Europe before Europe:
The Transformation of European Consciousness
after the First World War
Katiana Orluc
This paper is a very condensed version of my June Paper, and although I had to cut out
quite a few things, I very much hope that it is still understandable and without too many
repetitions. The idea of the June Paper, i. e. being predominately theoretical, makes this
paper unfortunately not as entertaining as a “real” historical narrative… However, I
promise that the next paper will be purely historical and therefore much more fun to read.
1.
Central Questions and Problems
Today, it is an agreed fact (sic!) that Europe, given its lack of a clear geographical
structure, is merely and exclusively an intellectual construct. 1 Attempts at defining
Europe thus often hinge upon problems of semantics as well as of politics and ideology.
Moreover, Europe is itself a structuring force and therefore cannot be reduced to an idea,
an identity or a reality. Yet, as Gerard Delanty observes, “what is real is the discourse in
which ideas and identities are formed and historical realities constituted”.2
However, when investigating this discourse on Europe two main directions can be taken.
The first is to assume - in a somewhat absurdly teleological way - as has often been done
within the historiography of the European idea, a kind of linear development of the latter
through the centuries, finally culminating in the European Union. This construction ex
post facto is conditioned by an evolutionary understanding of the European idea, which is
grounded almost exclusively on ‘high’ literature while mostly neglecting the historical
context, and at the same time tries to establish some kind of order by explaining cause
and effect relationships. There exists, of course, some continuity between, for example,
See Eric Hobsbawm’s excellent essay: “The Curious History of Europe”, in: idem.: On History (London,
1998), pp. 287-301, p. 289.
2
Gerard Delanty: Inventing Europe – Idea, Identity, Reality (London, 1995), p. 3.
1
1
the inter-war period and the post-Second World War one – be it merely the fact that the
same people advocated a common Europe. Yet, it seems much more fruitful to assume
ambivalence and discontinuity, thus leaving more room to explore various different and
maybe competing narratives of the European idea.3 This implies, as Jacques Derrida has
suggested, a final rupture with the notion of European unity, understood as a unity of
history with a beginning and an end.4
Right from the start the discussion about the European idea requires some conceptual
clarifications. A distinction between the European idea, European consciousness and the
European discourse has to be drawn. The idea of Europe has been a trope in philosophical
and political writings since Antiquity, long before people started to identify themselves
with Europe, to see themselves as Europeans. The European consciousness that has thus
emerged, and, as I will argue in this paper, particularly after the First World War, was
mainly constructed against a category of otherness, although a sense of solidarity and
belongingness did also prevail. The discourse on Europe represents the larger
constellation in which the two other categories can be inserted.
Taking heed of these remarks, my interest is to explore the discourse on Europe in the
interbellum. The particular focus here is the formation and transformation of European
self-images as a historical subject in the process of the construction of European selfconsciousness that emerged with the experience of the First World War. The context
surrounding this discourse provides the fulcrum for my investigation. Thereby I will
discuss both the modality in which the discourse on Europe was contextualised in the
different national settings and the factors which conditioned this modality. What kind of
European self-images surfaced after the First World War? How did these notions develop
and in what way were they transformed in the course of the following two decades?
Having said this, it is the basic assumption of my project that the great interest in the idea
of a common Europe after the First World War was conditioned by specific political,
economical and cultural experiences and interests. The questions are obvious: Who
3
I am grateful to Carsten Humlebaek for this idea. See his June Paper, p. 26.
See Jacques Derrida: The Other Heading: Reflections on Today’s Europe, translated by Pascale-Anne
Brault and Michael Naas (Bloomington/Indiana, 1992).
4
2
advocated a united Europe? What were their specific interests and purposes in doing so?
What were their aims? And when did the envisioned Europe change its form and
contents, and for what reasons? To what extent is the idea of a united Europe a “modern”
or a “conservative” project? Or stated otherwise: In what way does the European
discourse relate to social and political reality, and in what way does the political context
condition or frame the perception of a future common Europe? And last but not least,
how far does the discourse itself construct a certain reality?
In this sense, I am aiming first, at identifying the social scope of the idea of a common
Europe, second, at grasping the persuasive or binding power that it exerted on specific
political and social groups, and finally, at recognising the impact that changes in political
and social structures had on the idea of Europe, with respect to shifts in experience and
expectations.
2.
2. 1.
Methodological and Conceptual Framework5
Conceptualising Begriffsgeschichte and Discourse Analysis
My dissertation project is mainly conditioned by a conceptual approach - a particularly
challenging enterprise if one is interested in the combination of intellectual and social
5
I prefer to use terms such as approach or method instead of the too-rigid category of theory. In this sense I
would support Stephen Greenblatt’s argument that for historians theories give rise obstructions more than
to clarifications. Accordingly, the historian should strive for a toolbox, or technique, of interpretative
methods, rather than applying a theoretical grid to historical questions. When turning to the problematic of
how to define one’s own approach, given the plethora of available methods, I tend to follow the process
initialised by modern theory and inter-subjective hermeneutics, as carried out by Hans-Georg Gadamer,
which uncoupled meaning from the actor’s intention and reconnected it with the reader’s or observer’s
perspective. This, of course, underlines the inevitability of interpretation, where social reality and meaning
are seen as the outcome of communication between sender, receiver and the mediating third. This line of
thought has been carried on in the idea of dialogical hermeneutics, the idea of a dialogue with the past
through texts or other artefacts. See Stephen Greenblatt: “Towards a Poetics of Culture”, in: idem.:
Learning to Curse. Essays in Early Modern Culture (New York, 1990), pp. 146-160, Clifford Geertz: The
Interpretation of Cultures (London, 1973), and Gerold Gerber, who discusses this problematic in his essay:
“Doing Christianity and Europe: An Inquiry into Memory, Boundary and Truth Practices in Malta”, in: Bo
Stråth (ed.): Europe and the Other and Europe as the Other (Brussels/Bern/Berlin/Frankfurt a. M./New
York/Oxford/Vienna, 2000), pp. 229-277, p. 235.
