What do you think is the most disliked country in Europe?

[Richardceorl1]

i say france

[ThisDudeHere]

I'd say there's a regional divide. In western Europe, it's a tie between England and France (I'd say most of Europe dislikes England more due to their football fans), in Central Europe it has to be Germany due to that guy who wasn't admitted to art school, and in Eastern Europe Russia no doubt. I guess it's Serbia or Romania in southern Europe.

I was about to mention Turkey but they aren't European.

[Soteris]

I never once considered Turkey or Russia as part of Europe. Geographically, historically and culturally they are just too far removed.

[ThisDudeHere]

@Soteris Turkey for sure but, despite me being Latvian and not liking Russians, I'd still give them a pass. At least they originated here, unlike the Turks who came from central Asia

[Soteris]

I would argue that the foundation of the "European identity" has a few anchors such as the Roman Empire etc.. The problem is that Russia was never really "in" on those things and for most of history has always acted as a "rival" or outsider to Europe. The fact that they so regularly act as an outsider by itself puts a large line between us and they did not really get involved in European cultures or events aside from interfering as an outsider. As such they were always an outsider and always acted as an outsider.

[ThisDudeHere]

@Soteris the outsider thing is fairly recent actually. Russian principalities were trading with Europe for most of their history. They only seem like outsiders because they were the only Europeans fully subjugated by the Mongols, thus retarding their further growth, making them more authoritarian for the long term. But the Russian heartland is on the same Northern European plane like Poland's, Germany's and France's. Russians are European culturally, they're just on the frontier, like the Portuguese.

[Soteris]

Not true. The division between Russia and Europe was established before the Mongol invasion with many important events happening within Europe and not really propagating to Russia such as the Frankish kingdoms and their shenanigans, the vikings, the literal middle ages, the holy roman empire, feudal Christianity etc..

Very important formative years happened that made Europe into its own group with various factions forming and dissolving as time goes on. At the end of it all we have Russia on the outside only having acted as a target of conquest or outside invader/threat. They are also Orthodox Christians and does not share a culture with Europe nor take part in any of the famous events such as colonization, industrialization, Renaissance, Reformation, to a lesser degree also the age of absolutism etc..

[ThisDudeHere]

@Soteris but in that case you're speaking about Western Europe in particular, not Europe in general. You can't call Western European accomplishments or adventures as European just to exclude the Russians. If you're implying that Russians aren't Western European then I'd agree with you but that would not make them un-European in general.

[Soteris]

The thing that sort of defines Europe as a "continent" is that they kept together. For example a succession crisis in Spain had major implications to pretty much every European nation.. but not really Russia... The 30 years war within the HRE again had MAJOR implications for all of Europe.. but not for Russia..

That is a very important point. European events greatly impacts all of Europe but they never really made much difference for Russia.

[ThisDudeHere]

@Soteris
You're being kinda selective. There are loads of events that did affect Russia, like the Viking era. Literally Russia has it's beginnings with the Vikings, much like the Normans who would then be the last people to invade Britain and form it in it's current form.

[Soteris]

The viking era is actually another great example of where there was a great difference between Russia and Europe. While the European experience of the viking era was mostly on the raiding side as well as various important events such as the establishment of the Norman culture in France or the conquest of Britain, in Russia however it was more of a trade relationship with Vikings sailing up and down the rivers between Scandinavia and the Byzantine empire exchanging culture, trade and a tiny bit of head smashing.

Most notably Turkey and Russia shared this part of the Viking Era and I would argue that neither of them are European which means this similarity fits in.

[ThisDudeHere]

@Soteris the Rurik dinasties was literally started by a Viking. Much like the Norman dinasty. If that ain't the same then I don't know what is.

I think your reasons for Russia not being European are highly arbitrary. Greeks and Turks look exactly the same most of the time and yet we consider one European and one not whereas if you look at Moscow and compare it to Paris or London or Malmo, Moscow looks like a European city whereas the other three look like they ought to be in America that's known to be a multi-racial melting pot.

