We are experiencing a dramatic return to a rupturing between Europe’s East and West. A decade ago, no one could have imagined a recurrence of the polarization between Russia (and, more generally, Asia) and the European Union along the ancient, almost forgotten fault line separating two European historical traditions: the Western and Latin, on the one hand, and, on the other, the post-Byzantine. Nonetheless, history is once again called into play and manipulated for geopolitical purposes. But how did the borders between East and West emerge? And how important a role can they play, now and in the future?

Egidio Ivetic teaches Modern History, History of the Mediterranean, and History of Eastern Europe at the University of Padua.