European Parliament
Directorate-General for Research
Working Paper
Cultural Policies in the EU Member States
Volume II: Outlook for the 21st Century
Education and Culture Series
EDUC 107 EN
This study was requested by the European Parliament's Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport.
This document is published in EN only.
Abridged Versions are available in ES, DE, EN (original), FR, IT
Editors:Andrea Rosenauer, INST (Research Institute for Austrian and International Literature and Cultural Studies, Vienna),
and Pernille Winther
The authors' names appear at the beginning of each contribution.
Responsible official: Pernille Winther
Division for Social and Legal Affairs
Tel.: (00352) 4300 22688
Fax: (00352) 4300 27720
E-mail:
Manuscript completed in December 2001.
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Luxembourg, European Parliament, 2002
The opinions expressed in this document are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position of the European Parliament.
Reproduction and translation for non-commercial purposes are authorised, provided the source is acknowledged and the publisher is given prior notice and sent a copy.
European Parliament
Directorate-General for Research
Working Paper
Cultural Policies in the EU Member States
Volume II: Outlook for the 21st Century
Education and Culture Series
EDUC 107 EN
05-2002
Contents
CONTENTS
Introduction......
Being Neighbours
Diverse we may be, but the lesson of Europe's cultural history is
that ours is a shared identity
(Gérard Mortier, Belgium)
Culture in Europe
(Jens Smærup Sørensen, Denmark)
Powerlessness and adaptation
On the material and social situation of the author today
(Norbert Niemann, Germany)
European Culture in the 21st Century
(Vassilis Vassilikos, Greece)
Tales of the End of the millennium
(Mihály Dés, Spain)
Culture in Europe in the 21st Century
(Rémi Gousseau, France)
A Note from Ireland
(Theo Dorgan, Ireland)
A Programme of culture for Europe. A Contribution
(Corrado Augias, Italy)
European Culture in the 21st Century
(Léon Krier, Luxembourg)
"Bottoms Up"!
(Rob Moonen, The Netherlands)
Deracinating
(Sabine Scholl, Austria)
Cultural policy for the next century
(Nuno Júdice, Portugal)
Athens-Jerusalem-Helsinki
(Anja Snellman, Finland)
Europe is a difficult concept, although it may seem simple in reference books
(Lars Gustafsson, Sweden)
European Culture in the 21st Century
(Steve Bowden, United Kingdom)
1PE 299.536
Introduction
OUTLOOK FOR the 21st century
Introduction
In January 2000, the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sports of the European Parliament requested the Directorate General for Research (DG IV) to draft a study on cultural policies in the EU Member States as part of the Annual Research Programme. This study would facilitate a better understanding of the various EU Member States' cultural policies. To complement the picture it was also decided to invite one artist or cultural personality from each EU Member State to write an essay on her/his personal reflections on "European Culture in the 21st Century".
The report, therefore, consists of two volumes:
- Information on the cultural policies of the Member States of the European Union
and
- Reflections of artists from EU Member States on "European Culture in the 21st Century".
Abridged versions of the complete texts are provided in English, French, Italian and German in separate volumes.
Artists from such cultural fields, as literature, poetry, architecture, music, film, theatre and plastic arts contributed to the collection on "European Culture in the 21st Century". Texts were received between July 2000 and January 2001.
The essays reflect the artist's position in a rapidly changing economic and social environment in Europe, and develop ideas and proposals for cultural policies. Some authors regret that artistic production seems to be more and more affected by the market economy. The importance of artistic freedom and independence is underlined.
Several contributions emphasise the richness and diversity of European culture as an important basis for a European identity. In order to develop such diversity, it is proposed that the EU should support, to a greater extent, translations of European literature. It is suggested that access to financial support be made easier for intercultural artistic cooperation and projects.
While many authors see strong similarities in Europe's cultural panorama, they agree that diversity dominates. Unison of certain artistic styles in certain historical eras and multiple identities and cultures are the result of migration and intercultural dialogue. The strengthening of such a dialogue is important for any future cultural policy. The basis for such a dialogue should be for "minority", or marginal, and "stronger" cultures to be equally heard and respected.
1PE 299.536
G. Mortier: Being Neighbours
Being Neighbours Diverse we may be, but the lesson of Europe's cultural history is that ours is a shared identity[1](Gérard Mortier, Belgium)
Neighbours we may be – but, after all, neighbours are the very people we do not want next door. Our neighbours are the butt of our wickedest jokes.
We know what the Flemish think about the Dutch. They may speak the same language, but, and perfectly understandably, people from Groningen do not understand people from Antwerp. Hugo Claus and Harry Mulisch, both excellent contemporary men of letters, are light years away from one another.
Neighbours, however, are also the people to whom we can unburden ourselves when times are tough, and who invite us around to celebrate when they have hit the jackpot.
In our new Europe, being neighbours is what binds the future regions. Their diversity merely confirms the richness of our European identity. To emphasise Europe's diversity is not therefore at odds with the idea of building a European federation but part and parcel of it.
