REDEFINING EUROPEAN CULTURAL SPACE

By Vangelis Kassos

"Europeanness" according to Paul Valery

In one of his lecture 1 at the University of Zurich (15.11.1922), the renowned

French poet Paul Valery (1871-1945) defined all peoples as European, as, throughout
the course of history, they were influenced by the following three civilizations: the
Roman, the Christian, and the ancient Greek civilization.
This definition that Valery provides was determining in influencing all the
following theories regarding the intellectual origins of Europe. In fact, it is until
today, over fifty years after the founding of the European Economic Community,
that it is considered to be the foundation of the "standard” demarcation of the
European cultural space.
However, does Valery's definition really describe the "intellectual borders"
that Europe really has? Let us move on to see the criteria that this great poet had
suggested, viewing them one by one.
When referring to the ancient Greek influence, that was never really doubted.
Valery himself noted: "What we owe to Greece is probably what to a large extent
makes us different to the rest of human kind".
In regard to the Christian influence, many regarded it not as a new aspect in
the intellectual identity that Europe bore, but as an evolution of Greek philosophy.
For example, for Czech philosopher Jan Patočka, Christianity was never anything
more than a kind of popular platonism2.
Others, such as the followers of the "Vulgar Enlightenment" movement,
advocate that Christianity today cannot be regarded as a component of European
culture, as in contemporary Europe religiousness has more or less receded.

1
Paul Valéry, Variété 1 et 2, Gallimard 1978
2
Jan Patočka, Plato and Europe, Stanford University Press 2002

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 The answer to the objection that Patočka made can be summarised in the fact
that Christianity, as Valery truthfully noted 3, popularised the aspect of inner life for
people of the West, a life that prospects action and not just theory.
In this observation that Valery made, we could also attach the fact that the
inner life, with the prospect of action, is not only cultivated at an individual level -
which was true for the case of the Stoics, for example - but also at a civitas level,
which is especially important for the cohesion of the social whole.
When it comes to the "Vulgar Enlightenment" objection, a truly enlightening
response comes from the writings of Fernand Braudel: "Western Christianity has
been and will continue to be the main axis of European thought, even that of the
rationalistic thought, which was created as a counterargument, without, however,
having any other starting point than Christianity itself. Throughout Western history,
Christianity has been in the heart of this culture, while it continues to revitalise it
despite it being the cause of its tainting, and embraces it, despite striving to escape
from it. Because, when you so turn your thoughts against someone, you still
continue to be inside that person's course. The European, even while being godless,
does not stop being tied to a morality system, and to various psychological
obligations that define his/her behaviour, which are deeply rooted in Christian
tradition»4.
Of course, this "super-religious" morality system that Braudel mentions will
naturally have to include, before anything, the rejection of slavery, which Athens, as
well as Rome, both in their days of outmost glory, embraced. It was Christianity that
taught people that they are all equals.

The "Roman way" to Europe

In my opinion, the most problematic point in the definition that Valery

provides is that regarding the influence that Rome had on Europe. How does Valery
define this influence? He states5 that “wherever the Roman empire acted as a
conqueror; wherever its power was made known; wherever the Empire had acted as
an object of fear; wherever the weight of the Roman sword was made known;
wherever the majesty of the institutions, the laws, the typicality and the value of the
3
Paul Valéry, op. cit. note
4
Fernand Braudel, Grammaire des civilisations, Flammarion 1993
5
Paul Valéry, op. cit. note

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Administration were acknowledged, and even sometimes imitated - that is where
something European still lies. Rome is the eternal example of an organized and
stable power”.
In reality, Valery, in order to define the European cultural space, suggests two
criteria of a distinctly intellectual nature, and one criterion of a basically
geographical nature. A similar approach necessarily leads to contradictions: it is
another thing to say that Rome is the eternal example of an organized and stable
power, and a totally different thing to define "Europeanness" as the space in which
the weight of the Roman sword was made known.
The role that a role model plays has a clearly intellectual nature, with no
geographical limitations, while the definition of a space, where the Roman sword
was the dominant feature, has absolutely no intellectual nature. For example, the
Roman sword dominated in the space where modern Turkey is located, while it was
never made known in the space that today's Russia is. Does this really mean that
Turkey is European, while Russia isn't?
Naturally, the absence of all three elements that Valery proposed to describe
Europeanness should exclude both countries from the European cultural space.
Revising the criterion that regards the Roman influence on European culture
is of imperative importance. Eager to do exactly that, the French professor of Arabic
philosophy at the Sorbonne University, Rémi Brague, claimed 6 that the contribution
of Rome in shaping the European identity mainly composes of a procedure of
"familiarising with the foreign".
The same procedure that Rome followed is also followed by Europe,
according to Brague, who stated that "the essence of Europe is to exactly have
content, to be open to the world". However, this procedure of familiarising with
foreign cultural aspects - what Brague calls a "Roman way" - does not by itself
constitute a cultural aspect. In the degree that this actually happens, it is nothing
more than a procedure. How could we, therefore, correlate this with the cultural
aspects of which ancient Greece and Christianity consist of?
One of the significant primary and meaningful aspects that is distinct in the
influence that Rome had on European culture is Law. Legal Science has its origins in

