Penser l’Europe
Thinking Europe

Author(s): Edgar Morin
Subject(s): History, Diplomatic history, Post-War period (1950 - 1989), EU-Accession / EU-DEvelopment
Published by: CEEOL Digital Reproductions / Collections
Keywords: European Union development; concept of Europe;
Summary/Abstract: ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN 1987 BY GALIMARD, PARIS. From the author's plologue: For a long time I was »anti-European«. At the end of the war, as anti-fascism developed into movements promoting European federalism, I wrote an article that appeared in Les lettres francaises in 1946. It bore the categorical title: "There is no more Europe." I had belonged to the Resistance and was now a communist. For me, for us, Europe was a lying word ... I had fought against what Hitler called »the new Europe«. I considered old Europe to be the nucleus of imperialism and oppression rather than the cradle of democracy and freedom. ... Later, Europe had been divided by the Cold War and the Stalinist Ice Age. But what haunted me in the years 1948-1951 and distracted me from my split regarding Europe was the development under Stalin, which destroyed all my hopes. It expressed itself in renewed political purges and inquisition processes in Budapest, Sofia and Prague. During that time, I lived through the tragedy of those who can neither remain true to nor give up their faith. I noticed the increasingly blatant contradictions between the idea of communism and its reality.

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