Hegemony, Aesthetics and Border Poetics
A A r h us
u n i v er sit y
pr e ss
Editors | HElgE Vidar Holm | sissEl lægrEid | torgEir skorgEn
The Borders
of Europe
The Borders of Europe
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This page is protected by copyright and may not be redistributed
The Borders of Europe
Hegemony, Aesthetics and Border Poetics
Helge Vidar Holm,
Sissel Lægreid,
Torgeir Skorgen (eds.)
Aarhus University Press
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The Borders of Europe
© the authors and Aarhus University Press
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Front cover illustration: The Rape of Europe, 1910, by Valentin ­Aleksandrovich Serov.
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Content
7
Helge Vidar Holm, Sissel Lægreid & Torgeir Skorgen
Introduction:
The Notion of Europe, its Origins and Imaginaries
First section:
Aesthetic Hegemonies and Conceptions
of Centre and Periphery in Europe
31
Siri Skjold Lexau
Hegemonic Ideals: Turkish Architecture of the 20th Century
49
Steven G. Ellis
Region and Frontier in the English State:
Co. Meath and the English Pale, 1460‑1542
71
Kåre Johan Mjør
Russian History and European Ideas:
The Historical Vision of Vasilii Kliuchevskii
92
Jardar Østbø
Excluding the West:
Nataliia Naroch nitskaia’s Romantic-Realistic Image of Europe
106
Per Olav Folgerø
The Text-Catena in the Frescoes in the Sanctuary of S. Maria
Antiqua in Rome (705‑707 A.D.):
An Index of Cultural Cross-Over in 7th-8th century Rome?
127
Knut Ove Arntzen
A Metaphorical View on Cultural Dialogues: Struve’s Meridian
Arc and Reflections on Memories in Eastern and Northern
Borderlands
136
Gordana Vnuk
Multiple Dimensions and Multiple Borderlines:
Cultural Work and Borderline Experience
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Second section:
Constructions of National, Regional and
Artistic Identity in Literature and Art
151
Lillian Jorunn Helle
The Colonizer and the Colonized:
On the Orientalized Caucasus as Alter and Alternative Ego in
Russian Classical Literature
165
Helge Vidar Holm
Time and Causality in Flaubert’s Novels Salammbô and Bouvard et
Pécuchet
181
Torgeir Skorgen
Mozart’s Opera The Abduction from the Seraglio and Bakhtin’s
Border Poetics
195
Sigrun Åsebø
The Female Body, Landscape and National Identity
Third section:
Poetics and Aeshetics of Borders and Border
Crossing in Contemporary Literature and Art
217
Jørgen Bruh n
On the Borders of Poetry and Art
231
Øyunn Hestetun
Writing Exile, Writing Home:
Translocation and Self-Narration in Eva Hoffman’s Lost in
Translation
249
Sissel Lægreid
Poems and Poets in Transit:
Heterochronic Cross-Border Acts or the Aesthetics of Exile in 20th
Century German-Jewish Poetry
268
Jørgen Lund
The Threshold Returns the Gaze:
Border Aesthetics in Disciplined Space
280
Authors’ Biographies
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Introduction:
The Notion of Europe, its
Origins and Imaginaries
Helge Vidar Holm, Sissel Lægreid & Torgeir Skorgen
A pilgrim on a pilgrimage
Walked across the Brooklyn Bridge
His sneakers torn
In the hour when the homeless move their cardboard blankets
And the new day is born
Folded in his backpack pocket
The questions that he copied from his heart
Who am I in this lonely world?
And where will I make my bed tonight?
When twilight turns to dark
Who believes in angels?
Fools do
Fools and pilgrims all over the world
This song from Paul Simon’s latest album, So Beautiful or So What (2011), may
serve as an entrance to our book. Simon’s lyrics illustrate what it is about: the
aesthetics and poetics of borders, both interior and exterior, the time-spatiality
of border zones and frontiers, the aesthetics of border crossing and the implications of being in transit, the aesthetics and experience of exile and of being
excluded as opposed to being included. In short, the focus is on the strategies
of identity rooted in the dynamics of identity and alterity (otherness), both
related to the idea of Europe based on hegemonic power structures and strategies used throughout history in a continuous quest for the European identity.
Today, in the post-national state of cultural and economic globalization with
its multiplicities of disappearing old and emerging new identities both on a
personal and collective level, this quest has proved increasingly challenging.