3
history, since “concepts are both indicators of and factors in political and social life”.6
Concepts are at the crossroads between language and society, they are “like joints linking
language and the extra-linguistic world”,7 since there exists no social activity, be it
political argument or economic transaction, without verbal expression. By defining extralinguistic structures, basic concepts, according to Reinhart Koselleck, condition political
events. He argues that concepts affect social and political transformations since it is
through them that a horizon is constituted against which changes are visible, projected
into the future, or contrasted to the past.8
However, Koselleck’s argument does not imply that a one-to-one relationship exists
between language and reality, since concepts are also affected by political reality, which
cannot be transformed overnight. Rather, the correspondence between both dimensions
has to be understood through its discrepancies and differences. Begriffsgeschichte has
thus concerned itself with the reciprocal relationship between conceptual continuities,
changes and innovations on the one side and large-scale structural transformations on the
other. In the Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe9 two methods are used to discover the
manifold meanings that concepts have acquired over time; by first applying a number of
linguistic techniques to the historical analysis of concepts, that is by situating them in
their historical context, and by second relating variations in their meaning to structural
changes: “Words will be understood in their context, social and political; the relationship
between word and content will be interpreted; the result of this inquiry will be defined in
terms of the resulting concept.”10 Accordingly, the methodological or epistemological
quality of Begriffsgeschichte, or of historical semantics, lies in its capacity to connect
Reinhart Koselleck: “A Response to Comments on the Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe”, in: Hartmut
Lehmann/Melvin Richter (eds.): The Meaning of Historical Terms and Concepts. New Studies on
Begriffsgeschichte, German Historical Institute, Washington D.C., Occasional Paper, no. 15 (1996), pp. 5970, p. 61.
7
Koselleck: “A Response”, p. 61.
8
See also Melvin Richter: The History of Political and Social Concepts: a Critical Introduction
(Oxford/New York, 1995), p. 42.
9
Although the Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe are focussing on a particular period, the so-called Sattelzeit,
which is the period of transition between early modern and modern Germany, a period of acceleration, this
periodisation is irrelevant for the method of Begriffsgeschichte. See Koselleck: “A Response”, p. 69.
10
Reinhart Koselleck: “Einleitung”, in: Otto Brunner/Werner Conze/Reinhart Koselleck (eds.):
Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe. Historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland, vol. I
(Stuttgart, 1972), pp. XIII-XXVIII, p. XX.
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structure and event while at the same time avoiding a simple linear argumentation leading
from the one to the other, i.e. in its ability to transcend contextualisation.
Walking along the path of Reinhart Koselleck allows me to undertake both a synchronic
and a diachronic examination of the concept of Europe. On the one hand, linking the
different images of Europe to political reality, i.e. the changing visions of a future Europe
due to transformations in the political and social life. What did Europe mean at that
specific moment and for whom was this concept of any relevance? What could a person
intend by writing about Europe in a given situation? To what extent did, for example, the
Treaty of Locarno influence European self-images? Did it transform the perceived
decline of Europe in the immediate aftermath of the war into a revived hope for a
European hegemony of the world? On the other hand, the diachronic analysis enables me
to detect if other terms and concepts have been added or omitted. Who spoke about the
Occident instead of Europe? Should a United States of Europe, or a Paneurope, or a
European Union be envisioned? At the same time the diachronic dimension unravels the
discrepancies between social and political reality and the idea of a common Europe. What
were the metaphors or tropes that never changed? Was there a general search for
continuity, which would not permit any transformation at all? Or did changes occur in the
meanings of Europe, which, and be it only seemingly, did not refer to their historical
context?
Given its complexity, being controversial and contested, Europe is indeed what Reinhart
Koselleck has coined a basic concept. It is the ambiguity of the concept of Europe, which
turns it into a prime example. As Hans Erich Bödeker has pointed out, it is the concept of
ambiguity and multiple meanings of a basic concept which “make[s] it possible to draw
methodological links to questions of social history and ideology criticism”,11 and both
categories are fundamental to my approach. It is impossible to understand a phenomenon
such as the European discourse in the inter-war period without being aware of its social
and political foundations and repercussions, which also encompass its ideological
implications.
5
Moreover, basic concepts are both an inescapable and irreplaceable part of political and
social vocabulary, because they merge different experiences and expectations in such a
way that basic concepts become indispensable to the formulation of the most important
and urgent themes of a specific time. Taking this argument one step further, this means
that no social behaviour or political action can take place without the existence and
availability of a stock of basic concepts which have lasted over a long period of time,
although they might have had different meanings and varying degrees of importance.12
A concept, however, cannot be understood merely by itself and without any reference to
other concepts. It belongs to a whole referential framework in which these define each
other reciprocally, thus forming part of a larger structure of meaning, a semantic field, a
network of concepts, or a discourse. Following this line of thought, I will not only focus
my interest on the varying meanings of Europe that is on a semasiological analysis; I will
also pursue an onomasiological analysis,13 thus giving attention to both the relating terms
or parallel concepts, which have been used to describe Europe, as for example, the
Occident, Abendland, the West, Christianity, civilisation and modernity, as well as to
opposite concepts or counter concepts, such as the Orient, the East, Asia and barbarism.
