European Universities Consortium

Universitá degli Studi di Firenze

South Stockholm University College (Södertörns Högskola)

The Institute of International Relations at Warsaw University

Institute Hannah Arendt - University de Marne-la-Vallée

Centre for Development and the Environment - University of Oslo

Warsaw School of Social Psychology

Pedagogical University of Warsaw

CALL FOR PAPERS AND THE INVITATION

TO THE FLORENCE CONFERENCE

DECEMBER 11-14, 2008:

Images and Myths of Europe: the Western and the Eastern Perspectives

Organized by:

European Universities Consortium & Del Bianco Foundation of Florence

http://www.fondazione-delbianco.org

www.euc.org.pl

Seminar coordinators:

Professor Bohdan Michalski & Dr Beata di Biasio (Bohdan.Michalski@swps.edu.pl)

The topics and the purposes of the conference and the issues that it will address:

    Is the myth of Europe merely a love story involving man and woman, or does it speak about the roots of European civilization? Could a legend about the infatuation of the bull-Zeus with the princess-Europe become a pretext for reflections on European identity? These questions simply had to be asked by those who in 2002 saw the exhibition featured at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Another issue provoked by the show on the myth of Europe was whether Central-Eastern European artists reached for this classical motif as frequently as their western colleagues. Regrettably, the 2002 Florence exhibition did not offer solutions to the thus posed problems.  Among the 281 works amassed for the Uffizi display not a single one originated from the region to the east of the (fortunately non-existent) Berlin Wall or more precisely the Odra and the Łaba. Surprisingly, the exhibition  did not broach the presence of the myth of Europe in that part of the Continent even though it coincided with the access treaty signed by Central-Eastern European states (as well as Malta and Cyprus), and was to commemorate the eastward expansion of the European Union ! All the above mentioned queries have acted as an impulse for our CONFERENCE. They also pertain to yet anther topical problem, namely, the unity of Europe.   

    A depiction of the myth of Europe by the German painter Johannes Grüzke - "Woman on a Bull" (Europa auf dem Stier, auf der Mauer balancierend. Vorwärts oder rückwärts, 1976) - makes an outright reference to Central-East Europe. The bull is shown walking on the Berlin Wall, while Europe, straddling the animal, points her hand to the east. The Grüzke canvas won first prize at a competition entitled "Where does the history of the world reveal itself?" and is the property of the Berlin Wall Museum - (Mauermuseum Haus am Checkpoint Charlie). Grüzke sees the Berlin Wall  from the western side, the symbolic gesture of the Europe's hand is thus made towards the "great absent", the East, the "black hole". What sort of symbols stir the imagination of artists in this strange land, undeciphered by the West?

The foundation myth shared by some of those countries during the first stage of Union integration included, firstly, Franco-German conciliation and, secondly, economic reasons and the democratisation of Spain, Portugal and Greece. After 1 May 2004 are they sufficient to merge West and East Europe into a single whole? It appears that the original integration myth has already fulfilled its task. The presence of new members in the Union demands a new historical myth, a legend which would define anew that what is truly capable of merging all Europeans together and show them the direction which they are to follow. Will Europe find such a common denominator? This is an increasingly urgent task since the European monolith is already starting to disclose its first cracks (such as the refusal to enact a common constitution). Will the Europeans be capable of setting up a single European nation which, according to a definition proposed by the constitutionalist Ernest-Wolfgang Böckenförd, is created to a lesser degree by biological-natural factors and to a larger extent by living memory and consciousness transmitted from generation to generation as well as by shared hopes, jointly experienced suffering and the contempt expressed by others, anticipated pride and, finally, professed myths.

In an introduction to proceedings of the conference  ‘Images and Myths of Europe', organized in 2002 by Luisa Passerini at the European University Institute EUI in Florence, Romano Prodi wrote: "These ‘Images and Myths of Europe' remind us that tomorrow's European Union cannot be based exclusively on economics and that, if Europe is to become a positive example for the whole world, it is perhaps necessary to place greater emphasis on ethical and aesthetic values...looking beyond day-to-day concerns, however elevated these may be, is not the European Union too inclined to neglect these values? I am deeply convinced, and profoundly worried, that this is the case".

The contents of our conference attempt to look in to the past and ahead into the nearest future, and pertain to problems which during the twenty first century found themselves in the very centre of the European discourse. The programme conception of the conference in question assumes that economic questions, albeit up to now the most prominent in the process of integration, should no longer conceal other aspects of unification, which today have been placed in the forefront and will prove decisive for the success or failure of the project aimed at unifying our Continent. It is precisely "the deficit of joint symbols" and the creation of a European nation as well as multicultural identity, collective security, and joint European preventive diplomacy, and not customs barriers or the free market, that in this century will most propobly occupy the minds of Europeans.

