other actions of the USSR during that period are no better. Can the decisions of those who brought tyranny to your land be good? Therefore, Poland should give Silesia, Pomerania and Prussia back to the Germans, Ukraine should return its western part to the Poles, Chernivtsi - to the Romanians, Transcarpathia - to the Hungarians, Lithuania to give up Vilnius and Klaipeda, Romania - from Transylvania, the Czech Republic - from Sudetenland and Teshin, Bulgaria - from Dobruja . And then everything will be absolutely fair ... "

Expert opinion

Rudolf Pihoya, historian:

- There is a semi-legendary story that during the visit Churchill to Moscow in 1944, he and Stalin at dinner they drew a map of the division of post-war Europe on an ordinary napkin. Eyewitnesses claimed that the "document" contained a number of figures that (in percentage terms) reflected the degree of future influence of the USSR and the West in different regions: Bulgaria and Romania - 90 to 10, Greece - 10 to 90, Yugoslavia - equally ...

That napkin has not been preserved, but in principle the issue of changing borders in Europe was resolved by the "Big Three" - Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill - during the Tehran and Yalta conferences. The USSR adhered to the concept, which was developed back in 1944 Deputy Commissar for Foreign Affairs I. Maisky. It consisted in the fact that the USSR should create for itself such a configuration of borders that would ensure the country's security for at least 25, and preferably 50 years.

In accordance with Maisky's concept, the USSR annexed the former German Memel, which became the Lithuanian Klaipeda. Königsberg (Kaliningrad), Pillau (Baltiysk) and Tilsit (Sovetsk) became Soviet, which still make up the Kaliningrad region of the Russian Federation. The USSR also secured a part of the territory of Finland, annexed as a result of the "winter war". In general, the Soviet policy of those years was remarkable for its surprising consistency in resolving territorial issues. The only thing that could not be done was to seize Black Sea Straits, although this issue was discussed both in Tehran and Yalta. But Port Arthur again, as in the early twentieth century, became an outpost of the country on Far East, not to mention the southern part of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, lost by Russia as a result of the Russo-Japanese War.

If a geographic map practically does not change over the years, the political map of the world is undergoing changes that are noticeable even to people who have lived no more than half a century. I propose for review the TOP 10 countries that disappeared from the world map in the last century for one reason or another.
10. German Democratic Republic (GDR), 1949-1990

Established after World War II in a sector controlled by the Soviet Union, the German Democratic Republic was best known for its Wall and its tendency to shoot people who tried to get over it.

The wall was torn down with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990. After its demolition, Germany united and again became a whole state. However, in the beginning, due to the fact that the German Democratic Republic was rather poor, unification with the rest of Germany almost ruined the country. On the this moment in Germany everything was fine.

9. Czechoslovakia, 1918-1992

Founded on the ruins of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire, during its existence Czechoslovakia was one of the most vibrant democracies in pre-World War II Europe. Betrayed by Britain and France in 1938 in Munich, she was completely occupied by Germany and disappeared from the world map by March 1939. Later, she was occupied by the Soviets, who made her one of the vassals of the USSR. It was part of the sphere of influence of the Soviet Union until its collapse in 1991. After the collapse, it again became a prosperous democratic state.

This story should have ended there, and, probably, the state would have been intact to this day if the ethnic Slovaks living in the eastern half of the country had not demanded secession into an independent state, dividing Czechoslovakia in two in 1992.

Today, Czechoslovakia no longer exists, in its place there is the Czech Republic in the west and Slovakia in the east. Although, given the fact that the Czech economy is booming, Slovakia, which is not doing so well, probably regrets secession.

8. Yugoslavia, 1918-1992

Just like Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia was a product of the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire as a result of World War II. Consisting mainly of parts of Hungary and the original territory of Serbia, Yugoslavia, unfortunately, did not follow the more intelligent example of Czechoslovakia. Instead, it was something of an autocratic monarchy before the Nazis invaded the country in 1941. After that, it was under German occupation. After the defeat of the Nazis in 1945, Yugoslavia did not become part of the USSR, but became a communist country under the leadership of the socialist dictator, Marshal Josip Tito, leader of the partisan army during World War II. Yugoslavia remained a non-aligned authoritarian socialist republic until 1992, when internal conflicts and intransigent nationalism erupted into civil war. After it, the country broke up into six small states (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia and Montenegro), becoming good example what can happen if cultural, ethnic and religious assimilation goes wrong.

