Perhaps if I say, "I love the stuff coming out of those European countries which used to be under communist rule, except for the Baltics, only because I haven't read much Baltic lit," that would be politically correct?

Yes, and geographically correct, too :-) I see you missed this discussion two months back, so here is the gist of it -

The geographical centre of Europe, depending on the method used and areas taken into account, is at:

• Bernotai, near Vilnius, Lithuania;
  
• Číhošť, near Ledec nad Sazavou, Czech Republic;
  
• Krahule, near Kremnica in central Slovakia (Hungary before 1920, then called Kékellő);
  
• Dilove, near Rakhiv in western Ukraine (before 1945 Czechoslovakia, before 1920 [Austria-]Hungary, then called Terebesfehérpatak);
  
• Suchowola, north of Białystok, in northeast Poland.

As you can see from that, today Lithuania, Belarus, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Western Ukraine, and maybe Romania and Austria could be considered Central Europe. In the languages of most of these countries, they are called Central European. It was only because of the Iron Curtain and Germany's territorial changes that for people in the West, Central Europe shifted West - but people here were never happy about that, they are sensitive to it.

Post-1989, for international fora, the term "Central-Eastern Europe" was adopted as a compromise. (However, some accepted "Central Europe" in English, for example the English-language university George Soros established for the region, which used to reside in Prague and Budapest but now only in the latter, is called Central European University.)

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}