“I guess it was The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe that first got me thinking about borders” says Lewis Baston, author of Borderlines (now just out in paperback): “The idea that there is this line on the ground and somehow, things are different on the other side always intrigued me.”
In compiling this unusual and highly readable guide to the geography and history of Europe’s dividing lines, Baston travelled to 29 borders over a five-year period in order to investigate how mere lines on a map, drawn and then re-drawn countless times, have played such a crucial role in determining the continent’s history.
The idea of writing something about the patchwork nations of Europe had always been at the back of Baston’s mind, but it was the twin shocks of Brexit and the first election of Donald Trump that gave him the impetus to start on his epic journey – all made by public transport and much of it on foot.
He began, as does the book, with our very own border between Northern Ireland and the Republic – a border that has caused the two countries so many difficulties. Yet the border itself is an almost arbitrary line on a map, drawn for political and religious reasons not representing any significant linguistic or ethnic differences.
“British and Irish history are not separate from European history,” Baston observes. “Many of the same issues that cropped up along the Irish border – problems of identifying and maintaining it and finding ways to work round it – were cropping up all the time in the formation of other European borders. It reminded me how deeply embedded we are in European history.”
But it wasn’t just the flashpoint borders that Baston travelled to but also the more unusual ones. The town of Baarle, for example, which is in Belgium …and the Netherlands with the border between the two countries running higgledy-piggledy through the town, resulting in houses with the border running straight through their front door and others with two doors, one in each country. The police run a joint ‘international’ patrol and the council chamber has the border running down the middle with members having to ensure that they only vote on issues that affect their ‘country’.
Other peculiarities include Valga-Valka where children rock gently on a playground swing that one moment is in Estonia and the next in Latvia; or Campione d’Italia, an Italian town on the shores of Lake Lugano, which is completely surrounded by Switzerland and can only be reached by passing through Swiss waters by those desperate to reach its monstrously shaped casino.
But peculiarities aside, one of the most haunting images in the book is of the Triplex Confinium, which marks the borderlines between Hungary, Serbia and Romania – originally agreed in the Trianon Treaty of 1920. The tri-borders are marked by a rather forlorn obelisk set in a bleak landscape – and for Hungarians, it commemorates the point at which ‘greater Hungary’ became ‘lesser Hungary’ as a result of it being on the losing side when first world war hostilities finally ended.
The treaty created a Hungary that consisted of just 28% of its pre-war territory and a population reduced from almost 30 million to just over seven million. A historical memory that the prime minister Viktor Orban never misses an opportunity to exploit as an example of how Europe is against the Hungarians (his message has decreasing effectiveness if current polls are to be believed).
As Baston criss-crossed this border he was stopped at the Hungarian-Serbian part. “The border guard asked me the purpose of my visit. I explained how I was tracking borders. He replied, ‘That’s odd, but everyone needs a hobby I guess’.” He admits that “there’s a certain mileage you can get out of being an eccentric Englishman.”
Baston, a historian by trade, has had a lifelong fascination with borders and not just the places themselves but the sort of ‘outsider’ mentality they can induce. He points out that being on the wrong side of a border can be as significant as being inside, slightly mischievously he notes that: “The birthplaces of Hitler, Stalin and Napoleon were all located in peripheral entities, outside the borders of the ‘mother country’”
But the book, and the places that Baston explores, aren’t all just about the negative aspects of borders – experiencing the cultures of more than one country can be enriching. His prime example of this is the city of Chernivtsi which stands at the confluence of Ukraine, Moldova and Romania. Historically located in Bukovina, an area of Europe that never had its own sovereign identity “a borderland par excellence”, as Baston describes it.
Now in western Ukraine, Chernivtsi was formerly part of the Soviet Union, and before that in Romania, and before that part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Baston describes its real ‘personality’ though as Habsburg, a term he finds redolent of the essence of Europe: “One third of the countries that make up the EU had their roots in the old Habsburg Empire” he observes.
Chernivtsi is, for Baston, a symbol of Europe – rich in culture, architecture and learning. It has survived any number of invasions and regime changes but remains a reminder of how borders can be sources of inspiration and positivity rather than demarcation lines of war, conflict and ethnic hatred. And Baston’s book is a timely reminder that what unites we Europeans is infinitely greater than any temporary dividing lines.
Borderlines: A history of Europe told from the edges by Lewis Baston is published by Hodderpress, hardback £25 paperback £10.99
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