1) Early history: check out the activities of the Roman Empire and Ottoman rule, particularly in relation to what are now Bulgaria and Romania. As geographical features the Danube river and the carpathian mountains are politically significant in this. Romania is an interesting case study to highlight for your project since although earlier peopled by the 'Dacians', it now has a romance language (like Italian or Portuguese) and a lot of latin blood in the people even though the country is surrounded by non-latin countries. Also look up the huns and the magyars- they basically came in on the east coast and marauded their way across huge swathes of land before settling, but left influences behind them in their wake.
2) More recent history- study up on the history of the Austro-Hungarian empire- with this a good case study which links to the other one already suggested is that of Transylvania, which was originally an independent principality but has been split in two and had its border disputed between Romania and Hungary for centuries due to the mismatch between political and ethnic boundaries. (Most of it is now in Romania, but there are a lot of Ethnic hungarians living there and the second language is Hungarian.
3) Modern history- you cannot really do this without a basic understanding of the role of the former Soviet Union and Soviet communism in Eastern Europe, as well as the various fascist movements, so you need to read up on those too.
If you don't want to be so Romania-centred (that's what I know most about so I've focused my answer more on that), read up on the history of Serbia, Croatia and the former Yugoslavia for more ideas.
Good luck with it!
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01-08-2008, 04:48 PM
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