And so let me put the following questions: what embraces Europe's identity and diversity, and what trends in contemporary cultural life are making it difficult to make the wider public aware of this?
Let us begin by trying to define Europe's cultural identity from the perspective of the European citizen. The first thing to note here is the secular approach of Europeans. That may come as something of a surprise given the dominant role the church has played for almost a thousand years. But it does explain why, in contrast to other religions, the concept of ‘Church and State’ – as expressed during the dispute over the investiture of bishops – determined from the outset the relationship between Rome and Europe's capitals. Henry IV of Germany gave way and went to Canossa to seek absolution, but, outside Italy, the Church was forced to bow to raison d’état. Failure to do so meant reform, as in the England of Henry VIII.
In Japan, China or Ancient Egypt, emperors, kings and pharaohs were identified with gods. In Europe, the most earthly rulers could claim was to be their deputies.
The fact that none of the major world religions came into being in Europe further confirms the secular tradition of Europeans. All the religions which have dominated European cultural life originated in the Middle East.
In contrast, Capitalism, Marxism and Fascism – the three main ideologies of the 20th century – were developed in Europe.
The secular mind-set of Europeans facilitated the untrammelled pursuit of knowledge and the development of a tolerant, pluralist and multicultural society.
The Declaration of Human Rights codifies that process.
Laws ceased to be dependent on divine revelation, dictated by God on isolated mountaintops. Citizens themselves, sitting in their newly created parliaments, took on the onerous task of drafting legislation to regulate economic, political and cultural life.
While Europeans may have a secular outlook, that does not prevent them having religious experience: René Descartes is the perfect example of this, although in any event, the mistake here was to define Europe's religious identity in terms of the dialectic between the Romano-Hellenistic civilisation and Judaism and Christianity. In fact, the real point of tension lies between the Romano-Hellenistic hedonist society and the three Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
It is no use pretending that the conquest of Spain by the Moors and advance of the Ottoman civilisation to the gates of Vienna have not left their mark on our European identity. After all, when we have a cup of ‘coffee’ while sitting on the ‘sofa’, we are using two Arabic words.
It is particularly important to make this point at the end of the 20th century. It should help us properly to analyse the conflicts in the Balkans; better explain our policy to Europeans generally; and accentuate the role of the Europeans as mediators between western civilisation and the Middle East. We are all too apt to forget that in so-called ‘barbarian’ times, Judaism, Christianity and Islam were able to exist side by side in Toledo or Sicily, for example. We could learn a thing or two here from the Arab philosopher Averroes, the German Kaiser Frederick II and Goethe in his ‘West-östliches Divan’.
The only two myths to have sprung up in modern times, ‘Dr Faustus’ and ‘Don Juan’, shed further light on Europe's cultural identity. A product of the German protestant tradition, ‘Dr Faustus’ represents the unstoppable urge of Europeans to explore every secret of the universe and make the impossible possible. Building cities like Venice on the sea; walking on the moon; navigating all the world's rivers and seas, as well as exploring the most far-flung galaxies and resolutely researching into genetic engineering in order to create an homunculus anew, are all examples of this.
‘Don Juan’, meantime, a product of the Catholic tradition, personifies the demand for absolute freedom. The 19th century bourgeoisie relegated him to the level of Casanova, a pleasure-seeker under the decadent Ancien Régime. But Don Giovanni and his Stone Guest prompt us to consider whether absolute freedom and equality can co-exist. A philosopher like Kierkegaard admires the unrepentant man who would rather be destroyed than surrender the freedom he has won.
These two myths depict the transition of Europeans, as they move from the collective thought of the Middle Ages to the individuality of the Renaissance. One of our heroes, incidentally, is taken up to heaven, while the other is cast down into hell.
The myth of Europa affords a further opportunity for reflection on Europe's cultural identity. The story tells how Zeus transformed himself into a white bull in order to seduce the Princess Europa and take her across the sea to Crete. It provides us with many cultural indicators: the tension between land and sea; Europe's links with the civilisations of the Middle East; and the bull and the princess – passion and seduction in a patriarchal society. Here, we have action rather than the inner repose symbolised, for the Chinese, by the serpent biting its own tail.
This cultural identity of ours is best explained by our European cultural history. With his Lucifer, Vondel provides the bridge from Aeschylus’ Prometheus to Goethe's Faust.
Rembrandt, Dürer, Ensor and Van Gogh painted self-portraits in which they see themselves as Europeans at the centre of the cosmos.
Louis Couperus’ novel ‘De Berg van Licht’, about Heliogabalus, evokes the Pre-Raphaelites or Gustav Klimt. Artaud's ‘Héliogabale’, however, finds an echo in Paul van Ostaien.