6
Rémi Brague, Europe: la voie romaine, Criterion 1992

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Rome. It is an invention attributed to the Romans, in the same way that philosophy
is attributed to the Greeks7.
The fact that European Law originates from the Corpus Juris Civilis is not at
all of a secondary value. One the one hand, it is there that the mysterious
dissimilarity8 between European Law and other "great systems" (Chinese, Hindu,
Jewish) lies hidden; on the other hand, especially nowadays, when ideologies have
collapsed, the value of Law has been upgraded, as it has been encircled with a
historical positivism similar with the one that the sciences were encircled with a
century ago.
It is, then, a serious omission on behalf of Brague, having focussed his
research on the heritage Rome left European culture with, therefore omitting to
place the required emphasis on the significance of the Roman West for Europe.
Nonetheless, it is elsewhere that all the interest in Brague's proposals lies;
that is, his claims that Europe, in contrast to America and Africa, does not have
natural borders, but cultural ones. He promises to prove those claims of his, though
this kind of proof does not come from him.
We will need to seek the writings of two other thinkers and their theories, the
French poet Valery Larbaud (1881-1957) and the American political scientist Samuel
Huntington (1927-2008).

The Larbaud line

Ten years younger than Paul Valery, Valery Larbaud contrasted him by
approaching the issue of European unity not as a theoretical concept, but
experientially.
Having the American poet Walt Whitman (1881- 1957) as an icon – who he
wished to be the national poet of a nation that was still "under a process of
formation" - Larbaud considered his own major poetic goal to be the European
community's consciousness of unity.
In his poem called "My Muse", he mentions in the beginning of the poem: Of
Europe I sing, her railroads and theatres,/ Her constellations of cities, [...].

7
Michel Villey, Philosophie du droit , Dalloz 1975
8
Michel Villey, ό.π.

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 What persuaded Larbaud for the European community was not some
theoretical conception, but his travels. When he was just seventeen years old, the
poet had already completed a "tour of Europe": Koln, Berlin, Moscow, Kharkiv,
Sevastopol, Constantinople, Belgrade, Vienna.
However, apart from his travels in the European mainland, Larbaud travelled
a lot out of Europe, as well. Therefore, his belief in a European unity is not the
offspring of an impetuous enthusiasm. "For me", he writes in his poem titled
"Europe", "Europe is like one unique megalopolis... and the whole wide world an
open countryside".
Europe, then, according to Larbaud, is the quintessential metropolis of the
world and that conclusion stems directly out of the non-Europe part of the world.
European dissimilarity is extracted from its dissimilarity with the rest of the world.
This insight that Larbaud had is paralleled by the proposal that the renowned
psychologist Carl Jung (1875-1961) famously made to Europeans to look towards
their continent from the top of a skyscraper, so as to realize their "Europeanness" 9.
Larbaud's faith in a united "European homeland" sparks the admiration not
only for the early years it was proposed in, but also for its rigidity. Despite the
catastrophe caused by the two World Wars, which were mainly a kind of "European
civil war", Larbaud's faith in European unity remained firm. In 1951, he prepared his
full collection of poems. And, although he removes many poems that he wrote in his
younger years, he leaves all of his poems about Europe intact.
This faith of his was not long before it was fulfilled: in 1957, the year the poet
died, the European Economic Community is founded.

The Huntington line

The artificial borders imposed on Europe by the Cold War, which itself
collapsed in 1989 along with the Berlin wall, were some of the things that Samuel
Huntington10, attempted to bring back.

