Journal of European Studies

The notion of ‘European heritage’ plays an increasingly important role in the discursive constructions of a collective sense of European belonging. This Special Issue critically reviews some of the contemporary instrumentalizations of European heritage as processes of borderwork by which various political and non-political actors demarcate the boundaries of Europe and European identity. Specifically, the nine contributions shed light on some of the top-down and bottom-up uses of European heritage and explore whether the borderwork of European heritage delineates and separates Europeanness as an exclusive and singular identity, or whether it constitutes a space of exchange, flow and entanglement where Europeanness is defined as inclusive and pluralistic. Characterized by interdisciplinarity, methodological variety and a conception of Europe broader than the European Union, this Special Issue aims to broaden the scope of scholarship in European studies and (critical) heritage studies.

In its political discourse, the European Union balances Christian heritage, the secularization of European societies, liberal values and Europe’s culturally and religiously diverse contemporary reality. This article explores how the European Union narrates the story of Europe and the role of Christianity in this narrative. This exploration is based on two qualitative case studies focusing on key heritage and history initiatives of the European Commission and the European Parliament: the European Heritage Label and the House of European History. The article argues that issues related to Christianity become easier to handle for the European Union when they are dealt with as memory, tradition and cultural heritage – and thus linked to the history of Europe.

In this article, we scrutinize the use and institutionalization of the concept of ‘dialogue’ in the cultural politics of the European Union. Our focus is on how dialogue is understood in the context of the European Union’s flagship heritage action, the European Heritage Label, that aims to strengthen citizens’ sense of belonging to the Union. Since heritage has gained increasing prominence in the European Union international relations, we also discuss how ‘dialogue’ is institutionalized in the European Heritage Label as part of the European Union’s heritage diplomacy. We approach dialogue in the context of the European Heritage Label as a floating signifier; an ideal seldom explicitly defined and never fully achieved but actively used to organize society and power relations. The empirical data consist of official European Heritage Label reports and interviews conducted with European Union officials and members of the European Heritage Label panel in charge of the selection and awarding of European Heritage Label sites.

Before the Second World War, the concept of Europe was a secondary moniker in a nationalistic world, which made the post-war rise of Europe and European legal heritage as concepts remarkable development. The idea of European integration was in part a post-war reaction to the ultranationalism touted by totalitarian regimes such as Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy. In a few years after the war, there emerged a new theory which argued that Roman law provided the foundation for a common European legal heritage, as well as a basis for future integration. This contribution explores the emergence of this idea and traces its history from the 1930s to the present, equally by scholars working in Europe and those who were exiled in the United States, arguing that with the rise of human rights instruments it created a foundation for the European narrative of rights that was a key part of the legitimation of European integration. This article demonstrates how these narratives of Roman law legitimated changing conceptions of European self-understanding and self-definition by engaging in a type of heritage discourse where the past was seen as a framework for the future.

The role of architectural heritage in the discourse and practice of the populist far right is examined, referring to examples in Germany and focusing on the Alternative für Deutschland. The findings reveal that the Alternative für Deutschland appropriates historic buildings and sites in a number of ways, including visual and oral rhetoric and embodied performance, and instrumentalizes them to specific ends. Built heritage in particular serves to naturalize and therefore to legitimize and authorize populist positions by anchoring them not only in time but also at places, thus reinforcing populism’s exclusionary logic along territorial lines – including those describing the space of ‘European civilization’. This implies challenges for heritage professionals and institutions, as actors such as the Alternative für Deutschland attempt to map the notion of a national or a civilizational ‘Heartland’ onto existing heritage objects and sites or else engage in ‘making’ heritage in the urban environment.