                                           Beata di Biasio & Bohdan Michalski

First Preliminary Research Seminar took place in Florence, 10-13 December 2007

Daily program of the First Preliminary Research Seminary:

Presentation of abstracts (max 10.000 characters) by members of the scientific committee and experts:

1.    Prof. Zbigniew Benedyktowicz Institute of Art, Polish Academy of Science: "Coming Back Home. Italian Experience of Tarkowski and Kantor"

2.  Prof. Wojtek Lamentowicz, Academy of Economic and Political Relations in Gdynia: "Two Views on the Identity of Russia: Western and Polish"

3.     Prof. Joanna Nowicki, Université Paris Est Marne-la-Vallée: „Mythes et symboles dans les cultures de l'Europe Médiane"

4.  Jakub M. Godzimirski, Ph.D., Senior Research Fellow, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs: "Poland and Russia: Where the East meets the West"   

5.  Prof. Marek Haftek, CNRS, Lyon: "East-West Brain Draining or the Law of Communicating Vessels. An Everlasting Quest for the Optimal Solution."

6.    Prof. Jerzy Miziolek, University of Warsaw & Warsaw School of Social Psychology: "The Polish Cincinnatus: in Search for National Identity in XVIII and XIX Century"

7.  Prof. Czeslaw Porebski, Jagiellonian University & Tischner European University, Krakow: „The Idea of Europe and European Borders"

8.  Beata di Biasio, Ph.D., Warsaw School of Social Psychology: "The Myth of Europe in the Polish XX Century Paintings: in Search for     European Identity"

9.    Prof. Bohdan Michalski, Warsaw School of Social Psychology: "The Divided Memory of Europe - Will Europe Succumb to Disintegration?"

10.   Marcin Fronia, M.A., Graduate School for Social Research: "The Myth of Common Security and the Development of European Policy Strategies"

11.   Prof. Ingrid Hudabiunigg, Chemnitz University: "European Culture Capitals, Representation of Europe's Common Culture?"

12.  Prof Wawrzyniec Konarski, Warsaw School of Social Psychology: "Ethnoregionalistic Movements in Europe: Reshaped or Disfunctional Image of European Future?

13.   Prof. Milan Prodanovic (University of Novi Sad, Serbia and Montenegro): Visualisation of the Myth of Europe after Balkans: Towards post-traditional identity?

14.   Prof. Anna Czajka (Università degli Studi di Genova, Italy): La comunicazione estetica tra le culture.

15.   Jakub Zajaczkowski, Ph.D. (Warsaw University, Poland): The European Union as a Global Actor at the Turn of 21st Century - reality and myths.

16.   Kamila Proninska, Ph.D. (Warsaw University, Poland): Perception and myths of energy security in the EU-Russia relations.

17.   Kamil Zajaczkowski, Ph.D. (Centre for Europe, Warsaw University): The European Union and sub-Sahara Africa in the beginning of the 21st century - perception, myths, and reality.

18.   Radoslaw Stanczewski (Warsaw School of Social Psychology, Poland): Europe as Cristal Palace.

19.   Kasper Bajon (Warsaw University, Poland): The Myth of Europe in Milosz's and Herbert's writings.

Second Research Seminar took place in Warsaw at the Institute of Art, Polish Academy of Sciences,

Warsaw, 19 April, 2008

Daily program of the Second Preliminary Research Seminar:

1.      Prof. Dariusz Czaja, Jagiellonian University: „Venice of two Worlds: Europe West and East"

2.       Prof. Krzysztof Gawlikowski, Warsaw School of Social Psychology: "Europe from East Asian Perspective"

3.      Filip Bajon, film director, "Filippo Brunolescchi versus Battle of Tanenberg"

The idea of the conference: "Images and Myths of Europe: the Western and the Eastern Perspectives"  comes from Beata di Biasio's Ph. D. Dissertation: "The Myth of Europe in the Twentieth-century Painting"

Fragment of a Ph. D. Dissertation:

"The Myth of Europe in Polish Twentieth-century Painting"

Beata di Biasio

One Europe?

        "...The Polish government commissioned from Franciszek Starowieyski, the renowned Polish painter, a composition to embellish the new building of the Permanent Representation of the Republic of Poland at the European Union in Brussels. The monumental Divina Polonia rapta per Europa profana, executed in 1998, was put on permanent show in the main hall of the Permanent Representation seat. ‘Divina Polonia', the second female figure featured in the canvas next to Europe, is depicted with a halo. F. Starowieyski referred to the classical myth of Europe (a Phoenician princess abducted by Zeus disguised as a bull) in order to emphasize the contrast between secular Europe and ‘holy' Poland. What is the source of this combination of nudity and saintliness? Why has this otherwise liberated artist, who in hundreds of   compositions obsessively portrays the female nude and remains distant from bigotry or clericalism, suddenly resorted to religious symbols?