7. Austro-Hungarian Empire, 1867-1918

While all the countries that found themselves on the side of the losers after the First World War found themselves in an unsightly economic and geographical location, none of them lost more than the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which was gnawed like a roast turkey in a homeless shelter. From the collapse of the once huge empire, such modern countries as Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia emerged, and part of the lands of the empire went to Italy, Poland and Romania.

So why did it fall apart while its neighbor, Germany, remained intact? Yes, because it did not have a common language and self-determination, instead, various ethnic and religious groups lived in it, which, to put it mildly, did not get along with each other. In general, the Austro-Hungarian Empire endured what Yugoslavia endured, only on a much larger scale, when it was torn apart by ethnic hatred. The only difference was that the Austro-Hungarian Empire was torn apart by the victors, while the disintegration of Yugoslavia was internal and spontaneous.

6. Tibet, 1913-1951

Although the territory known as Tibet existed for over a thousand years, it did not become an independent state until 1913. However, under the peaceful tutelage of a number of Dalai Lamas, it eventually clashed with Communist China in 1951 and was occupied by Mao's forces, thus ending its brief existence as a sovereign state. In the 1950s, China occupied Tibet, which grew more and more unrest, until Tibet finally rebelled in 1959. This led China to annex the region and dissolve the Tibetan government. Thus, Tibet ceased to exist as a country and instead became a "region", instead of a country. Today, Tibet is a huge tourist attraction for the Chinese government, even though there is a feud between Beijing and Tibet, due to the fact that Tibet again demands to return its independence.

5. South Vietnam, 1955-1975

South Vietnam was created by forcibly expelling the French from Indochina in 1954. Someone decided that dividing Vietnam into two parts around the 17th parallel would be a good idea, leaving Communist Vietnam in the north and pseudo-democratic Vietnam in the south. As in the case of Korea, nothing good came of it. The situation led to a war between South and North Vietnam, which eventually involved the United States. This war became for the United States of America one of the most devastating and costly wars in which America has ever taken part. In the end, torn apart by internal divisions, America withdrew its troops from Vietnam and left it to itself in 1973. For two years, Vietnam, divided in two, fought until North Vietnam, backed by the Soviet Union, seized control of the country, eliminating South Vietnam forever. The capital of the former South Vietnam, Saigon, was renamed Ho Chi Minh City. Since then, Vietnam has been a socialist utopia.

4. United Arab Republic, 1958-1971

This is another failed attempt to unite the Arab world. The Egyptian president, an ardent socialist, Gamel Abdel Nasser, believed that unification with Egypt's distant neighbor, Syria, would lead to the fact that their common enemy, Israel, would be surrounded on all sides, and that the united country would become super- strength of the region. Thus, the short-lived United Arab Republic was created, an experiment that was doomed to fail from the start. Separated by several hundred kilometers, creating a centralized government seemed an impossible task, plus Syria and Egypt could never agree on what the national priorities were.

The problem would be solved if Syria and Egypt united and destroyed Israel. But their plans were thwarted by the inopportune Six Day War of 1967, which ruined their joint border plans and turned the United Arab Republic into a defeat of biblical proportions. After that, the days of the union were numbered, and, in the end, the UAR fell apart with the death of Nasser in 1970. Without a charismatic Egyptian president to maintain a fragile alliance, the UAR quickly disintegrated, re-establishing Egypt and Syria as separate states.

3. Ottoman Empire, 1299-1922

One of the greatest empires in the history of mankind, the Ottoman Empire collapsed in November 1922, after a fairly long existence of over 600 years. It once stretched from Morocco to the Persian Gulf and from Sudan to Hungary. Its disintegration was the result of a long process of disintegration over many centuries, by the beginning of the 20th century only a shadow of its former glory remained from it.

But even then it remained an influential force in the Middle East and North Africa, and, most likely, it would have remained so today if it had not participated in the First World War on the side of the losers. After the First World War, it was disbanded, its largest part (Egypt, Sudan and Palestine) went to England. In 1922, it became useless and eventually collapsed completely when the Turks won their war of independence in 1922 and terrified the Sultanate, creating modern Turkey along the way. However, the Ottoman Empire deserves respect for its continued existence no matter what.

2. Sikkim, 8th century AD-1975

Have you never heard of this country? Where have you been all this time? Well, seriously, how could you not know about small, landlocked Sikkim, nestled safely in the Himalayas between India and Tibet...that is, China. The size of a hot dog stand, it was one of those unknown, forgotten monarchies that managed to hold out until the 20th century, when its citizens realized that they had no particular reason to remain an independent state, and decided to unite with modern India in 1975.

What was remarkable about this small state? Yes, because, despite his incredibly small size, he had eleven official languages, which probably created chaos when signing road signs - this is assuming that there were roads in Sikkim.

1. Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Soviet Union), 1922-1991

It is difficult to imagine the history of the world without the participation of the Soviet Union in it. One of the most powerful countries on the planet, which collapsed in 1991, for seven decades it has been a symbol of friendship between peoples. It was formed after the collapse Russian Empire after the First World War and flourished for many decades. The Soviet Union defeated the Nazis when the efforts of all other countries were insufficient to stop Hitler. The Soviet Union almost went to war with the United States in 1962, an event called the Caribbean Crisis.

After the Soviet Union collapsed after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, it split into fifteen sovereign states, thus creating the largest bloc of countries since the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918. Now the main successor to the Soviet Union is democratic Russia.

From the division of Europe to the division of the world

The redistribution of Europe began even before World War II hit it like a bolt from the blue. The USSR and Germany signed the famous non-aggression pact, also called the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which became infamous because of its secret addition, a protocol defining the spheres of influence of the two powers.

Russia, according to the protocol, "departed" Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Bessarabia and the east of Poland, and Germany - Lithuania and the west of Poland. On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Polish territories, marking the beginning of the Second World War and the great redistribution of land.

However, after Germany was recognized as the only aggressor in World War II, the victorious countries had to agree on how to distribute territories between themselves and the defeated.

The most famous meeting, which influenced the further course of history and largely determined the features of modern geopolitics, was the Yalta Conference, which took place in February 1945. The conference was a meeting of the heads of three countries anti-Hitler coalition- USSR, USA and Great Britain in the Livadia Palace. The USSR was represented by Joseph Stalin, the USA by Franklin Roosevelt, and the UK by Winston Churchill.

The conference was held during the war, but it was already obvious to everyone that Hitler must be defeated: allied forces waged war already on enemy territory, advancing on all fronts. It was absolutely necessary to redraw the world in advance, since, on the one hand, the lands occupied by National Socialist Germany needed a new demarcation, and on the other hand, the alliance of the West with the USSR after the loss of the enemy was already becoming obsolete, and therefore a clear division of spheres of influence was a priority.

The goals of all countries were, of course, completely different. If it was important for the United States to involve the USSR in the war with Japan in order to end it faster, then Stalin wanted the allies to recognize the right of the USSR to the recently annexed Baltic states, Bessarabia and eastern Poland. One way or another, everyone wanted to create their own spheres of influence: for the USSR, it was a kind of buffer from controlled states, the GDR, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and Yugoslavia.

Among other things, the USSR also demanded the return to their state of former citizens who emigrated to Europe. It was important for Great Britain to maintain influence in Europe and prevent the penetration of the Soviet Union there.
Other goals of the neat division of the world were to maintain a stable state of calm, as well as to prevent destructive wars in the future. That is why the United States especially cherished the idea of ​​creating the United Nations.

Food for thought: Europe is ungrateful. What would happen if we threw Hitler exactly to our borders ...

Having received vast territories by decision of the USSR, these countries call us occupiers.

On the eve of the 70th anniversary of the Victory, AiF tried to imagine what the map of Europe would have turned into if the USSR had not given thousands of kilometers of territory to the very countries that now call us occupiers. And will they give up these lands?

Wroclaw is one of the most touristic cities in Poland. Crowds of people with photo cameras are everywhere, there is nowhere for an apple to fall in expensive restaurants, taxi drivers break godless prices. At the entrance to the Market Square, a banner says "Wroclaw - real Polish charm!". Everything would be fine, but back in May 1945 Wroclaw was called Breslau and before that for 600 years (!) in a row it did not belong to Poland. Victory Day, now referred to in Warsaw as “the beginning of communist tyranny,” added German Silesia, Pomerania, and 80% of East Prussia to Poland. Now no one stutters about this: that is, tyranny is tyranny, and we will take the land for ourselves. The AiF observer decided to figure out how the map of Europe would look now if our ex-brothers in the East were left without the help of the “occupiers”?

Cities as a gift

In 1945, Poland received the cities of Breslau, Gdansk, Zielona Góra, Legnica, Szczecin, says Maciej Wisniewski, a Polish freelance journalist. - The USSR also gave the territory of Bialystok, with the mediation of Stalin, we gained the city of Klodzsko, disputed with Czechoslovakia.