9
C.G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Vintage Books Edition 1989

10
Samuel P. Huntington, The clash of civilizations and the remaking of world order, Simon and
Schuster 1996

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 The majority of the intellectual persons that were occupied with the
commentary and research of Huntington’s theory regarding the clash of civilizations
considered him close to being a cultural theorist, a title that by no means suits him.
Even those who did comprehend the fact that Huntington’s assumptions do
not constitute a cultural theory, but an imaginative “geopolitical scenario”, did not
hide their admiration for the supposedly genial conception that the American
professor had to replace ideologies with cultures, thus showing the form of the next
Cold War.
However, Huntington’s theory is nothing more than an adaptation for what
we call “multiculturalism”, which is nowadays winning ground, especially in the US
and Canada.
By employing this naïve sort of theory regarding the equality of cultures and,
being certain that “multiculturalism”, before securing global equality, will create a
competition, a rivalry11 even between cultures, he attempts to describe us how and
where cultures have nowadays engaged in a competitive state of clashes.
Of course, one of the big assets in his argumentation is the war in Bosnia. His
attempts are futile, however, in explaining why, in spite of the fact that his theory
predicts that culturally close nations stand together, in the case of Bosnia, USA was
on the side of the Muslims.
Some confirmed the validity of Huntington’s theory through the case of the
9/11 terrorist attack in New York. Such is the case however, that the theory of
another American theorist was confirmed instead of Huntington: Benjamin Barber
(1939 –2017) according to whom, the world had started moving between, on the one
hand, the conflicting powers of globalisation (the world of Macs) and, on the other,
the fundamentalist disintegration (Jihads)12.
Contrary to Barber, Huntington does not place Jihadis on the other extreme
as that of the Americans, but instead he places the probability of an “anti-hegemonic
coalition”, as he calls it, which could be formed up by the great powers.
In regard to that, Huntington was rather revelatory in an article he published
in 1999 (spring), in Foreign Affairs magazine, titled “The Lonely Superpower”. In
this piece of writing, he distinctly mentions: “Undoubtedly the single most

11
That is the reason why Huntington rejects the implementation of multiculturalism inside the USA
so passionately.
12
Benjamin Barber, Jihad vs McWorld: Terrorism's Challenge to Democracy Ballantine Books 1996

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important move toward an antihegemonic coalition (i.e. against the American
superpower) was before the end of the Cold War: it is the European Union and the
establishment of a single, common European currency” 13.
This "confession" that Huntington made may indeed confirm in the most
authentic of ways what I had stated in one of my critical essays for the book of the
American professor in 1998 (summer), as it was published by the Kathimerini
newspaper. In this article14 I proposed that the main, if not exclusive, purpose of
Huntington's theory is the prospect of the great Europe.
In his book, Huntington persistently attempts to persuade us that the global
world order of the 21st century will probably follow, only if the economic
development of China continues in the current pace for one or two more decades.
Almost everyone agrees regarding this issue. Some of them are even more
specific in their analyses than Huntington. There was no need, then, for an entire
cultural collision theory to be developed, in order for Huntington to persuade those
already persuaded as to an imminent - and, indeed, one that stems from economic
factors! - collision between the USA and China.
Huntington, being one to like developing alternative geopolitical scenaria,
does not examine only one scenario in his book: the possibility that Russia may also
join the European Union. It seems that such an assumption is intensely to his
distaste, even as a simple working hypothesis.
For this reason, he first plans politically, and then improvises culturally. The
most distinctive example of that? The widely known separating line, "the Western
civilization border" looking to the East. To the East of this border, according to
Huntington, one can find Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Ukraine 15, Belarus and, of course,
Russia.
Trying to prove himself as a geopolitical prophet as he does, Huntington
should certainly not look away from the theory of the father of geopolitical theories,
Sir Halford MacKinder (1861-1947), who discussed the existence of a geographical

13
Samuel Huntington, “The Lonely Superpower”, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 78, No 2, March-April 1999, p.
35-49.
14
Vangelis Kassos, "Samuel Huntington's prophecies: the anti-European and anti-Slabic scenaria of
the American professor", Greek newspaper "I Kathimerini", 28th July, 1998.
15
Three years after the publication of his book, Huntington, with his article titled “The Lonely
Superpower” (see footnote no. 13), places Ukraine among the culturally relative to the USA countries!