Much of this is foreshadowed in the quoted lyrics from Paul Simon, both
from a historical perspective and metaphorically speaking. Being on a pilgrimage means being on a journey in search of a place of importance to a person’s
beliefs or faith, such as the place of birth or death of founders or saints. In
 CONTENT
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8
Helge Vidar Holm, Sissel Lægreid & Torgeir Skorgen
other words, it implies both searching for a place of origin, or in the Christian
sense of the word, where life is seen as a journey between birth and death on
the way to paradise, searching for the promised land of life after death.
From the perspective of the pilgrim this means being in the time-spatial
state of transition, on the move here and now, between what was in the past
and what will be in the future, when or if he reaches his place of destination,
something that requires moving across both cultural and geographical borders.
At the same time the pilgrim, as a stranger, is conceived of as the Other, which
implies moving like a migrant and exile through foreign territories after having
left his home territory and cradle of origin, being on the way to the unknown
and yet promised territory.
The time-spatial dimension of the kind of border-crossing practice described by Paul Simon is also metaphorically indicated by the image of the
torn sneakers, which may be read as signs of time passing as well as of the
pilgrim’s journey through time and space. In view of the complexity of the
aesthetics and poetics of borders, the torn sneakers, with their surface holes
and miserable soles, may serve as potential points or spaces of contact and
communication both in a concrete and symbolic sense. They are spots where
the pilgrim’s feet get in touch with the ground on which he walks, so they may
be said to represent a border zone and border-crossing practices on different
levels.
Furthermore, in a more concrete sense the torn sneakers may be seen as
containing traces and reminders of the places the pilgrim has been. In this
sense they are virtual ingredients of his personal memory, and as such they
may help him compose the narrative of who he is, of his personal identity. In
other words, on the surface they will most likely contain some fragments of
the answer to the question “Who am I in this lonely world?”.
The fact that he has copied this question from his heart and carries it with
him in his backpack pocket may be read as an indication implying that identity and place of belonging, on many levels, is what the song is about. This
reading, supported by the fact that the constitution of identity as a strategy
is based on the dynamics of exclusion and inclusion, also finds its expression
in the image of the homeless, moving their cardboard blankets, in as much as
they, as a group living on the outside of society, are conceived of as the social
Other, excluded from the collective identity framework of society. And yet
the pilgrim moves towards them “in the hour … when the new day is born”.
In other words, in the border zone between night and day, on the bridge connecting the two banks of the river, he performs a time-spatial border-crossing
act. And as he asks “… where will I make my bed tonight?”, he seems to seek
 CONTENT
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Introduction
their company, thus both identifying with them and looking upon them as
an entity constituting a social outcast group of society.
From a perspective of the aesthetics and poetics of borders and border crossing as outlined above, the bridge, both as a border zone and as a threshold and
possible entrance, represents a means of communication. It is both a passage
way and a zone possibly bringing two opposites into dialogue. And last but
not least, as is the case with the pilgrim, it symbolizes the state of being in
transit.
In a more specific and concrete sense of the bridge image, the fact that
Brooklyn Bridge crosses East River gives both the song and the image a historical and topographical dimension. Topographically it connects two boroughs
of New York: Brooklyn, traditionally a part of the city with the biggest community of Norwegian immigrants, now taken over mostly by other eth nic
minorities, and Manhattan, New York’s oldest borough, originally called Mana
hatta by the Delaware Indians, who lived there until the Europeans came and
established their cultural and territorial hegemony.
Thus the historical dimension and dynamics of cultural hegemonic strategies indicated in the song may be said to be revealed. Furthermore, if we add
to this reading some elements from the biography of Paul Simon, the passage
back to Europe and to the question of origins, identity and transformation
may be retraced. As the son of Hungarian Jews, who in order to survive had
to leave Europe and emigrate to America in the 1930s, Paul Simon himself
may be said to personify, by his family heritage, the complexity of some of
the issues treated in this book.
Towards the end of this introduction, we shall come back to the individual
treatment of these issues by the authors of the various chapters in the following
three sections. However, first we shall be discussing the notion of Europe in
general, its origins and its imaginaries.
Anyone trying to define the notion of Europe geographically will almost automatically be confronted with considerable difficulties. The notion of Europe
does not seem to refer to a clearly limited continent, as one might think, but
rather to an imagined cultural realm, or simply to an idea with a historically
and semantically unstable content. From nature’s hand, Europe is not a readily
defined part of the world: it is not defined by oceans in every direction like
other continents. When an Englishman says that he wants to go to Europe,
he usually refers to the European mainland reaching eastwards to Asia or
the Orient. And normally it is the question of the contested Eastern border
which causes real challenges. As an example, the debates about Central Europe
 CONTENT
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9
10
Helge Vidar Holm, Sissel Lægreid & Torgeir Skorgen
among exiled writers and intellectuals at the end of the Cold War were largely
concerned with the question of whether Russia should be considered a part
of Europe or not. And what about Azerbaijan – the winner of the Eurovision
Song Contest in 2011? When did we start to think of the Caucasus as a part
of Europe?