In fact, restricting ourselves to the word Europe would be misleading, since one of the
most frequently used terms to describe Europe was the Occident; although both terms
were also used synonymously. The former was most often employed in liberal and
socialist discourses, while the latter was particularly favoured in Catholic circles, evoking
connotations of medieval Christendom in Europe, united against the pagan Orient.
This leads me to a different but not less important question. To what extent are these
semantic fields to which concepts belong similar to discourses? How are discourse
analysis and Begriffsgeschichte interrelated? Reinhart Koselleck has himself attempted to
provide an answer to this question. He came to the conclusion that both approaches were
interwoven and even depended upon each other: a discourse needs concepts in order to
Hans Erich Bödeker: “Concept-Meaning-Discourse. Begriffsgeschichte reconsidered”, in: Iain
Hampsher-Monk/Karin Tilmans/Frank van Vree (eds.): History of Concepts. Comparative Perspectives
(Amsterdam, 1998), pp. 51-64, p. 54.
12
See Koselleck: “A Response”, pp. 64-65.
13
For a closer definition of the terms semasiology and onomasiology see Koselleck: “Einleitung”, pp. XXIXXII.
11
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express its object and “an analysis of a basic concept requires command of both linguistic
and extra-linguistic contexts, including those provided by discourses”.14 Unfortunately,
Koselleck did not elaborate this question any further.
One way of approaching this problem is, of course, to refer to Michel Foucault’s works. I
will not presume to summarise his complex work, but simply - and merely for the
purpose of my study - try to find some way of relating discourse and basic concepts. The
starting point of Foucault’s “archaeology” (understanding it as his version of intellectual
history) seems quite similar to that of Begriffsgeschichte. The aim of archaeology is to
“increase differences, [to] blur the lines of communication, and [to] try to make it more
difficult to pass from one thing to another”.15 Unlike traditional intellectual history, which
moves as if it were in a continuous current from one epoch to another in order to
demonstrate the relevance of one particular idea over a long period of time, archaeology
is, metaphorically speaking, digging in all directions but at only one site to unearth the
particularities of a specific discourse. In contrast to Begriffsgeschichte, however,
Foucault’s method is, by only investigating one site, one body of texts, which has an
externally defined unit, treating his historical object only synchronically.
In his historical writings, Michel Foucault leaves the beaten track of the notion of a
continuous evolution of reason and replaces it with notions of discontinuity, non-identity,
ambiguity and rupture. By the same token, Begriffsgeschichte broke with the
conventional history of thoughts and ideas, whilst at the same time it was concerned with
overcoming the limitations of historical philology. The founders of Begriffsgeschichte
sought to move away from writing the history of a single idea by defining their objects of
analysis as parts of whole semantic fields. A basic concept, therefore, is always part and
parcel of a wider range of synonymous and antonymous terms. Besides this similar shift
in historiography, which took place contemporaneously, both approaches are concerned
with linking language and the extra-linguistic world, text and reality. According to
Foucault, texts should be studied as if they were large-scale social phenomena in order to
prevent the historian from reducing the texts to the intentionality of a constituative
14
Koselleck: “A Response”, p. 65. See also Bödeker: “Concept-Meaning-Discourse”, p. 64.
7
subject. The goal is to de-ideologise historiography, or to use a Foucaultian term, to
dehumanise it, avoiding thus the historian’s identification with the past.
According to Foucault, intellectual history is no longer the analysis of the ideas of
specific subjects, rather, its object of investigation now is the discourse, which is treated
by him as an objective and social phenomenon. He goes on in his argumentation to state
that “discourse is not the majestically unfolding manifestation of a thinking, knowing,
speaking subject, but, on the contrary, a totality, in which the dispersion of the subject
and his discontinuity with himself may be determined. It is a space of exteriority in which
a network of distinct sites is deployed.”16 The individual is integrated in the historical
process; this means that Foucault is not categorically burying the author as such but is
historicising the function of the author. Being thus liberated from their subjects,
discourses are constituted by different layers of statements, which follow certain rules of
formation. These rules are responsible for defining the transformation of different objects
of a given discourse, their variations through time, the ruptures or breaks produced in
them, and “the internal discontinuity that suspends their permanence”.17 In The Order of
Discourse Foucault gives a similar definition of discourses, which “must be treated as
discontinuous practices, which cross each other, are sometimes juxtaposed with one
another, but can just as well exclude or be unaware of each other.” 18 Analysing a
discourse, thus, means deciphering, first, the connections between these different
statements - looking for the interrelations and as well as for the paradoxes and, second,
the stable concepts they depend upon, and finally, the topic which they are developing.
If one understands a discourse as a group of statements, as a network of communication,
and discourse analysis as a means by which to uncover the fragmentation and
incompleteness of this network, to reveal its discrepancies and antagonisms with the
ultimate aim of unravelling the interdependence of discourse and power, structure and
15
Michel Foucault: The Archaeology of Knowledge, translated by Sheridan Smith (New York, 1972), p.
170.
16
Foucault: The Archaeology of Knowledge, p. 55.
