Geographical or cultural region which existed in the past, that may or may not still exist
Historical regions (or historical areas) are geographical regions which, at some point in history, had a cultural, ethnic, linguistic or political basis, regardless of latter-day borders.[1] There are some historical regions that can be considered as "active", for example: Moravia, which is held by the Czech Republic, is both a recognized part of the country as well as a historical region. They are used as delimitations for studying and analysing social development of period-specific cultures without any reference to contemporary political, economic or social organisations.
The fundamental principle underlying this view is that older political and mental structures exist which exercise greater influence on the spatial-social identity of individuals than is understood by the contemporary world, bound to and often blinded by its own worldview - e.g. the focus on the nation-state.[2]
Sven Tägil (ed.), Regions in Central Europe: The Legacy of History, C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 1999
Marko Lehti, David James Smith, Post-Cold War Identity Politics: Northern and Baltic Experiences, Routledge, 2003 ISBN0-7146-5428-0
Compiled by V. M. Kotlyakov, A. I. Komarova, Elsevier's dictionary of geography: in English, Russian, French, Spanish, German, Elsevier, 2006 ISBN0-444-51042-7
Martin W. Lewis, Kären Wigen, The Myth of Continents: A Critique of Metageography, University of California Press, 1997 ISBN0-520-20743-2
Further reading
Susan Smith-Peter, Imagining Russian Regions: Subnational Identity and Civil Society in Nineteenth-Century Russia, Brill, 2017 ISBN9789004353497