Against the backdrop of multiple European crises and the end of the ‘liberal consensus’ on European integration, this article explores the increasing politicisation of ‘Europe’ by the populist far right. As a case study, it focuses on how key far-right actors in Germany deploy a term from the country’s intellectual history, namely the notion of the Abendland (‘Occident’), to construct ‘Europe’ and ‘European civilisation’ according to an exclusionary and populist political agenda. Drawing from the toolboxes of conceptual history and ethnography, the interpretive analysis traces the long-term semiotic shifts of the concepts of Abendland and ‘Europe’ in the context of post-war democratisation, European integration and social liberalisation. Applying a rhetorical lens to original empirical material, the article explains how contemporary far-right players strategically ‘redescribe’ the Abendland to mobilise it in the struggle over the meaning of ‘Europe’.

One of the salient features of the recent populist turn in Europe has been a redefinition of the European. Traditionally, (far) right-wing parties defined themselves as Eurosceptic and focused on national identity. Increasingly, however, they have referred to pan-European heritage, although against the mainstream conceptualization of it. The article looks at the case of Hungary and the image of Europe constructed by the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, whose rhetoric has become a key reference point for other European populist movements. The past decade his government has witnessed, on the one hand, a tendency to redefine what is European against the dominant and institutionalized interpretations, and, on the other, an attempt to single-out the concept of Central Europe as the locus for maintaining and nurturing European values in contrast to perceived Western decline. This paper examines this discourse through a close reading of major speeches delivered by Orbán on the anniversaries of historical events. Analysis of these speeches reveals the ideological foundations of his political project and presents historical and philosophical interpretations of the European political situation. It seeks to identify how Orbán’s discourse evolved across time, by putting the speeches about the past into the present political context.

Tom Lanoye’s ‘theatre novella’ Fort Europa: Hooglied van Versplintering (Fortress Europe: A Canticle of Fragmentation) (2005) features a range of characters who probe Europe’s possible future by turning to its past. The Eurocentric heritage narratives on which they draw perpetuate an idea of Europe as a civilization founded on Christianity and on the Enlightenment and racially defined as White. The way in which Lanoye stages these conservative narratives and the way in which he employs irony, however, invites critical reflection, thus calling for a postcolonial perspective on Europe and on European heritage. We approach Fortress Europe as a literary text that reflects on and intervenes in dominant heritage discourses. Through close reading, we investigate how this work stages and engages with European heritage and how it thereby explores specific ideas about European culture and identity. Our focus is on the literary means by which Lanoye reflects on the place of heritage in narratives of Europe.

During the early twentieth century, people across Europe were enticed by magic lantern slide shows about a wide range of topics and issues. This contribution examines magic lantern images depicting South Africa and conveyed to Dutch viewers. How did the slides shape an imaginary both of South Africa and of the viewers themselves? My analysis shows that the slides not only transmitted information about South Africa – its built infrastructure, nature, population and economic sectors (in particular, the agricultural sector) – but also conveyed a narrative that established specific social subjects hierarchized on the basis of race, ethnicity and class. A critical engagement with the imaginary carried across by this material heritage helps us to understand how it promoted a colonial, social subjectivity with which potential emigrants could identify: a rights-bearing, European citizen with the right to move to South Africa and establish a new life there. Prior to any actual emigration, then, subjects were inscribed in a history of structural and physical violence, racism, alleged White superiority, social injustices and social inequality.

The ambitious 11fountains project was a flagship feature of the programme that won Leeuwarden (Netherlands) the title of European Capital of Culture for 2018. Eleven international artists were invited to design fountains for 11 towns in the province of Friesland. Feeling side-lined in the project, local Frisians responded by erecting their own fountain, which was decorated with 230 stylised penises and concealed a toilet. Drawing on theories of heritage and community formation to frame this fountain as a case study, I develop a concept of ‘community-building heritage’. Community-building heritage is participatory, dependent on citizen contributions and explicitly aims to mobilise and connect individual contributors in a community. Understanding community-building heritage as an act of cultural self-signification, I argue that its facilitation within the European Capital of Culture initiative, either in official programming or as counter-initiative, may contribute to a more bottom-up and constructivist approach towards community constitution within European Union cultural policies.