A Tour of the Battleground

The Seven Circles of Pan-European Memory

Bibliographic Data

ID4854680
AuthorsClaus Leggewie, Friderike Heuer
Year2008
Volume75
Issue1
Pages217-234
Publication date2008-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial research (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0037-783X • E-ISSN: 1944-768X
PublisherProject MUSE (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1353/sor.2008.0036
OpenAlexW1659293363
LanguageEN
Citations received23
References cited3

Claus Leggewie A Tour of the Battleground: The Seven Circles of Pan-European Memory “WE HAVE NO MONEY, NO COLLECTION, A N D NO LOCATION.” THIS USED to be Krzystof Pom ian’s succinct answer, delivered w ith an im pish smile, to the question of w hat one could expect to see in the planned Musée de l’Europe in Brussels. We found out last fall, during the muse­ um ’s inauguration, that the museologist, born in Warsaw but who has long been living in Paris, has been able to rectify these deficits. The exhibit, located in the beautiful Thurn and Taxis Palace, is called “C’est notre histoire. 50 ans de l’histoire europeénne” (It’s Our History. 50 Years of European History), and is well w orth seeing. Before the inauguration, there was been no dearth of sarcas­ tic proclam ations th at Europe now has—if not a constitution—at least a museum. But is Europe ripe for a museum? The people we call Europeans include m any m illions of European Union citizens, the Swiss, the Ukrainians, the Turks, the Norwegians, the Croatians, the Serbs, and the Albanians. The more interesting question, therefore, is w hether this largest Not-Yet-People on Earth shares mem ories and perhaps a common sense of history. Indeed, should Europeans share memories? Each of the European nations has accumulated a stockpile of tales and myths that allow its citizens to act in solidarity w ithin set boundaries. W hat, then, does social research Vol 75 : No 1 : Spring 2008 217 th at imply for a united Europe? In w hat way do Europeans have a “shared m em ory”?1 Skeptics are wary of any supranational exaltation of a European idea that w ould encroach upon the sovereignty of the individual states or the parliam ents of the m em ber nations. Those who smell such dangers (in London as well as in Paris or Athens, let alone in Warsaw) will also consider pan-European com m em oration a waste of effort, liable only to stir up old conflicts and quarrelling. This is evident in the debates about expulsions and ethnic cleansings since 1944. Nothing could m ore starkly highlight how historical conflicts can be used as bargaining chips than the dem and by the Polish head of state during the European constitutional debate that the num ber of Nazi victims needed to be counted in order to assess correctly Poland’s proportional votes in today’s Europe. For those w ith a strong national consciousness, the notion o f a supranational Europe is best under­ stood primarily as a free-trade zone, which acts collectively only w hen attacked heavily from the outside. From this perspective, only defen­ sive battles against external enemies and internal barbarians like the Nazis are w orth remembering. The defeat of the Nazis in May 1945 is indeed commemorated by almost the entire continent. But even that can trigger a fight, as became apparent in the Estonian capital of Tallinn in 2007. The removal of a Soviet cenotaph from the center of the Estonian capital, a m onum ent understandably viewed by the Baltic people as a symbol of decades of occupation and oppression, led to a genuine political crisis betw een Estonia and the Russian federation. Note, though, that it did not cause a crisis between Russia and the European Union, which indicates how little the EU felt affected by this event. W ith an eye on exactly this kind of experience m arked by the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe, José Sem prun, a prisoner in Buchenwald from 1943 to 1945, dem anded in his speech on the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of the National Socialist (NS) concentra­ tion camps that European enlargem ent could only succeed culturally and existentially “w hen our memories have been shared and brought together as one.” 218 social research Clearly then, anyone who wishes to bestow a collective identity on European society m ust consider the discussion and recognition of disputed mem ories to be as im portant, say, as treaties, a com m on currency and open borders. This poses

Ancient history · Art history · Constitution · European union · Genealogy · Mythology · Political science · Politics · Solidarity · Classics · Eastern European Communism and Reforms · Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics · History · Law · Polish Historical and Cultural Studies

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