Europe – Eurosceptics say – will never unite, even with the utmost political will. Cause? Europe lacks its own identity. This often-heard view is not entirely without foundation:indeed the continent seems to be constantly reinventing itself and the self-image is just as often shifting. Yet there is indeed a pattern, consisting of three historical layers sliding over each other.
Much has been written about the "identity" of Europe, a perilous and elusive subject. If it is so difficult to say anything meaningful about 'the' identity of 'the' Dutchman, how utterly impossible must it be to determine the identity of a continent whose surface is 245 times the size of the Netherlands, population about 45 times larger, with 40 to 50 languages, completely different states, each with their own histories, cultures and regional variations.
Describing the 'identity' of Europe is impossible, but there is certainly something to be said about the associations attached to the concept of 'Europe'. 'Europe' as an image, as a point of view.
Just as in culture and in history certain associations are linked to our understanding of 'France' ('oh la la' and 'Cartesian'), 'Germany' ('gründlich' and 'gemütlich') and 'Belgium' (bon vivants but also a bit fatter), the term 'Europe' also evokes certain images and stereotypes.
Of course, they are stereotypes, variable and contradictory stereotypes, but for that very reason they are an interesting subject for cultural historians. They don't tell us much about how Europe 'real' is, but they do offer insight into how Europe is viewed.
A literary specialism that analyzes such stereotypical imagery historically and rhetorically is imagology. Those who apply the method of imagology to the image of Europe can discern fascinating patterns amid an abundance of historical material about the reputation of the continent in which we live and with which we identify in one way or another.
Tradition, self-image and demarcation
Charles V undertook the construction of an imperial palace in the Alhambra of Granada in 1527. Granada, the last Moorish stronghold, had been conquered 35 years before by his grandparents, Ferdinand and Isabella.
Charlemagne himself had recently been installed as monarch of the Spanish lands, and had been crowned German king in 1521 (the papal confirmation as emperor would take place in 1530).
In the ornate Alhambra, the rather clunky Renaissance architecture of Charles's palace detonates a bit. Intriguingly, however, tucked away in a corner of the building mass, is a castle chapel. It is octagonal, often seen as an echo of the chapel where Charlemagne's coronation as German king had taken place shortly before:the octogon of Aachen Cathedral, built by Charlemagne himself. Karel was well aware of his name relationship and the fact that he was the successor of the great 'primal Karel'. This is also apparent from the print of a medieval biography of Charlemagne, published in 1521, in which both Charlemagne were depicted side by side.
The Aachen Cathedral – started around 780 as a chapel of the Palatine of Charlemagne – was e until the 11th century. century has been the tallest and most impressive building north of the Alps. The octagonal shape was taken from another example:the Vitalis church in Ravenna, for a time the royal church of the Gothic and Longobard empires of northern Italy. Charles's father Pippin III had conquered Ravenna for the pope in about 750, establishing the alliance between the papacy and the Carolingians.
Ravenna's Vitalis Church was itself a purely Byzantine edifice, echoing the equally octagonal Church of Saint Sergius in Constantinople. For example, we see a building motif bouncing from Istanbul to Andalusia, with the imperial succession as the guideline for this architectural relay.
The presence of Islam is a permanent motivation in this tradition. Islam conquered Spain in 711-714. Shortly before the reconquest of Granada by Ferdinand and Isabella, Mehmet II had captured Byzantium on the other side of the Mediterranean (1453).
Southern Europe resembles scales in religious geopolitics from 700 to 1500:the southward push of Islam in the Spanish reconquista is accompanied by a northward expansion of the Ottoman sphere of power towards Belgrade and Budapest. In this centuries-long confrontation, the word 'Europe' is used for the first time as a political collective term. The Battle of Poitiers (in which Charles Martel, Charlemagne's grandfather, stopped the Islamic expansion of about 730) is described by the monk Notker of St. Gallen as a victory of the 'europenses', the Europeans.
The loss of Constantinople provoked the following cry from the humanist Enea Silvio Piccolomini – later Pope Pius II – during the Diet of Frankfurt in 1454:“We must face the truth that in many centuries Christendom has suffered no greater reproach than now. . In the past, our defeats took place in Asia and Africa, in distant lands. But now we are defeated in Europe, in our own homeland, in our own home, in our own hometown.”
Seen in this light, it is remarkable that Ferdinand and Isabella – and Charles V after them – saw the reconquest of Granada as a final victory. The job is done. They want to consolidate the victory by placing the religion of the people under strict control, but nobody thinks of further expansion south of the Strait of Gibraltar. Apparently this is seen as a foreign country, foreign area where Spain has lost nothing.
Instead, the further expansion towards the Atlantic and Indian Oceans goes through the Strait of Gibraltar out of the inlet. Colonialism takes the place of the Crusades and the Reconquista. Charles V includes in his coat of arms the Pillars of Hercules (symbol of the Strait of Gibraltar), with the telltale proverb 'plus ultra' :'Going further'.
Eurocentrism
In colonial expansion, Europe will come to see itself as the center of the world, the heart of the compass rose, the pivot point around which the compass needle revolves. The European sense of superiority is based on the self-image of progress and the 'plus ultra' Charles V also gets that connotation. In the Renaissance, the arts (from Cimabue to Raphael and Michelangelo) and the sciences (from Copernicus to Galileo) had learned to see themselves as a dynamic process of development, in which each generation surpassed the previous one and reached an ever higher level.