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axis in History - that is, the popular concept of the heartland, at the center of which
is Russia - around which all the rivalries and strategies of the world 16 take place.
Russia should, consequently, be kept away from the European Union,
because, according to Huntington17, "cultural differences can deter the existence of a
possible coalition between great forces against the superpower".
If there is no cultural difference between the European Union and Russia,
one should be made up and that is exactly what Huntington does. There are
nonetheless political scientists who, with small variations, embrace Huntington's
views. Dieter Fuchs, for example, a professor of political sciences at the University of
Stuttgard, claims that: "According to Samuel Huntington's theory and our own
experiential results (sic), this border demarcation should have been attempted, at
least when it comes to the Slabic-Orthodox and the Muslim cultural space" 18.
However, these are not original views. Before Huntington and Fuchs, and
before even the collapse of Communism and the Soviet Union, in 1984, the former
President - and then Vice President - of the USA, George Bush (the father), in one of
his speeches in Vienna, he culturally distinguished the Western European countries
and the USA to the Russians. The first two, he claimed, are parts of the same cultural
heritage (Renaissance, religious Reformation, Enlightenment), in which the
Russians were never part of. The latter he almost compared to barbarians, by using
the example of an incident that occurred in Warsaw in the 19th century, during
which the Czar's soldiers threw Chopin's piano out of the window19.
It was only deliberate, of course, that Bush silenced the Russians'
contribution to literature, music, and, generally, European art. Huntington and
Fuchs both do the same thing.

Dostoyevsky out of Europe?

16
Pascal Lorot-François Thual, La géopolitique, Montchrestien 1997
17
Samuel P. Huntington, “The Lonely Superpower”, ό.π.
18
Dieter Fuchs, “Werte im Wettsteit”, in journal KulturAustausch, 51, Jahrgang 3/01, page 73

19
David Buchan, Europe: The Strange Superpower, Dartmouth Pub Co 1993

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 The question is whether the cultural relation between Europe and Russia is
not new. According to one of Denis de Rougemont's quotes 20, it is an "eternal issue".
The relevant concern and disunity of opinion that has emerged by him originate
from the inside of Russia as well, the intellectuals of which have been shared with
the "Westernizers" on the one hand, and with the "Slavophiles”
on the other21.
Given the contemporary facts, the relevant tug of war has lost its meaning.
The contribution of Russia in shaping modern European civilization is not a matter
for discussion, but a self-explanatory fact. Isn't Dostoyevsky, for example, as one of
the greatest shaping forces of modern European civilization, a natural part of the
cultural heritage of Europe?
Even of greater importance for the current affairs is the views that
Dostoyevsky (1821-1881) had himself formulated, more than one century earlier
than Huntington's "modern" views.
At an age of 55 years, after having already published all his great works except
for The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoyevsky began publishing A Writer's Diary, a
monthly newspaper, for which he was the sole editor. Many are the pages that he
devotes there for the relationship between Russia and Europe. "We Russians", he
writes, "have two countries: our Russia and Europe, even when called Slavophiles".
There are no borders for the reception of a work of art in Europe, claims
Dostoyevsky, and uses the distinct example of the German poet Schiller (1759-1805)
and his simultaneous registration in the "crude Grand Duchy of Moscow" on the one
hand, and in the "Revolutionary France and the literature professors" on the other.
"The Convention nationale in 1793," Dostoyevsky writes 22, "by bestowing the
title of (French) citizen to the German poet Schiller, this friend of human kind, has
naturally made a wonderful gesture, a gesture that was marvelous and prophetic;
however, they obviously ignored the fact that, on the other side of Europe, in the
crude Duchy of Moscow, that same person, Schiller, was a much more national
figure and much more valuable for the crude Russians than it was for the
contemporary France of the 19th century, during which Schiller, the French citizen

20
Denis de Rougemont, 28 siècles d’Europe, Christian de Bartillat Éditeur 1990, p. 267-289
21
Alexandre Bourmeyster, L’ Europe au regard des intellectuels russes, Éditions Privat 2001
22
Fyodor Dostoevsky, A Writer's Diary [Volume 1: 1873-1876], Northwestern University Press 1997

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and friend of the human kind, was not known, save for the literature professors,
among which only some of them knew him.
Nonetheless, Schiller had been integrated in the Russian soul, had sealed
them and almost marked the entire history of our civilization. This way of
approaching global literature is a phenomenon with no other examples to compare it
to, no matter how far back we go in history (...), which proves that every European
poet, every person that comes through to make an original thought, express his/her
vital power, then s/he immediately becomes a Russian poet, registers with the
Russian way of thinking and is almost rendered a Russian power (…)".
In no period of European history has Europe ever been sealed to political
osmosis23. Even during the censorship period of the Soviet Union, Russia was
culturally paving the path along with the rest of Europe 24. For instance, Pasternak
translated Goethe and Shakespeare, while Anna Akhmatova translated the
contemporary writers Henri Michaux and Michel Butor. In fact, extremely
significant Russian works of art, such as A Cloud with Trousers by Mayakovsky or
The Master and the Margarita by Mikail Bulgakov constituted from very early on
European literature standards.
Of course, given the fact that culture had been the determining mediating
factor for shaping European identity 25, is it not completely irrational to say that
Russia does not belong in the European cultural space, although it participates in
shaping European culture and the accompanied European identity?
These peoples themselves, however, have expressed a positive opinion
regarding the cultural relativity of Russia with the rest of Europe.
The European Parliament, in a resolution on September 10, 1991, "regarding
the cultural relations of the European Community with countries of the Central and
Eastern Europe", emphasizes the fact that the cultural heritage that the entire
Europe bears originates is common and that it originates from both the Eastern and
the Western parts.