17
Foucault: The Archaeology of Knowledge, p. 33. See also Mark Poster: “The Future according to
Foucault: The Archaeology of Knowledge and Intellectual History”, in: (London, 1982), pp. 137-152, p.
147.
18
Michel Foucault: “The Order of Discourse”, translated by Ian McLeod, in: Michael J. Shapiro (ed.):
Language and Politics (Oxford, 1984), pp. 108-138, p. 127.
8
event, it can be said to be compatible with and even complementary to conceptual
history. This seems particularly true if one follows Hans Erich Bödeker’s assumption that
“Begriffsgeschichte is not primarily concerned with the study of individual linguistic
signs, but with the epistemic conditions and discursive strategies enabling their
meaningful use”.19
For the purpose of my research, i.e. investigating the European discourse in the inter-war
years, I tend to situate myself methodologically between Reinhart Koselleck and Michel
Foucault. First of all, this means using an enlarged definition of discourse, as I have
outlined above. Second, I will not pursue a discourse analysis in the strict Foucaultian
sense, with its primary focus on social practices and the institutionalisation of power, but
in the sense of a public debate and controversy about a politically (understood as cultural,
social and economical) relevant topic beyond which models of reality and their changes
are hidden.
Therefore, I do not fully agree with Foucault’s claim that the intention of the author, the
subject, is irrelevant for the purposes of discourse analysis. In contrast, I do believe, as
Edward Said puts it, “in the determining imprint of individual authors upon the otherwise
anonymous collective body of texts constituting a discursive formation like
Orientalism”20 or, as in my case, “Europeanism”. Said continues his argument stressing
that the unity of a large group of texts is created by their mutual reference to each other.
“Orientalism is after all a system for citing works and authors”.21
I thus surmise that individual authors (although they do not constitute my prime target of
research - apart, of course, from Coudenhove-Kalergi) are, regardless of their innovative
potential or historical importance, part of the dynamics of discourses and must in order to
communicate their ideas include their works in a citation network. It is obvious that even
an author who wants to introduce a new concept or a different meaning of an already
existing one has to rely on prior usages of language, and hence cannot neglect the former
Bödeker: “Concept-Meaning-Discourse”, p. 63.
Edward Said: Orientalism (London, 1978), p. 23.
21
Ibidem.
19
20
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meanings of a concept.22 Since every new word, concept or argument can only be
understood because of some recurring element, some reference to a previously
unquestioned and accepted meaning has to be made.
2. 2.
Conceptualising European Consciousness
The European discourse between the World Wars was not merely a utopian debate, which
took place in the exclusive sphere of intellectuals; rather, it was also prominent in the
lower social strata, being at the same time conditioned by the contemporary political
situation. And herein precisely lies the methodological interest of exploring what can be
termed “European consciousness”, thus leaving the merely intellectual terrain of ideas
and plans for a united Europe.
As Hans Erich Bödeker has remarked, the crux of Begriffsgeschichte lies in the “task of
explaining the processes of historical consciousness formation by means of a historical
analysis of meaning”.23 Begriffsgeschichte, in this sense, can be understood as a history of
consciousness, since a concept can only be debated, contested, etc., if it is named, that is,
if there exist linguistically tangible reflections in consciousness. This is not, of course, to
deny that one might have a concept of something without having a name for it.24
Koselleck in his article “A Response to Comments on the Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe”, on page 63,
illustrates this argument by a convincing example. He points out that in 1848 Marx and Engels chose the
innovative title “Communist Manifesto” in order to avoid Lutheran terms such as Bund or
Glaubensbekenntnis, as they had been commissioned to do.
23
Bödeker: “Concept-Meaning-Discourse”, p. 63.
24
Terence Ball, for example, illustrates this phenomenon with the example of Milton who clearly possessed
the concept of originality, describing it as “things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme”, but was unable to
name it as such, because the word “originality” only entered the English language a century after his death.
See Terence Ball: “Conceptual History and the History of Political Thought”, in: Iain HampsherMonk/Karin Tilmans/Frank van Vree (eds.): History of Concepts. Comparative Perspectives (Amsterdam,
1998), pp. 75-86, p. 81. A similar perspective is taken by Hayden White in his discussion of Roland
Barthes’ book Le système de la mode (1967): “A thing which does not have a name may very well exist
[…], but such things cannot be said to have an identity until they have actually been named. Conversely,
names can be provided of entities that do not and never have existed, yet these purely imaginary things can
be said to have had an ‘identity’. Some names refer to entities that have never existed (such as ‘Centaur’
and ‘Gorgon’) while other names refer to things that once existed but no longer exist (such as ‘Napoleon’
or ‘Robespierre’).” It is very important to be aware of this distinction, particularly if one is exploring the
concept of Europe, since this can be said to belong to both categories. As Hadyen White stresses, Barthes’
distinction helps to understand how the name of Europe, with all its ambiguity, functions within the
22
10
Consciousness thus, and here I am following Peter Krüger,25 can be the seam between
structural preconditions and concrete decisions. It depends on socio-cultural conditioning,
experiences, interests and aims; that is, on specific forms of perceptions and expectations,
yet it is not only reacting to these structural preconditions but also analysing them and
creating new ones, by following subjective interests and motivations. Stated otherwise,
consciousness is not a passive phenomenon, which is moulded only by the environment;
rather, it is active already during the selection of experiences it perceives, as well as in
the modes of behaviour and action it reflects. Understood in this way, consciousness can
be grasped by historians, since utterances and actions - which already rest on decisions
taken - can be represented in historical source material which can then be connected to
structural data. Consciousness automatically contextualises the discourse. It embeds and
relates it to the socio-economical, cultural and political structures, therefore telling as
much about the construction and function of the discourse as about the milieus both
which participated in it and the ones they were trying to address.
