History NationalStereotypes / EasternEurope

* The most famous Czech region is Bohemia, which gave us the setting to the French opera Theatre/LaBoheme and "The Bohemian Girl", the word "bohemian" and Music/{{Queen}} 's ''"Bohemian Rhapsody"''. Interestingly enough all these associations were not thought up by the Czechs themselves.
** The meaning of the word "Bohemian", as in "unconventional lifestyle", is of French origin. Apparently, one of their term for Gypsies was "bohémiens", because they came to France via Bohemia. This lifestyle is not quite standard for the Czech people, considered by many Slavic neighbours as cold "half-Germans".

* The most enduring Czech stereotype is that they are crazy beer drinkers. The "Pilsner" and "Budweiser" beers being their international greeting card.
** As the country holds the title of highest beer consumption per capita in the world, it is more TruthInTelevision than stereotype. However, like all such generalisations it of course does not apply to every single Czech in existence. There are regions where wine rules just as much as beer. The stereotype also usually overlooks the fact that quite a lot of said beer is consumed with a meal, rather than being drunk as an alcoholic beverage in and of itself (it is arguably far healthier for washing down a savoury meal than a soda) - which makes the "crazy" part of the stereotype less applicable than it may seem from the numbers alone.
** Beer is SeriousBusiness in general, with strong loyalty to specific, often local or nearby brewery. And local doesn't mean small or family business - they are simply so many of them, every larger town is bound to have one.

* Czech Republic is today quite an irreligious country. It has one of the world's highest proportions of atheists / agnostics (a sharp contrast from their northern neighbor Poland, which is one of the most religious European countries).

** What gets forgotten in all the jokes about TheAllegedCar is that, among other things, the Škoda works built some of the best tanks for their time in the late 1930's, renowned for mechanical reliability and capable of holding their own - and more - against anything the rest of Europe could put on a battlefield.[[note]]The British very seriously considered buying Škoda-built Praha M35 and M38 tanks, but the German occupation scotched this.[[/note]] After the German occupation, Škoda turned out a vast quantity of tanks, AFV's and vehicles for the German armed forces, to such an extent that a ''quarter'' of all the "German" tanks invading France in 1940 were, in fact, Škoda-made. That 1937 design, in its last production variant, was still holding its own in the front line in May 1945. Škoda lorries also had a reputation for endurance and durability in all weather extremes, going as far as North Africa and Russia. Škoda vehicles might not have been designed for looks - but they were built to last and to take punishment.

* Some souvenir shops in Prague sell Russian matryoshka dolls and Russian fur ushanka hats. Apparently, [[InterchangeableAsianCultures all Slavic cultures are the same]]. Doubly hilarious when one remembers that matryoshkas aren't even traditionally Russian — they're a late XIX century adaptation of a ''Japanese'' toy that unexpectedly took off specifically as a souvenir novelty.
** Of course, the fact that many souvenir shops in Prague are in fact foreign owned by Russians and Vietnamese these days does not help...

* For whatever reason, there is a stereotype about Czechs being always depressed and gloomy, which is especially prominent in American-made media. Like pretty much all nations present on this page, Czechs simply don't smile unless they mean to show their happiness - and even then, why bother expressing it with a pointless gesture? Also, Czech small talk often consists of complaining about life's inconveniences. If you ask a Czech how they are, expect an honest answer most often amounting roughly to "meh". A burden shared is a burden diminished, and it's a good way to let off some steam and not become too frustrated: we're all in this s***-show together. An affirmation of that fact and of life's general mediocrity by sharing your own related minor troubles is the correct response that cheers everyone up. If you observe it from a culture as prominently focused on positivity as American culture often is, this is of course quite the culture shock.

* In Russia, Poles are usually seen as very arrogant, boastful and unpresentable people that no one takes seriously. Others see Poles as ingrates and Russophobes since they keep demonizing Russian culture and history while sweetening their own past, for instance talking forever about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact but sparing little attention to Polish landgrabbing of Czech land during Munich[[note]]This one is a tiny bit more complex than it seems - Poles grabbed land in Munich... which was the same piece of land Czechs grabbed when [[UsefulNotes/PolishSovietWar Poland was busy fighting against Soviets]], so in eyes of the contemporary Polish government it was "historical justice". It still backfired at Poles either way, as they considered a tiny piece of land with 5 coal mines more important than keeping a buffer - or even an ally - on the southern border right before World War 2 started.[[/note]].

* Lithuanians only drink vodka and speak Russian (and Polish) - both of which are not necessarily true, especially in modern day, though there are significant minorities of those populations.

* Tribalistic in temperament, settle all their issues with violence, love tracksuits and are either owners of an eatery or work for the mob - Muslim Italians with a weird language nobody understands, apparently.

