27 © Te Author(s) 2018 P. Twardzisz, Defning ‘Eastern Europe’, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77374-2_2 2 Historical Events and Developments Tis chapter focuses on scholars’ accounts of historical events and develop- ments taking place in the eastern part of Europe. Such accounts, through constructed narratives, infuence our understanding of the key terms. Our concern here is not with historical facts as such, but with the ways histori- ans and non-historians depict these facts in their own representations. Historical accounts are presented from particular vantage points where specifc perspectives are adopted. It is natural that scholars, bent on pre- senting historical facts, also ofer their own views and interpretations of these facts. Specialist (academic) discourse concerning the history of the region largely contributes to the construction of numerous defnitions of Eastern Europe and related categories. Te historical setting of the key concept is indispensable for our forthcoming defnitional explorations. 2.1 The Middle Ages Some scholars point out that what we refer to as the West today was syn- onymous with Christendom in the Middle Ages (Berend et al. 2013: 26). Today’s East meant pagan and illiterate lands before Christianity arrived