Founding myths of EU Europe and the workings of power in the EU heritage and history initiatives

Abstract

Along with the European Union’s (EU) increased interest in a common European culture and past, narration as a means to create and communicate about them has gained new momentum. By applying the Discourse-Mythological Approach, I explore how the EU narrates the story of the origins of EU Europe in two recent EU heritage/history initiatives. The analysis brought out three storylines in the mythmaking of EU Europe. While the first storyline emphasizes temporal continuity, shared cultural roots, and preservation and transmission of a common legacy, the second focuses on the idea of a break and a rebirth of a civic/political community. The third storyline highlighting founding figures and key heroes functions as a mediator between these two narratives. The founding myths seek to justify the political aims of the EU, that is, strengthening European unification and multilevel integration, and presenting these aims as choiceless and morally and ethically legitimated.

Heritage and Festivals in Europe

“…We adopt a similar and perhaps stronger approach, in line with German sociologist Niklas Luhmann, who argued that meaning (Sinn) is nothing more than a selection made by a social system. 2 Scholars who have investigated narratives and discourses of Europeanness and European heritage have used narrative analysis (Lähdesmäki 2017; on mythical narratives), Critical Discourse Analysis (Krzyżanowski 2010;Mole 2007), the Discourse Historical Approach (Wodak 2018;Reisigl and Wodak 2015) or the Discourse Mythological Approach (Kelsey 2015;Lähdesmäki 2018). Narrative analysis is not suited to our aims of identifying themes as topoi of Europeanness, because these topoi are constructed on the basis of linguistic strategies aiming at promoting the cities in question to win the ECoC bid.…”

Boundary Integrationism and its Subject: Shifts and Continuities in the EU Framework on Migrant Integration

“…The kind of "community" the EU seeks to convey has been studied by researchers of EU's cultural politics, who argue that (somewhat paradoxically) EU institutions strongly borrow from traditional nationalist techniques of identity building in forging the narrative on the "European community" (e.g, Shore, 2013). For instance, heritage initiatives and branding campaigns such as the European Heritage Label seek to create a narrative that linearly connects legacies from antiquity to the founding of the EU to convey common memories, culture, values and history (Lähdesmäki, 2019). EU institutions differ in this: while the Parliament stresses the narrative of a new-born Europe rising from its violent history into a civic community, the Commission's constitutive story is built around shared cultural roots and preservation and transmission of a common legacy (Lähdesmäki, 2019).…”

Administração como ciência e Taylor como mito fundador

“…São muitos os exemplos de mitos-fundadores na história e nas diversas culturas, dentre os mais conhecidos os vinculados à religiosidade e à criação do mundo, como Adão e Eva (Cristandade), Pan Ku (China) e Oxalá (Umbanda), apenas para citar alguns, mas também os relacionados à formação dos povos e cidades, como os de Rômulo e Remo (Roma), Kyi, Shchek, Khoryv e Lybid (Kiev). Existe, portanto, uma literatura recente que busca recuperar a discussão dos mitos fundadores na origem e formação identitária dos povos, como Nakba -a grande tragédia -para a origem da Palestina (WEBMAN, 2009), o mito de Kosovo como representação criadora político-cultural da Albania (ÓBUCINA, 2011), a pretensa unidade nacional na Espanha (GARZÓN, 2001), ou a influência dos vários mitos europeus na constituição da própria União Europeia (LÄHDESMÄKI, 2019). A partir disso, vemos uma análise política e sociológica do mito-fundador em diversos contextos, extrapolando até mesmo a noção de uma figura personificada do mito, com conceitos, lugares ou mesmo grandes fenômenos sociais cumprindo o seu papel.…”