In praxis, it is less the one and only great idea of Europe, but rather a number of different
influences, which in the end create a European consciousness. How the individual
experiences Europe during this negotiation of influences expresses itself on different
levels and in different forms. Even those who decide to reject the idea of a European
community have a European consciousness.
Summing up this line of thought, my project is in the first place concerned with the
dynamics and transformation of European consciousness. That is, its variations in
different historical situations according to different needs and interests will enable me to
understand why certain choices were made and others not. Therefore, it is determinant to
scrutinise attentively the moments when the perceptions of Europe change, when
European relations are understood in a new or different way, leading to new decisions.
This is obvious in the case of events such as the First World War, the Locarno Treaty, the
discourse of Europe “to summon up to the imagination of a ‘thing’ of which an identity can be postulated.”
See Hayden White: “The Discourse of Europe and the Search for a European Identity”, in: Bo Stråth (ed.):
Europe and the Other and Europe as the Other (Brussels/Bern/Berlin/Frankfurt a. M./New
York/Oxford/Vienna, 2000), pp. 67-86, p. 72.
25
See Krüger: “Europabewußtsein”, pp. 31-53.
11
World Economic Crisis, the rise of Fascism and National Socialism and the outbreak of
the Second World War.
Second, an inherent part of European consciousness is the awareness and the demarcation
of Others. It often expresses itself in the mirror of the Other. In the case of Europe, the
Other can be both inside and outside Europe - this distinction being, of course,
conditioned by the perspective taken on Europe. It might, for example, be a self-imposed
exclusion, as is the case when Great Britain and parts of Scandinavia refer to the
Continent. Or it might be the mirror of a particular nation, where Europe impersonates an
alien entity.26
2. 3.
Conceptualising Time: The Question of Temporality, Historicity and
Modernity
Another significant dimension should be inserted onto the canvas by following
Koselleck’s supposition that basic concepts, in particular modern ones, have a temporal
structure. Given that the European idea in the inter-war period is a futuristic project, the
temporal dimension becomes extremely important. This is particularly necessary in order
to understand how the past and sometimes even the present were rearranged as to point
towards the envisioned specific and irrefutable future.
Koselleck mentions in his manifold publications several forms of concepts, for which the
dimension of temporality is determining: “movement concepts”, “struggle concepts”,
“goal concepts”, “expectation concepts” and “future concepts”. All these concepts have
another characteristic in common: they contain a prescriptive element, which expresses at
the same time a “should” - something that ought to be implemented or achieved. There
are, of course, small but significant differences among them. Movement concepts, for
example, are loaded with a strongly programmatic element, hence making space for a
26
The othering process as means of identity-creation is part of a vast and ongoing scientific
debate. A theoretical and practical overview can be found in Bo Stråth (ed.): Europe and the Other and
Europe as the Other (Brussels/Bern/Berlin/Frankfurt a. M./New York/Oxford/Vienna, 2000), particularly
in the chapter by Bo Stråth: “Europe as a Discourse”, pp. 13-44.
12
lack of clarity and the demand that the future should be fundamentally different from the
past. Since all these concepts cannot by definition rest on past experiences, they are very
easily taken over by ideologies. Among such concepts are “liberalism”, “socialism”,
“communism”, “democratisation”, and, as I shall argue, “Europeanism”.
A struggle concept, conversely, would point more to the pragmatic function which
language has in political confrontation. Future concepts, as the term indicates, are
oriented to a new and different future history, to a model, which has not yet been
implemented. Their aim and function is “to linguistically pre-formulate positions (to be
achieved in the future)”.27 Accordingly, these concepts are not based on any previous
experience and cannot be tested by reference to the past.
Reconsidering Begriffsgeschichte, Hans Erich Bödeker stresses a further aspect of such
concepts. Over time they have become reference ciphers, which have been filled with a
multitude of thoughts. The concepts hence stand for the thoughts, which are condensed in
them and thus the concepts cannot be understood without them. Every time a specific
concept is repeated, the thoughts which are contained in it are revived, because “[they]
must continually be made real in the present in order for [the concept] to be understood in
the context in which it is uttered”.28 Following this line of thought, it becomes evident
that if the language usage is transformed, the usage of thought will be too. The concept
that functions as a reference cipher will be filled with varying arguments and statements,
thereby shaping its predicative profile.
Another quintessential aspect in understanding the history of the European idea is that it
became over the past two centuries part in a wider struggle for modernity and progress.29
Many of the proponents of European unity have stressed the impact of modernity for the
spread of the European idea. Coudenhove-Kalergi, for example, devoted in 1922 a whole
book, Apologie der Technik, to this question and paid attention to it also in his most
Reinhart Koselleck: “Begriffsgeschichte und Sozialgeschichte”, in: Peter-Christian Ludz (ed.): Soziologie
und Sozialgeschichte. Aspekte und Probleme (Obladen, 1972), p. 118.
28
Bödeker: “Concept-Meaning-Discourse”, p. 56.
