Why is history of Eastern Europe so grim and hardcore?

>>3253467
Slavs are a grim and hardcore people.

>>3253467
Because it was Europe's wall against Nomadic hordes.

>>3253467
Sharing borders with the Muslim hordes made Eastern Europeans resort to extreme measures to defend themselves. For example, Vlad impaled people to scare shit out of invaders. Well that and he was plain batshit.

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>>3253467
When you're fighting ferocious horse archers, vicious Islamists, or annoying steppe raiders, along with internal problems, you sort of have to be on your toes all the time. Perhaps even paranoid about your whole situation. This is especially true for the Balkans if you apply all three enemies.

>>3253496
>all three enemies

Don't forget your neighbors.

It's because the Balkans happened to be squeezed between several diplomatic and cultural spheres, so the various petty kingdoms of the region didn't have the mitigating effect on relations that other places did with priests and merchants and bureaucrats who all spoke the same language or were part of the same culture or institutions had.

You were brutal to someone because you didn't always have a mutually trusted intermediary to come up with something better.

>>3253467
Both R*ssians and G*rmans come to be their neighbours.

Because it's presented that way.

>>3253467
We didn't have the luxury of being an isolated kingdom from all the non-European savages like the UK or France did.

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Only grim compared to most places.

>>3253467
surrounded by Mongols, Turks, and Germans

>>3253481
>that and he was plain batshit

Outside of the outlandish tales that were told about him, nothing Vlad did was "batshit". He didn't act irrationally. He was cruel and used harsh methods to stamp out anybody he considered his opposition.

A lesson taught to him during his time with the Ottomans.