"For a thousand years, the geography of the borderlands dictated their fate. The borderlands lie in a flat plain, crushed between the civilizations of Europe and those of Asia. East of Poland, west of Russia, their lack of mountains, seas, deserts, and canyons has always made the borderlands easy to conquer."

"Between East and West" by Anne Applebaum

 

Click to view territorial change details  shown on map at right.

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