In the colonial period, this also became the European self-image:the continent of modernization. (The concept of 'modern' came towards the end of the 17 e century as a positive ideal.) Europe developed two gender roles:that of the bold explorer and that of the scholar. The rise of the East India Companies and of the modern universities (Charles V founded one in Granada in 1526) went hand in hand.
Eurocentrism is therefore first and foremost a picture of history. Ever since classical antiquity, 'barbarians' had been regarded as peoples who were out of tune with the prevailing civilizational norms at home. This included the powerful empires now called "Orientals":the Islamic Caliphates and Sultanates, Persia, and what was vaguely known of India, China, and Japan. Next to those barbaric non-Europeans came the 'savages' (savages ) or 'natural peoples' found along the distant coasts of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
Europe distinguishes itself from them by arguing that the barbarians were stuck in the past and the 'savages' that they were 'primitive', that is, had not yet started a development process that Europe had already started. had gone through a long time ago. From the Spanish conquistadors in the New World to the Victorian explorers in the African interior (‘Dr. Livingstone, I presume?’ ) predominates this feeling of superiority.
The historical process as progress:the self-satisfied optimism comes especially in the Enlightenment of the 18 e century to flourish. In the Enlightenment vision, Europe is wrestling from archaic forms of stupidity thanks to its acumen and capacity for critical reflection. As a superstition, religion too will eventually be conquered by a reasonable image of man, which will logically result in human rights and a sensible, fair social order.
There are therefore two 'layers' in the image of Europe:an older one and a more recent one. The old one was formed in the Middle Ages – as part of a religious struggle with Islam – and encompasses all of Christian Europe, from Moscow to Granada. This layer emphasizes the 'Christian heritage'. The more recent layer took shape in the period 1500-1800 and emphasizes the arts, sciences and critical emancipatory thinking. It mainly encompasses northwestern Europe of the Renaissance, colonial expansion, university foundations and the Enlightenment.
Two things become clear. First, the position of orthodox Eastern Europe is half-hearted:it falls under one, but not under the other 'layer' of European self-image. Second, the combination of Christian heritage and Enlightenment clumps together two moral models that are actually at odds with each other. The European self-image is contradictory, 'eat from both sides'. But that is what many national images do (think of the Dutch merchant/pastor, the English gentleman/hooligan and so on). But there will be a third layer on top.
Decadence and the loss of innocence
As early as the 18th century, some writers, such as Choderlos de Laclos (‘Les liaisons dangéreuses’ ) or the infamous Marquis de Sade that European sophistication is often a veneer beneath which lies a pool of immoral cynicism. Opposite this is the ideal image of the 'noble savage', who by nature displays an admirable moral sense and lives in harmonious innocence according to high standards and values.
By 1900 that feeling is breaking through in wide circles. The critique of colonial abuses, from Multatuli's 'Max Havelaar' to Joseph Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness', takes heroic figures such as Stanley and Livingstone off their pedestal. The sophistication and level of civilization of old Europe now resemble the decadent greenhouse plants of a continent past its prime, with much past and little future, much art but little morals.
Readers are horrified by the shocking stories of exploitation and oppression in the colonies, and in the 20th century the shadow of genocide will gradually extend from those colonies (German-Namibia, 1902) via Armenia (1915-1916) to Auschwitz.
And a new global power is emerging:America. In the Eurocentric worldview, the United States is in a win-win position (“America, Du hast es besser!” Goethe already wrote). Heir to the scientific and cultural achievements of the old continent, but thanks to its location in the 'New World', it has the youth, the energy (and also a bit of youthful naivety) of a society at the beginning of its development process. America stands for energetic optimism, the West of Europe for ironic-resigned cynicism.
It is the role pattern of the unstoppable young man and the worldly wise old man. When in the literature and films of the 20 e century American and European characters converge, characterization almost always follows this pattern.
We even see this pattern in a speech by Dominique de Villepin in the Security Council. In February 2003 there was a debate about the imminent invasion of Iraq. The Bush administration wanted to put things in order; European governments had their doubts. The French Foreign Minister graciously announced from the 'old, blood-stained continent' that Europe knew how the best intentions could degenerate into deep misery, and warned against naive optimism about the feasibility of a military-imposed military democracy.
The European image thus derives from the tragic derailments of its history a third layer, the layer of the continent that has learned bitterly from its mistakes, that lives with the historical shadow of bloody tragedies.
Europe's bad conscience has almost become a moral export; Europe as an amoral continent offers the thrilling shudder of Count Dracula, the Curia cardinals of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, the rawness of ruthless villainous figures from the regimes of Stalin and Hitler alongside the wisdom of Tolstoy and Voltaire. Europe is the continent of complexity, the inadequacy of black-and-white templates, guilt and cynical irony.
It is a complex and contradictory image, which can nevertheless be substantiated by testing against literary sources and other cultural representations in terms of historical development periods and context of origin. The complexities and contradictions form a kaleidoscope of platitudes and characterological elements.
In different situations, the kaleidoscope will be rotated differently and show different patterns:Europe as contrasted with America takes on a different profile than Europe as contrasted with Turkey, Japan or New Guinea. (Technically speaking:a self-image is always partly determined by 'the other' to which it is mirrored, and vice versa.) But the building blocks can be identified and traced. As a cultural frame of reference, people carry a swarm of associations that together form a European image.
That image is a view, not a factual truth. It does not provide hard information about 'what or how Europe really is', but about 'how it is viewed'. And that view, in its various evaluations and manifestations, in turn colors our determinations and our choices. It is therefore important to understand this image well and – where necessary – to put it into perspective.