   These intriguing and disturbing questions arose after seeing an exhibition on the myth of Europe shown in Florence. There, works of twentieth-century artists from Western Europe did not contain religious symbols. We seem to be approaching the topical problem of the unity of Europe. 

         The canvas Divine Polonius rapt per Europe profane is a symbolic summary of the two different historical experiences of the East and West of Europe,  

         In Eastern Europe it was precisely culture and religion which proved to be the strongest fortress in the battle waged by the smaller nations of this part of the Continent against the imperialism of their more powerful neighbors. This issue, reflected in myth and expressed in Polish twentieth-century painting, remains an unresolved topic of fascinating interdisciplinary studies (history of art and political anthropology), whose results I shall attempt to present in my dissertation...

      Polish twentieth-century painting expresses two embodiments of the myth of Europe. On the one hand, the "western" version, similarly to western art in general, recounts the story of twentieth-century European civilization, describes women's liberation, and comments on the interminable relations between man and woman (Skoczylas, Nacht-Samborski, Manastyrski, Linke, Hoffmann, Lebenstein, Nowosielski).

   The same myth is also present in a ‘Polonised' version (Starowieyski, Hasior, Grzywacz, Dwurnik), and undergoes a transformation into the ‘antemurale' myth, which has shaped Polish historical identity for centuries..."

Fragment rozprawy doktorskiej

„MIT EUROPY W MALARSTWIE POLSKIM XX WIEKU"

Beata di Biasio

Jedna Europa?

        „...polski rząd zamówił u znakomitego polskiego malarza, Franciszka Starowieyskiego, obraz do nowego budynku Stałego Przedstawicielstwa RP przy Unii Europejskiej w Brukseli. W 1998 roku powstaje monumentalne dzieło „Divina Polonia rapta per Europa profana". Umieszczone zostało ono na stałe w głównym holu Przedstawicielstwa RP w Brukseli, po lewej stronie. Na płótnie, druga obok Europy, postać kobieca - „Divina Polonia" ma wokół głowy aureolę. Starowieyski sięga do antycznego mitu Europy (mówiącego o księżniczce fenickiej, o imieniu Europa, porwanej na Kretę przez Zeusa ukrytego pod postacią byka) i przy tej okazji, świeckiej Europie przeciwstawia ‘świętą' Polskę. Skąd to połączenie nagości i świętości? Dlaczego u wyzwolonego skądinąd artysty, obsesyjnie szkicującego w setkach innych swoich prac nagie kobiece ciało, dalekiego od bigoterii, czy klerykalizmu, pojawiają się symbole religijne?

            Oto intrygujące pytania, które zaczęły mnie nurtować po obejrzeniu we Florencji wystawy poświęconej mitowi Europy. W pokazanych na florenckiej wystawie pracach artystów z zachodniej części Europy, powstałych w XX wieku, nie zauważyłam symboli religijnych. Dotykamy tutaj tak aktualnego dzisiaj problemu jedności Europy.

         Obraz Franciszka Starowieyskiego „Divina Polonia rapta per Europa profana" jest symbolicznym podsumowaniem dwóch różnych doświadczeń historycznych Zachodu i Wschodu tej samej Europy.

         We Wschodniej Europie to właśnie kultura i religia okazywały się najsilniejszą twierdzą w walce mniejszych narodów tej części Europy z imperializmem ich silniejszych sąsiadów. Kwestia ta, odbita w micie i wyrażona w polskim malarstwie XX wieku, pozostaje otwartym tematem fascynujących, interdyscyplinarnych badań (historii sztuki i antropologii politycznej), których wyniki postaram się przedstawić w mojej pracy...

        Tak, więc mit Europy w polskim malarstwie XX wieku jest jednocześnie obecny w dwóch swoich wcieleniach. Z jednej strony w wersji „zachodniej", w której podobnie jak w malarstwie Zachodu opowiada dramatyczne dzieje europejskiej cywilizacji w XX wieku, opisuje proces społecznego wyzwolenia kobiet i jest też komentarzem do ponadczasowych związków mężczyzny i kobiety (Skoczylas, Nacht-Samborski, Manastyrski, Linke, Hoffmann, Lebenstein, Nowosielski).

            Mit ten jest też obecny w wersji „spolszczonej" (Starowieyski, Hasior, Grzywacz, Dwurnik) i ulega przemianie w mit ‘antemurale', który przez wieki kształtował polską tożsamość historyczną..."