Nevertheless, we believe that the division of Poland under the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, when the USSR took Western Belarus and Western Ukraine, is unfair, but the transfer of Silesia and Pomerania to Stalin's Poles is just fair, this cannot be disputed. Now it is fashionable to say that the Russians did not liberate us, but captured us. However, the occupation turns out to be interesting if Poland received a quarter of Germany for free: moreover, hundreds of thousands of Soviet soldiers shed blood for this land. Even the GDR resisted, not wanting to give Szczecin to the Poles - the issue with the city was finally resolved only in 1956 under pressure from the USSR.
In addition to the Poles, the "occupation" is also strongly indignant at the Baltic states. Well, it is worth remembering: the current capital - Vilnius - was also "given" to Lithuania by the USSR; by the way, the Lithuanian population of Vilnius then amounted to ... barely 1%, and the Polish - the majority. The USSR returned to the republic the city of Klaipeda - the Prussian Memel, which belonged to the Lithuanians in 1923-1939. and annexed by the Third Reich. Back in 1991, the Lithuanian leadership condemned the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, but no one returned both Vilnius to Poland and Klaipeda to the FRG.

Ukraine, through the mouth of Prime Minister Yatsenyuk, declaring itself "a victim of Soviet aggression along with Germany", is unlikely to give the Poles its western part with Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Ternopil (these cities were included by the "aggressors" in the Ukrainian SSR in 1939), Romania - the Chernivtsi region (withdrew to the Ukrainian SSR on August 2, 1940), and Hungary or Slovakia - Transcarpathia, received on June 29, 1945. Romanian politicians do not stop discussing the justice of the "annexation" of Moldova by the Soviet Union in 1940. Of course, a long time ago forgotten: after the war, it was thanks to the USSR that the Romanians got back the province of Transylvania, which Hitler took in favor of Hungary. Bulgaria, through the mediation of Stalin, retained Southern Dobruja (formerly the possession of that same Romania), which was confirmed by the agreement of 1947. But now, not a single word is said about this in Romanian and Bulgarian newspapers.

Wroclaw, Lower Silesia, Poland.

Thanks don't say

Prague winter. How do the Czechs feel about the upcoming 70th anniversary of the Victory?
The inhabitants of Prague enthusiastically greet the Soviet tankmen. “The Czech Republic removed monuments to Soviet soldiers after 1991 and also announced that Victory Day marks the replacement of one dictatorship by another,” says Alexander Zeman, a Czech historian. - However, just at the insistence of the USSR, Czechoslovakia was returned the Sudetenland with the cities of Karlovy Vary and Liberec, where 92% of the population were Germans. Recall that the Western powers at the Munich Conference in 1938 supported the annexation of the Sudetenland by Germany - only the Soviet Union protested. At the same time, the Poles torn away the Teshin region from Czechoslovakia and after the war did not want to give it away, insisting on a referendum. After the pressure of the USSR on Poland and the support of the Czechoslovak position, an agreement was signed - Teshin was returned to the Czechs, secured by an agreement dated 1958. No one says thanks for helping the Soviet Union - apparently, the Russians owe us only one fact of their existence.
In general, we gave away lands to everyone, we didn’t forget anyone - and now they spit in our faces for this. In addition, few people know about the pogrom that the new authorities perpetrated in the "returned territories" - 14 million Germans were expelled from Pomerania and the Sudetenland. If the inhabitants of Königsberg (which became the Soviet Kaliningrad) moved to the GDR for 6 years (until 1951), then in Poland and Czechoslovakia - 2-3 months, and many Germans were given only 24 hours to pack, allowing them to take only a suitcase of things, and hundreds of kilometers were forced to walk. “You know, it’s not worth mentioning this,” they timidly remark to me in the Szczecin mayor’s office. “Things like that spoil our good relations with Germany.” Well, yes, they poke us in the face with any little thing, but it’s a sin to offend the Germans.

How Europe was divided after 1945

Personally, I am interested in justice in this matter. It has already reached schizophrenia: when a person in Eastern Europe says that the victory of the USSR over Nazism is liberation, he is considered either a fool or a traitor. Guys, let's be clear. If the consequences of May 9, 1945 are so bad, illegal and terrible, then all other actions of the USSR during that period are no better. Can the decisions of those who brought tyranny to your land be good? Therefore, Poland should give Silesia, Pomerania and Prussia back to the Germans, Ukraine should return its western part to the Poles, Chernivtsi - to the Romanians, Transcarpathia - to the Hungarians, Lithuania to give up Vilnius and Klaipeda, Romania - from Transylvania, the Czech Republic - from Sudetenland and Teshin, Bulgaria - from Dobruja . And then everything will be absolutely fair. But where is it. We are covered for what the world stands, they are accused of all mortal sins, however, Stalin's "gifts" have been seized with a stranglehold. Sometimes you just want to imagine: it's curious what would happen if Hitler's USSR were thrown back exactly to its borders and did not look further into Europe? What would now be left of the territories of those countries that, before the 70th anniversary of the Victory, call their liberation by the Soviet troops "occupation"? The answer, however, is extremely simple - horns and legs.


