It is both very fuzzy to predefine and very recognisable when reading individual texts. We could summarise the anti-modern worldview as the emphasis on aesthetic perception of reality. Anti-modernism is an ambiguous posture: it is not reaction, not longing to return to previous times while still being part of modernity, but advocating for another definition of what modernity should be ( Antohi and Trencsényi 2018). This oppositional dimension is central, and, as Compagnon ( 2016) underlines, it is essential to anti-modernism that its actors position themselves, through their publications and attitude, against a phenomenon that is diverse and complex but more essentially at the core of their societies. Outside of the historiography of European ideas and movements, the study of the antagonist views on the modernisation of European societies and culture has flourished, especially in the field of literature ( Compagnon, 2016 Jessup, 2001) and for the intellectual history of Central and Eastern Europe ( Antohi & Trencsényi, 2018).Īnti-modernism, as its name indicates opposes modernism. 16) explain, the modernity is the “work of interpreting the imaginary signification of modernity with a view to sedimenting them in institutions, and to re-interpret modernity in the light of experiences made with modern institutions and of the critique of their falling short of expectations.” The opposition to this Utopia, as part of a more general opposition to modernity, has also risen in the historiographic discussion, with reflections produced on the chimaera Europe ( Burgdorf, 1999), anti-liberal Europe ( Gosewinkel, 2015) and in a broader perspective, the particular connotation associated with the “West”, in the German intellectual tradition ( Pöpping, 2001). 44) stated: “modernity has meant a continuous and contentious search for the definition of Europe.” Modernity itself has to be understood as a process of constant efforts to translate utopian conception into a social order, and, as Strath & Wagner ( 2017, p. Europe-Utopia is treated in that context as one facet of the modern utopia that emerged in the 18 th century and has since then been continuously debated as part of it.
The Europe-Utopia is considered to have emerged with the Enlightenment. Europe is increasingly considered in the historiography as being a utopian project, and, as Stråth ( 2016) explains, that means that it is a mental projection based on rational, artificial conceptions, aiming at materialising an ideal ( Baczko, 1984). Indeed, working on the European idea, we are confronted with a rich diversity of thought, practices and projects formulated over the past centuries, written by philosophers and politicians who serve as the pantheon of the European idea, as collected by Böttcher ( 2014). In the introduction to his reference book on the European idea, Gollwitzer ( 1951) shared his feeling of unfinished business.
(1) Tracking anti-modernism in the Swiss digitized press (1900–1944)
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