29
By this I do not assume, as I hope do have made explicit before, that Europe is the cradle of civilisation
which evolved in an unbroken line from Antiquity to the present day, and that along the so-called
modernisation process it has continuously progressed and has been gradually refined. On the contrary, I
agree with the post-modernist critic of this kind of Eurocentrism.
27
13
famous book, Paneuropa. There he recognised that “the world is getting smaller every
day: progress in transportation technologies brings cities and countries closer and closer
together”.30 Yet, according to Coudenhove-Kalergi the modernisation process should not
end there, but should move on to the sphere of politics: “If the political technology does
not adapt to the transportation technology, this tension between both will lead to terrible
catastrophes. A political convergence must result from the temporal-spatial convergence
of neighbouring countries if crashes are to be avoided.”31
I surmise, therefore, that the European idea after the First World War is part of the
modernistic project, or narrative - although, at least in the immediate aftermath of the
First World War, with an eschatological temporal dimension. In this respect modernity
shall be understood as a “break in the discourses on human beings and society”. 32 It
crystallised in the realisation, as portrayed exemplary by Paul Valéry, that on the one
hand, human beings and knowledges, languages and histories, civilisations and whole
worlds were mortal, and that on the other hand European civilisation had created a type
of human being who strives untiringly for the maximum.33 This striving for the highest
good, which divides Europeans form the rest of the world, enables the homo europaeus to
arise, like the phoenix, from the ashes, from decline and mortality. Hence, the modern
narratives address abstract concepts, such as nation or class – and increasingly Europe and construct a public space where the individual is linked to a present or future
collective formation or community.34
Yet side by side with the cogent demonstration that modernity emerged as the
dynamicisation of an open temporality predicted on the idea that “expectations can no
30
Coudenhove-Kalergi: Paneuropa (Vienna, 1926 [1923]), p. 16.
Ibidem., p. 17.
32
Peter Wagner: A Sociology of Modernity, Liberty and Discipline (London/New York, 1994), p. 4.
33
See Paul Valéry: “Crise de l’Esprit” [1919], in: Oeuvres, vol. I, Variété, edited by Jean Hytier (Paris,
1957), pp. 988-1000, p. 988, and idem.: “Note (ou l’Européen)” [1922], in: Oeuvres, vol. I, Variété, edited
by Jean Hytier (Paris, 1957), pp. 1000-1014.
34
This notion comes close to collective and imaginative dimensions of Benedict Anderson’s famous
“imagined community”. In fact, the literature on nationalism allows some insights into the formation of an
imagined European community, although these two processes differ fundamentally and the idea of Europe
should be seen on an even higher level of abstraction than the national ideal. In particular, Anderson’s
work, with its markedly cultural approach, is quite illuminating, as for example, his emphasis on the
dichotomy of ‘us’ and ‘them’ in the process of identity formation.
31
14
longer be satisfactorily deduced from previous experience”,35 attempts at linking
experience and expectation ever more closely to one another, often disastrously, are
remarkably frequent for modernity. The past thus plays an essential part in modern
concepts. History is often (mis-)used to enhance either the rupture with it, in order to
point to a better future, or to underline similarities between particular groups or people, to
enable them to identify themselves with one another. It is in this sense that the concept of
modernity, as a material, psychological and philosophical condition, is indispensable for
understanding the formation and transformation of European consciousness after the First
World War.
3.
Sources and Methodological Approach
First of all, I would like to turn to the question of why I have chosen the Paneuropean
Union of Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi as the focus of my study. First, the Paneuropean
Union was the biggest of all pro-European organisations of the inter-war period, having
approximately 20,000 members all over Europe.36 Second, it was also the most
widespread pro-European organisation with twenty-three national sections and one
American. Most of the other associations in favour of a common Europe focussed their
interest either on the Franco-German relationship or on Central-Europe. Third, the PanEuropean Union had gained such popularity during the 1920s that the idea of a common
Europe was largely equated with the term Paneurope. This was due to the massive
propaganda of the union which consequently produced friction and led almost everybody,
whether supporter or opponent, to make up his or her mind about Europe.
35
Reinhart Koselleck: Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time (Cambridge (MA)/London,
1985), p. 281.
36
In the historiographic literature a general agreement can be found on the fact that the Paneuropean Union
was indeed the biggest and most influential pro-European organisation of the inter-war period. See, for
example, Carl H. Pegg: The Evolution of the European Idea, 1914-1932 (Chapel Hill/London, 1983),
Jürgen C. Heß: “Europagedanke und nationaler Revisionismus”, in: Historische Zeitschrift, 225 (1977), pp.
572-622, pp. 576-578, and Karl Holl: “Europapolitik im Vorfeld der deutschen Regierungspolitik. Zur
Tätigkeit proeuropäischer Organisationen in der Weimarer Republik”, in: Historische Zeitschrift, 219
(1974), pp. 33-94, pp. 36-50.
15
The most important reason, however, is that I have access to the largest archive of a proEuropean organisation - and it may be even the only one, which survived the occupation
and the war - allowing insights into not only the organisational structure of the union but
also the network and ways of communication which Coudenhove-Kalergi had established
over the years and the impact it might have had on both politics and the public sphere. By
public sphere I understand a constructed cultural place where collective identities are
negotiated through various forms of encounters between actors or subjects of
communication, that is, through personal contacts (which can also be expressed in
letters), associations and the mass media.37 In this sense the Paneuropean Union as an
association constituted a public space where both the meaning of Europe and the vision
of a united Europe were debated. I am able to follow this highly controversial debate
through the letters sent to the headquarters of the Paneuropean Union in Vienna.
