Abstract
The Kingdom of Belgium appeared on the map of European countries relatively late, namely in 1830, as a result of the division of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands into two sovereign states. As the Kingdom of Belgium transformed from a unitary state into a federal state in the 19th century, in addition to the external (state) borders, it also has internal borders, which separate three autonomous regions, three linguistic communities and four linguistic regions. The basis of internal divisions is the linguistic conflict of two cultures colliding in the territory of the Kingdom of Belgium: French and Dutch-speaking (Roman and Germanic). These divisions also pass through towns and villages. This conflict was resolved in the 1960s by applying a unique concept of communes with linguistic facilities, where two different languages were allowed to function officially. Linguistic divisions were especially sharp in the two world wars, when the occupiers set these two separate cultures against one another. In this article, the author analyses particularly dramatic cases of this type of borders and their consequences for the residents of the borderland.
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