23
Werner Weidenfeld, “Einführung: Europäische Kulturpolitik und europäische Identität”, in
Europäische Kultur: das Zukunft des Kontinents, Bertelsmann Stiftung, Gütersloh 1990, p. 7-18
24
Georges Nivat, “Brève réponse à Kundera”, in Russie-Europe, La fin du schisme, L’ Âge d’ Homme
1993, p. 284-286
25
Alain Finkielkraut, “Quelle médiation pour quelle Europe culturelle?”, in Médiation de l’ art
contemporain, Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume 2000, p. 18-22

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 Apparently, the Russian people must believe the same thing, as, in a
referendum for the supposed entry of Russia in the European Union, the 83% of its
people was positive for this scenario26.
Russian people consider themselves entirely European, not only due to the
huge contribution of the Russian culture in shaping the intellectual identity of
Europe, but also due to the fact that, during times that were deemed critical in
European history, Russia was always present.

The principle of cultural protectionism

If we follow the "Larbaud line", which was also supposedly employed by the
European Parliament, we will realize that today's cultural Europe results by
extracting the cultural "non-Europe", and therefore we will have to find those
aspects or arguments that make up for the main dissimilarity of the European space.
Are there such arguments?
Ancient Greece and Christianity naturally constitute aspects of European
culture, but these do so for others as well.
Contemporary Europe is distinguished due to a detail in Roman history,
which is rendered its origin. This is the principle of cultural protectionism, that is,
the principle of cultural products as governed by the relentless law of the market.
We could consider the Roman nobleman Gaius Vilnius Maecenas as the
founder of this principle (69-8 BC), a close friend of Augustus and great protector of
literacy and art.
The principle of cultural protectionism crossed the centuries and happened to
meet its probably most glorious days in the years of the so-called "globalisation".
Of course, what I refer to is the consensus among Member States of the
European Union, during the final stages of the GATT negotiations 27 (General
Agreement on Tarifs and Trade), the so-called "Uruguay Round" (15.12.1993),
pertaining to the exception of cultural products and trades from the Agreement
regulations.
The "cultural exception" (exception culturelle) was achieved by the EU after a
strong contradiction with the USA, who wanted the inclusion of cultural trade,
26
Ljuba Trautmann, Russia between Dictatorship and Democracy (greek), Introduction-editing:
Christodoulos Gialouridis, Translation: Zacharias Vidalis, Nea Synora-Livanis 2000
27
The World Trade Organization is in some ways the successor of GATT

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especially that of audiovisual trade in GATT, and therefore to be treated as common
trade services.
The collision was somewhat "natural": for the USA, the concept of culture is a
totally "high society" matter, while, for Europe, it remains "quasi-religious" 28.
Parallel to its establishment in the GATT framework, principle of cultural
protectionism was institutionally established in the Treaty on European Union.
While, according to the provisions of article 87 (formerly 92) of the Treaty,
aid that has been granted in any form by States, which distorts or threatens to
distort competition by favoring certain undertakings or the production of certain
goods, during the Maastricht treaty (07.02.1992) – that is, two months after the
consensus deposition of the Member States of the EU regarding the "cultural
exception" in the framework of the GATT – a special exception is added in the
Treaty for the aid that pertains to the promotion of culture and the maintenance of
cultural heritage.
If we are to define European cultural space today, we will have to review the
definition that Paul Valery provided us with in 1922.
Out of this tri-fold criterion (ancient Greece, Rome, Christianity), that the
famous French poet had proposed for the definition of "Europeanness", we will need
to remove Rome as a general influence and a geographical parameter of delineation,
keeping only the special heritage of the Roman Law29.
The "Roman way" that the professor of philosophy at the Paris-Sorbonne
University Rémi Brague proposes constitutes a simple procedure (of cultural
familiarisation) and not one of meaningful cultural content.
However, we do have to add to that the principle of cultural protectionism 30.

28
Terry Eagleton, The idea of culture, Blackwell Publishers 2000, p. 25
29
Vangelis Kassos, «Wie weit reicht Europa?», Zeitschrift für KulturAustausch, Jahrgang 1/2003,
Seiten 112-113
30
Vangelis Kassos, op. cit. note

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