Speaking of "Eastern Europe"
Speaking of "Eastern Europe"

Summary/Abstract: Referring to nations in Central Europe as “Eastern Europe” served various interests. Otherwise the falsehood would not have been so often repeated for so many decades in such disparate contexts. Categorising Poland, Hungary, the former Czechoslovakia and a large segment of Germany as “Eastern Europe” became so embedded in Western perception in 1945–1991 that it is still encountered in the speech and writings of Westerners. These misrepresentations, though less common today, now that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union have ceased to exist, demonstrate the longterm effects of propaganda when it is clear, simple and undeviatingly ad-hered to for decades. After awhile, the perception a propaganda campaign is designed to produce can take on a life of its own and create an alternative “reality”, which will persist long after the purpose that gave rise to the propaganda no longer exists.

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