* Belarus itself is culturally divided right in the middle - the western, catholic part and the ortodox east. Easterners think of westerners as of cunning, hard-working and calculating people (which seen as a bad thing), and westerners think of easterners as of lazy and unreliable people.

* Given the scale of recent events, expect Ukraine to be known for the Euromaidan civil unrests and Russia's response to it above all else for many years to come. Some has already dubbed the resulting civil war the Second Ruin — after the similar civil war that devastated the country in the 17th century, though the full scale war Russia is waging since February 2022 is very likely to dwarf that.

* All Ukranians enjoy dancing the ''Hopak'', their national folkloric dance, and enjoy painting ''pysankas'', colorfully designed wax-coated [[EasterEgg Easter eggs]].

* The Polish stereotype for Ukraine tends to be some mix of varying proportions between an idyllic Arcadia that used to be "ours", and a Romantic open steppe land for knightly gentleman heroes to roam. The stereotypes for Ukrainians include: a possibly evil, but industrial-grade badass Cossack (the old-timey stereotype), the insanely violent nationalist in the midst of an ethnic cleansing (the post-WWII stereotype), or a sympathetic funny-accented temporary expat, usually a maid or a student (the post-'89 stereotype).

* As part of the ongoing war since February 2022, Russian and pro-Russian propaganda tend to emphasize/treat as facts a lot of the more negative stereotypes mentioned above.

** A related, very negative stereotype that gets brought up over and over again and which got only ever more popular after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, is that Russians as a people don't get democracy and crave to be trod upon by a heavy-handed autocrat, and just can't quite grasp that others don't. You can imagine the chagrin felt by any liberal-minded Russian.

* Russian athletes will usually be genius TabletopGame/{{chess}} players, hockey players or very slender and flexible gymnasts. Other Eastern European countries also fall into this stereotype.

* Very insistent that they are ''not'' Eastern European, preferring instead to link themselves to Catholic culture (all countries in this region are majority-Catholic). Still, they'll often be categorized as former Eastern Bloc, so to their never-ending chagrin most foreigners will think they are interchangeable with Russians anyway.

* They were the CommieLand beach resort. too.

*** To examplify Russia's record as the largest nation of the world characters will travel by Trans Siberian Express spending months on that train,[[note]]Real travel time — about one week, though the foreign tourists often book itineraries with multiple separate legs, staying in some cities along the way for several days, which can easily accumulate.[[/note]] ideal for developing romances or solving [[Literature/MurderOnTheOrientExpress murder mysteries]].
** ARiddleWrappedInAMysteryInsideAnEnigma: A popular phrase originally coined by Sir Winston Churchill to describe Russia. Other countries, especially in Europe, still have a centuries old fear and distrust of Russia, mostly fed by the country's largeness. This was then compounded by the fact that it was culturally severed from Europe by the Mongols for so long that it left Russia with a distinct legacy of being [[DistinctionWithoutADifference European, but not quite.]] It's almost comparable to a huge giant, waiting to strike. This is also where the idea of ''mysterious Russia'' comes from. There's so much land, most of it hardly visited by humans, that even Russians themselves have no clue what secrets may be hidden in some of the most remote parts of their own country! Take TheTunguskaEvent, a mysterious meteorite explosion that took place in 1908. Despite having a huge shockwave and impact that could felt millions of miles away it luckily caused no victims, because it happened to strike in the mostly uninhabitated areas of Siberia.
*** The "not-quite-European" aspect has generally been emphasized by countries that held grudges against Russia and/or wanted a pretext for confrontation with it, such as France (after the 1812 defeat), Poland (after the suppression of the November Uprising), and Nazi Germany (which used it as justification that Russians were "racially inferior" and had to be conquered). They tended to present the (typically East Slavic) Russian culture and people (who rarely had direct contact with Mongols and therefore didn't mix with them) as exaggeratedly "Asiatic", which, in line with then-popular chauvinistic paradigm, was basically an euphemism for "barbaric". Unsurprisingly, in the mid-twentieth century when racialism quickly declined in popularity, this view of Russia also became unpopular; nowadays the country is generally seen as peculiar yet undoubtedly European.
*** Ironically, the "not-quite-European" aspect is also emphasized by a number of ''Russian'' ideologues, of whom Alexander Dugin is the latest. Long story simplified and short, the idea is that Russia is a separate civilization, usually dubbed 'Eurasian' or some such, and should avoid "Western" concepts such as liberal democracy, rule of law, human rights etc.

* If Russia has to be symbolized by an animal it will be a bear. Ironically, this is originally a strictly foreign stereotype — old Russians were [[BearsAreBadNews too frightened and respectful of the bears]], with whom they interacted regularly.