Linguaphile wrote:Yes, in general they are smaller areas than what Vijay is referring to and they were decided by people who were geographically closer to them, but still, I'm not sure that makes any difference to the people who actually live there. (To an individual it doesn't make much difference how large or small the area is if friends and family or livelihood are on both sides of the border; nor does the distance between an individual and the decision-makers have much impact on how they feel about it.)
I'm talking about internal borders, though (and that too within empires that no longer exist anyway). You and Naava are both talking about international borders. That makes a huge difference! I can't think of a situation where crossing a provincial border (e.g. from Gaul to Hispania in the Roman Empire, from the Bengal Presidency to the Madras Presidency in British India) is as complicated as crossing an international one (e.g. from Estonia to Russia, from East Germany to West Germany).
For what it's worth, just in case it isn't clear, I realize these are all borders, and I get thinking all borders are bad and/or have their disadvantages. All I'm saying is that borders are also not all exactly the same and there are different kinds of borders and different issues with them. Splitting an ethnicity between two or more countries is one thing. Changing the borders of a country over hundreds of years as a result of wars, treaties, etc. is another thing. Slicing an area comparable in size to Europe in three because you feel like it is yet another thing. More than one of these things can be involved in carving a border, but this still does not make them exactly the same thing.