Residents of Polish Lublin and fighters Soviet army on one of the streets of the city. July 1944. Great Patriotic War 1941-1945. Photo: RIA Novosti / Alexander Kapustyansky

http://www.aif.ru/society/history/1479592

Read if interested .... Six questions to the historian about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

Today marks exactly three years since the Crimean referendum on joining Russia. As we know, its results (96.77% voted for secession from Ukraine) were put into action. In Europe, the borders have once again changed, and this fact, frankly, frightened many. Some called it "an unprecedented event in post-war Europe" and recalled the principle of the territorial integrity of states.

In fact, there is nothing unusual or "unprecedented" about the secession of Crimea. Borders are constantly changing and changing. Even after World War II. Even in Europe. Let's remember how the map of the Old World was redrawn after 1945.

Let's start with the fact that immediately after the war, the winners (USA, USSR, and Great Britain) signed two important agreements - Yalta (dated February 13, 1945) and Potsdam (dated August 2, 1945). In these documents, the boundaries of the new, post-war Europe were laid.

Three decades later, in the 1970s, the principle of the inviolability of post-war borders was enshrined in the adoption of another multilateral document - final act of the Helsinki Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe in the system of principles of relations between the states-participants of the Conference, in which the following was fixed: "The participating states consider all the borders of each other as inviolable, as well as the borders of all states in Europe, and therefore they will refrain now and in the future from any encroachment on these frontiers. They will accordingly refrain also from any demand or action aimed at the seizure and usurpation of part or all of the territory of any participating State."

True, the provisions of the above agreements remained only on paper. In reality, politicians never paid any attention to them.

Already in 1957, they began to slowly change the borders: then the Saarland became part of the Federal Republic of Germany. After the Second World War, this small territory was given the status of a separate buffer state like Luxembourg, but it was ruled by France. The United States and Great Britain sought to give the Saar region completely under the authority of Paris, but the then President Charles de Gaulle was in no hurry to accept its composition as his republic. In the course of a heated public discussion and scandals, it was decided to give up this territory. But not France, but Germany.

In 1964 Malta withdrew from the UK. A new state appeared on the map of Europe.

In 1990, the GDR (East, socialist Germany) joined the FRG (Western, capitalist).

In 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist, disintegrating into 15 independent states. This was the largest redrawing of the map not only of Europe, but of the whole world in recent decades. Independent Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Russia, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan appeared in the Old World. AT Central Asia a number of new states also emerged between Russia and Afghanistan - Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan.

In 1992, four new states appeared on the map of Europe: Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Macedonia. They seceded from Yugoslavia, in which only Serbia and Montenegro remained.

On January 1, 1993, Czechoslovakia ceased to exist. Since then, two new states have appeared in Europe - the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

In 1994, South Ossetia and Abkhazia were separated from Georgia.

In 1999, NATO troops made every effort to ensure that the remnants of Yugoslavia were destroyed. With the help of their bombing, the regime of Slobodan Milosevic, who became one of the central figures of ethnic conflicts in the Balkans in the 1990s, was removed. Historians and politicians are still arguing about its role. Someone criticizes and blames for all troubles, others consider him a hero of the Serbian people, a defender and a peacemaker.

Be that as it may, in 2000 he resigned, and a year later he was detained and secretly handed over to the International War Crimes Tribunal in the former Yugoslavia, which caused outrage among a significant part of the Serbian public and President Kostunica.

The above political crisis led to the fact that the remnants of Yugoslavia in 2002 began to be called the Republic of Serbia and Montenegro, and in 2006 they finally broke up into two new states - Serbia and Montenegro.

Just two years later, little Serbia was further divided, giving the Republic of Kosovo a chance for self-determination. Moreover, the Serbian leadership was categorically against this, but the Western states reminded Belgrade of the "right to self-determination", while Russia did not recognize the emergence of a new state.

Now Kosovo is a partially recognized state, de facto independent. But according to the Serbian Constitution, it is still obliged to obey Belgrade.

In 2014, Crimea withdrew from Ukraine and, following a referendum, became part of Russia.

As you can see, the illusion that border changes are a thing of the distant past is a myth. Even in our time, when international relations are regulated by many declarations and treaties, and politicians are increasingly talking about global projects and human brotherhood, the emergence of new states on the map of civilized Europe is a common thing. It's only the beginning...

Kirill Ozimko