PDF《Author(s): Karl A. Sinnhuber》

Central Europe: Mitteleuropa: Europe Centrale: An Analysis of a Geographical Term Author(s): Karl A.

Sinnhuber Source: Transactions and Papers (Institute of British Geographers), No.

20 (1954), pp. 15-39 Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/621131 Accessed: 14/05/2010 16:22 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR'

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I ELEUROPA - EUROPE CENTRALE AN ANALYSIS OF A GEOGRAPHICAL TERM By KARL A. SINNHUBER, D. PHIL. (UniversityCollege, Universityof London) IT is by no means the first time that the evasive term Central Europe or its equivalents in other languages has been made the basis of a discussion by a geographer. Looking at English writingsalone the paper by Hilda Ormsbyof almost twenty years ago and R. E. Dickinson'

s The GermanLebensraumare well known. A similartheme was taken up by H. Cord Meyer in 1946.1 Con- sideringthe attention this topic has already received, is it not unnecessaryor futile to struggleagain with this well-worn problem of clarifyingthe meaning of CentralEuropeor its synonyms? Thereappearto be two reasons,however, for making yet another attempt. Firstly, the authorsmentioned purposelybased their respectivetreatments of the subjectalmost exclusivelyon Germanpublications,sincetheiraim was to explain to the '

English'

readerwhat was understood by this term among Ger- man geographersand other Germanwriters.2 In the courseof this paperI hope to contribute to that aim by adding some new points and correcting a few statementsin the papersmentioned, but the majoraim is different. By extend- ing the literature considered beyond the German sphere, an attempt will be made to arrive at more generalconclusions. Secondly, in view of the great changes in the political boundaries and cultural landscape of Europe which have taken place during the recent past, we may need to modify our ideas as to the extent of CentralEurope. But we can reacha decision only when we have re-examinedthe ways in whichthe term has been used previously. It is unfortunatethat many geographicaltermseither lack or come to lack precisemeaning and consequentlygive rise to misunderstandingof geography or even to its ill repute among scholarsof other subjects. One extremecase in this category is the term Central Europe (Middle Europe, I'