I just want to see the background of AE users. I think their countries' past may determine their interest and ideas about history; for example in empasizing the glorious past, or legitimizing current hegemony, or blaming the past for current backwardness, etc. I think all these might reflect the users' behaviour especially in the flame wars... 

I'm not sure where I should put Bulgaria - first or second? What do the other forumers think?

Bosnia belongs to the third world ecomicaly

Mila,Bosnia was never in the first world because since Bosnia existed it was in  the third,you cant count Yugoslavia(and even then Bosnia was among the most poor areas while Croatia and Slovena where the rich ones)

I think Yugoslavia should be counted in the 3rd world despite its socialist regime under Tito.

To remind a historical fact: Yugoslavia(Tito) had attended to Bandung Conference in 1955, which many neutral countries referred with the name "Non-Aligned", belonging to neither poles came together.

Tito had never been much cordial with the Soviet Union, and always kept good relations with the leaders of third-world countries,like Gamal Abdel Nasser.

So it is the best way to put Yugoslavia into third world group.

She's right, Tito's more market socialist and not Stalinist command socialist system preserved something of a market structure in Yugoslavia and decentralized economic planning that kept the economy somewhat receptive to the wants of the people that the more top down organized economies of the rest of the Eastern Bloc didn't have.  Of all the Eastern Bloc nations, Yugoslavia had the highest standard of living.

overall Turkey is a third world country.big cities such as Istanbul or Izmir can be squeezed in second world category tho.

Agree we are a third world country. But Istanbul is first world category, after all she make 60-80 of Turkey total production. Better than most cities.

Originally posted by Maju I voted 1st but I really think that the Basque Country belongs to a diferent World, you know.

Dream World!

According to the topic definitions Romania would be 2nd.

My vote goes for the 3rd. Yugoslavia, Hungaria, Chechoslovakia, East Germany might have been 2nd but not Romania.

*As a matter of fact, now we're third going for fourth!

there is no second or fourth world. and the whole "world" system is wrong.

it was created by a chinese guy and he put the USA and USSR in the first world (only them, no other country) and he put all the developing countries into the third world category. countries like UK, japan, France, were not classified.

and obviously, the USSR was far from the "first world" as we know it today, so this whole system is out dated. the common terms now are developed and developing.

If you haven't noticed Communism is dead and today the classification is based on the countrys present day economy. It doesn't matter how well Yugoslavia was doing 15 years ago, today it's a wreck. And what's this crap about us eating through the Yugo garbidge. The wealthyest Eastern block nation was East Germany. Even under Communism Bulgaria was much better off than Yugoslavia. Infact, the only regions of Yugoslavia that were prosperous were Slovenia, Croatia and perhaps to a lesser degree Bosnia. Serbia and Macedonia were draining them of their income and investing it into the more undeveloped areas of the country, i.e. into themselves. This was one of the numerous reasons why Slovenes, Croats and Bosniaks hated Serb domination so much.

Whether communism is dead or not is a highly debatable issue. At least at the basis of ideals it's still living and we can observe this through the current developments at Latin America. However, this isn't the point I'm interested in this topic. I'm not trying to classify countries according to their current or past economies. I just want to learn the backgrounds of AE users according to their position during the Cold War, because I think it's somewhat determining for the members' perception of history...

Second World.

First World