In his lecture “Vilnius, Lithuania: An Eth nic Agglomerate”, the Polish writer
and emigrant Cslaw Milosz tried to launch the notion of Central Europe as
an alternative to the division between Eastern and Western Europe. Milosz
defined this realm as Estonia, Lithuania, Poland and the current Czechoslovakia. However, Milosz admitted that the existence of such a Central Europe
was contested by colleagues like Josif Brodsky, who preferred the notion of
Western Asia (cf. Swiderski 1988: 140). According to his Hungarian colleague,
the sociologist Georgy Konrad, the border-crossing dissidents and exile writers
represented the true Central Europeans, raising their voices against the officially
established cultural and political hierarchies and divisions of the East and West.
To Conrad, the notion of Central Europe does not refer to any geographical
border, but rather to a certain cultural practice; namely border-crossing.
Being a Central European implies a border-crossing attitude or such a state
of mind.
In other words, the notion of Central Europe appears to be an imagined
historical and cultural realm, i.e. a mental map signified by flexible and permeable borders and a cultural attitude of crossing borders among its inhabitants.
On the other hand, the pretension of being Central European implies, although
unspokenly, that other Europeans are peripheral. From a French or German
perspective, the Baltic peoples are themselves viewed as peripheral, in contrast
with inhabitants of Berlin or Paris. This illustrates the perspectivist aspect of
the notion of Europe: it tends to change focus and meaning according to the
geographical situation of the speaker. To most people on the continent today,
“Europe” means the European Union, whereas to most Norwegians it means
a geographical area surrounded and divided by national borders.
During the Cold War, the notion of Europe could refer to a humanist and
modernist Utopia contrasting with subjugation and oppression experienced
by exiled writers like Konrad or Kundera. Later on, the legal actions taken
against Orhan Pamuk, who was prosecuted for his political views by the Turkish government in the 1990s, could give rise to similar views. If the homeland
authorities appear oppressive, the Europeans are viewed as liberal. And if the
homeland regime is reactionary, the Europeans seem progressive. Confronted
with the exile experience of the Western European societies, this high esteem
could however sometimes be turned into ambivalence and disappointment,
 CONTENT
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Introduction
as expressed in Pamuk’s novel Ka and in his essayistic encounter with Europe
as an exclusionary political and cultural system (cf. Pamuk 2011).
Being raised with the image of Europe as the paradigm of humanism,
modernity and progress, Pamuk points to a certain shift in the view of Europe
among Turkish intellectuals, who seem rather disappointed with a European
Union which seems incapable of accepting a major Islamic nation as part of
the union. The EU’s restrictive attitude towards an inclusion of the Turkish
nation in the union does not seem to have only economic or constitutional
reasons. It also seems like an echo from the Renaissance notion of Europe as
a slogan for Christianity. To Pamuk, the restrictive policy of the European
countries towards poor immigrants from Africa and Asia seems to contradict
the French ideals of liberty, equality and brotherhood, which he once embraced
as a young student.
Despite the continuing process of secularisation, religion still seems to
play an important part in defining Europe and its borders. Hence Europe
is not merely a space, nor is it merely a historical or cultural/religious community. It is an imagined region defined by historical memories, narratives
and interpretations of cultural, religious, economic and political traits. These
narratives and traits are sometimes uniting and sometimes dividing border
markers, but they always depend on the way their interpreters are situated in
time and space and on whom they relate to as their “Others”. The Norwegian
assassin and terrorist who on 22 July 2011 caused the death of 77 innocent
people (many of whom were children) was guided by the utopian vision of a
culturally homogenous Christian Aryan Europe.
Accordingly, the mass-murderer saw himself in the glorious act of a modern
Temple Knight crusader, defending the threatened purity of both national and
European culture against jihadism, feminism, multiculturalism and “cultural
marxism”. To him the extermination of 69 members of the youth organisation
of the Norwegian Labour Party was a painful but necessary response to this
imagined historical threat. Further investigation and psychiatric examination will have to reveal the extent to which the terrorist was representing a
pathologically paranoid mindset of his own, and the extent to which he was
an extreme symptom of a certain exclusionary, in some cases even hateful,
European historical imaginary.