Consequently, the documents of my main archives in Moscow and Geneva enable me to
pose the question of European consciousness within a wider spectrum of society: away
from the published sources of an elite to the private letters from members or
commentators of all European countries and from all social strata; thus widening the
discourse on Europe between the world wars both as a figure of thought and as a prise de
conscience.
3. 1.
Coudenhove-Kalergi’s Writings
37
This notion of public sphere is taken from a report by Luisa Passerini and Hartmut Kaelble on the work
of the working group on “European Society”, which is part of the programme “Identités européennes au
XXe siècle”, p. 3 and p. 8. At this point I do not intend to enter the somewhat tiring debate on public sphere
between scholars such as Habermas and the French post-structuralists, who deconstructed Habermas’
theory of a formal and liberating structure with universal value and presented the public sphere as an
apparatus of control and power. I want only to stress the importance of being aware of the different
possibilities of using this kind of terminology. The definition and history of the public sphere has always
been highly debated, be it in political science, sociology or historiography. Even more controversial is the
issue of the history of a European public sphere. On the one hand, it has been argued that, historically
speaking, there is no such thing as a European public sphere as compared to, for example, different national
public spheres. On the other hand, the argument has been raised that a European public sphere in the sense
of a communication space has existed since the middle ages, in the medieval churches, monasteries, courts,
etc. (See, for example, Krzysztof Pomian: Europa und seine Nationen (Berlin, 1990)). However, it seems
that one can find consensus on the notion that a European public sphere of an intellectual and economic
elite, of scholars and experts has existed at least since the Enlightenment, and that European governments
have utilised the national public sphere not only for national but also for an international presentation.
16
For the above-mentioned enterprise the Paneuropean Union appears as the inevitable
choice. This is due to the fact that Coudenhove-Kalergi did not outline just another
normative plan of a common Europe, but that he was mainly concerned with influencing
both political decision-making and public opinion. I intend to follow the development of
Coudenhove-Kalergi’s ideas as well as his efforts at implementing them.
The varying terms, e.g., Coudenhove-Kalergi used to describe the prospective internal
structure of Europe belonged to the same semantic field, which ranged from Staatenbund
through Bundesstaat to Europäisches Bundesreich. As a model for a projected
organisation of states, he had initially cited the Pan-American conferences. What
Coudenhove-Kalergi had conceived in 1922/23 was what Woodrow Wilson had
advocated for the American continent but sought to avoid in the case of Europe: a
regional security and arbitration system. But Coudenhove-Kalergi rejected, at least at the
beginning of the 1920s, the concept of United States of Europe, which was quite popular
among advocates of a united Europe, as being over centralist.
Another example is Coudenhove-Kalergi’s attitude to national sovereignty. In principle,
he regarded the transfer of sovereign rights as unavoidable. Initially, he still assumed
although he certainly misinterpreted his contemporaries that the European states would
willingly “sacrifice […] a modicum of their self-determination”,38 with the result that he
made far-reaching demands. In the direct aftermath of the First World War and under the
auspices of the peace movements, the formation of a federal state with its own
constitution was thus a foregone conclusion for Coudenhove-Kalergi. Years later,
however, in his “Draft for a Paneuropean Pact”, which was written with the intention of
presenting it to politicians for implementation, he merely claimed that the draft would
provide for “a largely federal form of co-operation by the European states, without any
curtailment of their sovereignty”.39
In contrast to the postulation of absence of conscious subjects, as expressed by the poststructuralist approach of Foucault, Begriffsgeschichte seeks to identify the political and
social affiliations of historical agents. It pays attention to the position of an author and the
38
Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi: Paneurope (New York, 1926 [1923]), p. 97.
17
intended audience, to the interests affected by the espousal or refusal of the author’s
specific notion of a concept, to the polemical context as well as to the contemporary
reception and application of it. Coudenhove-Kalergi’s manifold publications and his
changing notion of Europe can only be adequately understood from this perspective.
In short, this part of the dissertation will examine and interpret Coudenhove-Kalergi’s
Ideenpolitik. It is therefore not merely the chronology of a life and work, but, let me call
it, the “intellectual drama”, i.e. the struggling for a united Europe – with all its
ideological, political and economic implications – in the heyday of nationalism which
will be the focus of my work.
3. 2.
Letters to the Paneuropean Union
The second part of my source material has a different character. It consists of thousands
of letters, which were written mainly to the headquarters of the Union in Vienna and
respond to Coudenhove-Kalergi’s ideas.
Before describing the methodological usage of the corpus of letters, I want to address
some details of the sources, concerning the efforts of the Paneuropean Union to connect
itself with the leading political and economic elite, to co-operate with other organisations,
to establish a network of common interests and aims and to influence public opinion.
This can be illustrated, for example, through the correspondence between Paneurope and
economists, such as the banker family Warburg and Robert Bosch in Germany, the latter
having founded the international Paneuropa Förderungsgesellschaft, and Emile
Mayrisch, the head of the Luxembourg company, ARBED.
I will position the Pan-European Union as a major knot within the European network of
its times by showing the actual co-operation between the Union and politicians; for
example, through the correspondence with Paul Loebe, president of the German
Reichstag and temporary head of Paneurope in Germany. Moreover, the French efforts at
39
Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi: Paneuropa (Journal), 6 (1930), p. 149.
