The Unknown European Anthem, or What One Schlager Can Teach Us About Political and Poetic Frontiers Between Cultures
The Unknown European Anthem, or What One Schlager Can Teach Us About Political and Poetic Frontiers Between Cultures

Summary/Abstract: Analyzing the example of a four decades’ phantasmagoricround-the-world peregrination of one German Schlager of 1974 (“Griechischer Wein”, U. Jürgens, M. Kunze),the article aims to explore the phenomenon of inextricable interconnection between language, art and society in the process of cultural development. The study shows how the boundaries of national cultures are fuzzy, as for the peoples whose common historical, territorial or ethnic backgrounds (particularly, in Europe) make them not only to continuously reconsider geopolitical frontiers between their countries, but especially to constantly reshape the representational ones. The role of artistic phenomena, such as songs, is emphasized. On the one hand, the latter ones reflect the process of such a representational revision(for example, related to the problems of migration, as in the case of “Griechischer Wein”). On the other hand, they often become able to convey some ideas and ideologies, thus, producing an important impact over social, and perhaps even national, mentality. At the same time, on another relatively far cultural ground, in absence of similar anthropological preoccupations, these cultural-artistic products operate with a quite different range of values rather common to all mankind than specifically related to the current situation in a particular society.

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