The literary history of France since the French Revolution perfectly conveys the hope and frustration of artists and intellectuals at the time it took to transform human rights into properly functioning institutions. That was true from the second half of the 19th century in particular, when child labour, the proletariat of the new industrial towns and cities, the flourishing slave trade, colonialism, imperialism and nationalism as well as an inward-looking Europe were obstacles on the way to a new Utopian society. Young poets rebelled and entitled their poems ‘Une Saison en Enfer’ (‘A Season in Hell’ – Rimbaud) or ‘Les Fleurs du Mal’ (‘The Flowers of Evil’ – Baudelaire), for example – titles that make us think of modern rock bands. Zola, Multatuli and Hauptmann were left to take up the reins.
‘Carmen’, ‘Lulu’, ‘Madame Bovary’ and ‘Anna Karenina’ reflect the demands of European women for the same equality and freedoms statutorily enjoyed by men.
Earlier civilisations proudly rejoiced in the conquests and wars of their kings – recorded on Trajan's Column or the frieze on the Pergamon Altar, for example. But in modern times, in pictures like Breughel's ‘Dulle Griet’ (‘Mad Meg’) and Picasso's ‘Guernica’, as well as works by Goya and Bosch, it is the horror of war that is depicted.
Shakespeare's plays transport us through the whole of Europe from Cyprus to Elsinore and tackle all the major themes. We have the dialectic with the Middle East in ‘Anthony and Cleopatra’; the many facets of love, as Denis de Rougement depicts it in ‘L’amour en Occident’. And, in Shakespeare's historical dramas, we see power in all its forms. The latter are brilliantly encapsulated by Luk Perseval and Tom Lanoye in ‘Ten oorlog’ (‘To war’). We see the absolute monarch of the Ancien Régime, the dictator, the warrior-king, the doubt-ridden intellectual, the landlord and the servant of evil.
Diversity within identity is an integral part of European culture, but the instinctive response of advocates of the nation-state is to decry it.
This distinction became divisive because of the emphasis placed on the ‘Europe of Nations’, but though the hegemony of the nation-state concept was introduced during the Ancien Régime, it did not actually take full effect until the French Revolution. This is diversity which transcends national boundaries.
That ‘quintessential’ German Richard Wagner employs a Celtic theme in both ‘Tristan’ and ‘Parsifal’. What is more, the background to this operatic cycle is not Bismarck's Germany but that of Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, the ‘Sicilian’. The setting lies somewhere between the German forest and the gardens of Ravello on the Sorrento coastline. Indeed, since the forest is on Monsalvat (Mount Salvat) in Spain, Klingsor's garden could even be the Alhambra.
Iphigénie and Alceste, the heroines of Gluck's French reform operas, mirror the world-weariness of Goethe's ‘Werther’. From 1774, the youth of Europe was captivated by Werther's sorrows as later generations would be by Beatles’ songs.
Italy's operatic Metternich, Gioacchino Rossini, status symbol of the Restoration, saw his ‘Turco in Italia’ first performed at the same time as the second version of Beethoven's Fidelio. But finally, in 1829, just before the second wave of rebellion against the Restoration, he felt compelled to dedicate his ‘Guillaume Tell’ to the Schillerian hero. Amazingly – and like no-one before or after – he perfectly conveys musically Schiller's final scene – symbolising the people as a nation – without abandoning the great final crescendo typical of Italian opera.
Diversity does not therefore destroy the European identity; it actually confirms its richness.
Our diversity initially derives from the geographical layout of the four great inland seas: the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, the Baltic and the Caspian Sea. Their coastlines trace the path of important cultural journeys: Braudel's study on the Mediterranean, for example, the Scythian culture of the Crimea; a broad expanse with great navigable rivers from the Bay of Biscay to the Urals, allowing the most diverse cultures to cross-fertilise. Then there are the mountain chains: the Alps, the Pyrenees and the Caucasus. They divide up the land, giving many parts of the continent – itself a peninsula – a feeling of insularity.
Geography plays its part, but so too do the two routes carved out by our cultural history: the trade route – the silk roads from Lyon to China; and the spiritual route – the pilgrims’ way to Santiago de Compostela. Then we have a more or less significant Celtic influence, in Brittany or Wales, for instance; the Latin, German or Slav languages; the schisms within Christianity between the Roman Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant churches. It is striking to note that a social element is often visible as we trace the contours of these demarcation lines.
Europe's cultural history could be the thread Ariadne used to rescue Theseus from the Minotaur. Why then are fewer and fewer Europeans finding that thread? Why have culture and art lost their meaning for large swathes of the population, with the result that Europeans no longer recognise their cultural roots?
‘BREAD and CIRCUSES’ was the motto of the Roman emperors when their empire was already in the first stages of decline. Sadly, today, the arts are required principally to be a source of entertainment, as if the first words of Beethoven's ‘Ode to Joy’ in the last movement of the ‘9th Symphony’, ought to have been ‘Fun, beautiful divine spark’. Joy and not fun is what we should expect from art. It gives us the emotional and intellectual experiences which open up to us the existential questions of love, life and death.