We propose to establish some major assertions regarding the epistemological
and historico-semantic status of the notion of Europe:
 CONTENT
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11
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Helge Vidar Holm, Sissel Lægreid & Torgeir Skorgen
–– Semantically speaking, the notion of Europe refers to a field of meanings which is dependent on the situations or the relations in which it
is used and interpreted.
–– Epistemologically speaking, Europe may be viewed as an imagined
spatial realm with flexible, permeable and disputable borders, and as
an imagined historical realm, a “time-place” or a chronotope (Bakhtin
2008), to which certain defining cultural, religious and political narratives, memories and practices may be ascribed.
–– The notion of Europe is a complex cultural system, integrating several
imagined cultural, religious, economic and political communities into a
larger and more complex regional community, constituted by different
levels of inclusion and exclusion along various border markers, such
as those between culturally dominating and dominated, centre and
periphery, natives and exiled, settled and nomads.
To the ancient Greeks, “Europe” could refer either to the homelands of the
“hyperborean” Barbarians or to the myth of the abduction of princess Europe,
the daughter of king Agenor in the land of the Phoenicians. According to
the myth, Zeus fell in love with her and seduced her in the shape of a white
bull and persuaded her to sit on his back. Carrying her like this, Zeus swam
to Crete, where they bred the son Minos. Thereafter Zeus married Europe
to Asterion, who adopted her sons, who thus became emperors of the island.
Apparently, the ancient Greeks gave this name to parts of the continents both
to the South as well as to today’s Central Europe and Northern Africa, “the
land of the sunset”, which is one possible meaning of Semitic origin of the
word “Europe”, “Maghreb” being another synonym (in Arabic: al-Magrib, or
“where the sun goes down”).
In other words, the original “Europe” never was European in our modern
meaning of the word, whether as a royal, mythological person or as geographical area defined by the position of the sun (and of the speaker): Phoenicia
was situated approximately where we find Lebanon, Syria and Israel today,
and the Maghreb countries include Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. Originally,
“Europe” referred both to a certain realm of the world and to the name of the
Phoenician princess who was seduced by Zeus (cf. Stråth 2003).
Much later Europe was launched as political-religious slogan or notion.
Hence Europe is a situational notion as well as a relational one. Related to almost every epochal or main political shift, the implications of being European,
and the borders of Europeanness, have been questioned in new ways. Since the
18th century, when the modern notion of Europe came into being by offering
 CONTENT
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Introduction
a definite replacement of the old parameters like that of Christianity and the
Occident, questions regarding its contents, borders and political constitution
have been continuously discussed. Following the end of the Cold War, these
issues have been especially recurrent in political speeches and academic publications (cf. Eggel & Wehinger 2008).
This modern notion of Europe may be considered to be a construction
based on a kind of collective identity. As a consequence of the prevailing
concept of national cultural identities, which in the wake of the 19th century
nation-building process linked culture with territory, attempts at deciding
on a common foundation of a European cultural identity have proved to be
extremely challenging. Two strategies of identification have clearly been at
work: that of building European identity on a common history such as the
Second World War; and that of a strong, opposing image of the Other, e.g.
the Oriental Other. In the first case, Europe is conceived of as a project for
peace and reconciliation, whereas the notion in the second case is based on a
common consciousness of “Europeanism” involving “a political consciousness
of the West”. This idea came into being after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453, when Europe was conceived of as an “active community
of Christians” (Mastnak 1997: 16‑17).
Attempts are still being made to reconstruct a European “essence” with
reference to different cultural, historical and political border markers, such
as the heritage from Greek Antiquity, Lex Romanum, the Enlightenment or
the English and the French revolutions. However, historical experience shows
that the borders of this mental map are culturally and politically constructed
and hence fluctuating and changeable. It was only in the 18th century that the
notion of Europe commonly replaced the notion of Christianity, and only in
the early 19th century that the Europeans would start to refer to themselves
as Europeans.
This was also the age of emerging nationalism, which in accordance with
the idea of Europeanism faced the challenge of finding a historical and rhetorical system of interpretation that could integrate past memory with present
experience and future expectations. In our days, we ask ourselves if the European Union basically is political and economic, or if it may be conceived of
as a cultural entity where borders tend to disappear. As to the few European
states that still have not joined the Union, are their frontiers of another kind
than those that constitute the member nations? Is Paris more European than
Bucharest? To which European nation does a German-speaking, Jewish author
like Kafka belong?
In one of his 18th century epigrams, Goethe wrote: “Germany, but where
 CONTENT
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13