[Soteris]

And Turkey is pretty much the bastardized remnant of the Eastern Roman Empire yet its still not considered part of Europe or how Greenland is considered part of North America rather than Europe.

I am not saying that there are not some points in favor of including at least part of Russia into Europe but its just not enough to overcome all the reasons NOT to. Is it incredibly arbitrary? Hell yes, but it is still established.

Strictly speaking Turkey has a much greater claim for being European than Russia has due to its Roman and Greek heritage as well as being in the center of a lot of European history.

[ThisDudeHere]

@Soteris the turk cultural heritage is from central asia. The Russians are Indo-European from the eastern-eukranian steppe from whence all Europeans came.

[Soteris]

The culture in Turkey has far more to do with the west than the east right down to their modern day borders. As for the Culture in Russia? Its mostly foreign to Europe aside from the other European nations they influenced along the way but that assimilation does not really retroactively make Russia more European.

If we used another example, lets say that there where still Islamic nations in Spain. Would that mean that suddenly that was a "normal" aspect of Europe? No, it would be its own isolated culture in a bigger whole and the middle east would not suddenly be part of Europe because they shared religious culture.

[ThisDudeHere]

@Soteris Russia has been copying European culture for most of it's history. In the 18th and 19th centuries it was popular among the elite to learn French customs because france was the cultural superpower of the day, akin to the US today. Peter the great learned from the Dutch on how to build their navy and later the first Russian industries were backed by other Europeans. They have always been involved with Europe and are far less alien to it than Turkey. I mean shit, they're Christian too.

[Kaneki05]

Disliked by whom?

If your talking about the country Europeans hate that's gotta be USA.
If your talking worst in EU? Probably France.
If your talking worst in European countries Russia.
If your talking worst in USA that's actually needs to broken down to Rights and lefts. Rights answer would be England or Russia for sure. Lefts would be France and Russia.

We can pretty much all agree on Russia though.

[Aurora1010]

Some people have a problem with Russia and other people love Russia

[OlderAndWiser]

France. It has a reputation of being very hostile and very arrogant to Americans.

[EnglishEuropean]

Why would that make them disliked in Europe?

[OlderAndWiser]

@EnglishEuropean I read the question to be asking "what country in Europe is the most disliked?"

[EnglishEuropean]

Aha, it is a bit ambiguous.

[Fromdusktilldawn]

Nobody cares about America in Europe

[OlderAndWiser]

@Fromdusktilldawn You should care about the US. We are a very strong and loyal ally.

[Soteris]

Ouch.. Probably Great Britain if I am honest. They certainly have not made many friends recently and have a history of making enemies around the world.

[Anonymous]

Britain.

But if you aren't pissing people off you probably aren't doing anything at all.

[Shihab91]

Switzerland... Because they are minding their own business... So we must bully them

[andreasderjuengere]

Disliked by who, I wonder.
From a 'European' viewpoint it could be Belarus.

[Jayplays900]

Turkey (Not entirely European), Russia, or maybe Serbia?

[Stoner710]

I would say Russia or Germany

[Stargazer900]

What, why Germany?

[Stoner710]

@Stargazer900 people are still pissed off about World War II

[Youdumbeotch]

Probably Serbia or Ukraine or Romania

[Miristheiss]

I have no idea.
Greece.

[Cherry234]

I think France too

[ashkyl]

Russia I believe

[Wise4myage]

I say France.

[Physics-Man]

I think it's the UK.

[Helen009]

Where do you live

[IncognitoBandito]

Liechtenstein

[EnglishEuropean]

Romania

[Anonymous]

Germany

[tartaarsaus]

Russia

[Richardceorl1]

Russia in Europe

[karaspara]

England

[Fromdusktilldawn]

Britain

[anylolone]

Right now? Germany.

[msc545]

The US.

[Stargazer900]

Um, is that a joke?

[msc545]

@Stargazer900 Nope.

[andreasderjuengere]

From a European's point of view (and also by grammar) you might be very right :)

[msc545]

@andreasderjuengere Exactly!