18
realising a common Europe can be particularly well illuminated through the
correspondence between Coudenhove-Kalergi and Aristide Briand and the latter’s
entourage.
Yet the correspondence found in Moscow is so rich that the debate between Paneurope
and intellectuals can also be followed: Between Coudenhove-Kalergi and Heinrich Mann,
Thomas Mann, Carlo Sforza, Gerhard Hauptmann, Reiner Maria Rilke, Stefan Zweig,
Jose Ortega y Gasset, Jules Romains, Paul Valéry and Denis de Rougemont, and these
are just examples, not to mention Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud, H.G. Wells and
George Bernard Shaw.
Furthermore, the relations of Paneurope to other pro-European organisations play a vital
part. The never-ending debates about the actual organisation of a future Europe with
groups such as Wilhelm Heile’s Verband für Europäische Verständigung or Emile
Mayrich’s Franco-German Study Committee as well as the relations to other
internationalist movements, as for example, the national unions of the League of Nations
and the pacifist movement can be analysed.
The Moscow files are also crucial for another perspective. The correspondence between
Coudenhove-Kalergi and his American friends and partners as well as all letters from
America are preserved there, and elucidate the dispute about Paneurope’s role within the
international system of the League of Nations. At the same time, the letters allow for
insights into an outside perception of the European idea, turning Europe into the Other.
Last but not least, I can demonstrate through the manifold letters found in Moscow to
what extent, in which way, and for what reasons “ordinary people” concerned themselves
with the idea of a united Europe.
This broadly woven typology is aimed at allowing me to move in between the Europe
pensée and the Europe vécue. The letters express, on the one hand, very concrete ideas
about both the meaning and the future of Europe, while, on the other, they can be read as
saying something in terms of a notion of reality mediated by lived experience, which is
not necessarily consciously present.
19
Taking heed of what I have said above, I surmise that all these letters form a unit which
can be understood as belonging to the same discourse about Europe. Following
Foucault’s metaphor of archaeology, it seems possible to examine this site without
knowing details about the writers’ social background, which means analysing this
discourse as a construction of arguments rather than the products of a series of individual
authors.
What were the determining experiences which set off a European consciousness? Is it
indeed possible to speak about the inter-war years as a period of the crisis of European
self-understanding, as Hartmut Kaelble has done?40 And if so, was this crisis perceived in
the same way in all European countries? Did some countries recover earlier than others
from the Damocles sword of decline? To what extent was the formation of European
consciousness interrelated with the formation of other identities, such as the Nordic
identity, as has been argued by Bo Stråth?41 Were the concepts of Europe based upon the
assumption of European superiority and hegemony or upon internationalism and
solidarity, and can differences be detected between nations or/and between different
religions? Should the future organisation of Europe lay its prime field of action in the
political or economic domain?
Another set of questions could be: Who tried to appropriate the idea of Europe, and for
what purposes? Which were the “critical junctures” that facilitated the spread of the
European idea? The documents of the Paneuropean Union illustrate, for example, that the
rise of National Socialism in Germany as well as Coudenhove-Kalergi’s propaganda for
the creation of a European Party as the last stronghold against extreme nationalism in
1933 led to a sharp rise of interest in the European idea. Suddenly, people who had lost
faith over time in the Union’s capacities urged Coudenhove-Kalergi to reinforce his
activities.
See, for example, Hartmut Kaelble: “Die europäische Öffentlichkeit in der zweiten Hälfte des 20.
Jahrhunderts – Eine Skizze”, in: Michael Grüttner/Rüdiger Hachtmann/Heinz-Gerhard Haupt (eds.):
Geschichte und Emanzipation. Festschrift für Reinhard Rürup (Frankfurt a. M./New York, 1999), pp. 651678, pp. 668-669.
41
See Bo Stråth: “The Swedish Image of Europe as the Other”, in: idem. (ed.): Europe and the Other, pp.
359-383.
40
20
I intend to structure my thesis in two ways - a round and a straight one, metaphorically
speaking. Coudenhove-Kalergi’s Paneuropean Union, his actions and the reactions to or
perceptions of his ideas will be described in concentric circles; with Coudenhove-Kalergi
as the central point of attention to which the other circles will be related. These
seismographic measurements will be presented in a narrative,42 which will follow the line
of passing time in order to be able to illustrate to what extent the European idea was
bound to the contemporary context.
Within this narrative I want to embed a number of focal points to tackle particular
questions in more detail; for example, the shifting of perspective (from a culturalpessimistic to progressive-optimistic view of Europe’s future), the trope of the crisis of
European civilisation and culture in the immediate aftermath of the First World War, the
question of the prime field of action of a future Europe, politics, economics or culture, the
relation of Europe to the rest of the world (Europe and the Other) and Europe as a driving
society in modernisation.
I agree with Hayden White, who reaffirms Gallie’s assumption that historiography belongs to the genus
narrative, and claims that the distinction between non-narrative and narrative historiography is superfluous,
since different subjects, motives and temperaments may produce different narrative forms - yet they are all
stories nonetheless. White identifies three kinds of historical narratives, typified by works of Ranke,
Tocqueville and Burkhardt: processionary, structuralist and impressionistic narratives. See Hayden White:
“The Structure of Historical Narrative”, in: Clio 1 (1972), pp. 5-20, p. 11, and idem.: “The Question of
Narrative in Contemporary Historical Theory”, in: History and Theory, 23 (1984), pp. 1-33.
42
21