Conference: National Identity in Europe (12.02.2018
Conference: National Identity in Europe
Date: 12 February 2019
Place: Polish Cultural Institute in Berlin
Organiser: Occidental Institute (Instytut Zachodni) in Poznań
Connected event: Exhibition of paintings by Zbigniew Herbert
The year 1918 represents a fundamental caesura in European history, given the fall of an international and social order going back until the Congress of Vienna and appearing, to many Europeans, as immovable. While some parts of the European society experienced the new order that emerged from the chaos of the immediate post-war period as a catastrophe, the new State system was welcomed with enthusiasm by countries such as Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia or Ireland, all owing their independence to the downfall of the pre-war order. Poland, too, was amidst them, as it finally regained a national independency which, even after 123 years of division between its neighbours, had remained a firm priority of its inhabitants, who had managed to conserve their own identity through a tenacious attachment to their language, religion and culture.
From the perspective of the 21st century, the maintaining of the principle of the Nation State may appear as anachronistic, as globalisation, multiculturalism or international organisations such as the EU or the UN seem to have created totally new political realities. Nevertheless, if we consider not only the independentist tendencies of Catalonia, Flanders, Northern Ireland or Scotland, but also the rise of patriotic forces everywhere in Europe, it becomes evident that the concept of the Nation State is all but obsolete.
What is more, given the present situation of the EU, situated in a dangerous stage of transition between a federation and a federal state, the question as to what role the Nation State can, should and will be permitted to play in the context of European integration becomes ever more urgent. What will be the role of national institutions within an increasingly centralised EU? What will be the part reserved for national identities within the subordinated European identity? And what will be the role of relatively homogeneous Nation States such as Poland, for whom the federal and multicultural model so popular with many Western European States is not a viable option?
These questions will be the point of departure for a public discussion attended by different important thinkers and politicians and organised in three successive stages. The conference will be opened by a discussion concerning the different State and Identity concepts developed throughout Europe. This section will be followed by a discussion essentially devoted to the Polish vision of the State and the notion of culture. The conference will be closed by a debate on the present and future role of the Nation States as fundamental structures of the European Union.
Participants:
1st panel: European concepts of the Nation State (Jacques Dewitte, David Engels, Frank Füredi, Monika Maron; moderation: Magdalena Bainczyk)
2nd panel: Polish identity and European context (Andrzej Bryk, Jacek Dehnel, Zdzisław Krasnodębski; moderation: Justyna Schulz)
3rd panel: The role of the Nation States within the European Union (Izabela Kloc, member of the Polish Sejm; Frédéric Petit, member of the French Assemblée Nationale; Manuel Sarrazin, member of the German Bundestag; moderation: David Engels)