European culture between diversity and unity

Abstract

The image of the European culture is given by the association of the concepts people-culture-history-territory, which provides certain local features. From this relation, we identify a cultural area with local, regional and national features beyond a certain European culture. Thus, we identify at least two cultural identity constructions on the European level: a culture of cultures, that is a cultural area with a particular, local, regional and national strong identity, or a cultural archipelago, that is a common yet disrupted cultural area. Whatever the perspective, the existence of a European cultural area cannot be denied, although one may speak of diversity or of “disrupted continuity”. From a methodological point of view, we have to point out that despite the two-levelled approach the two conceptual constructions do not exclude each other: the concept of “culture of cultures” designates both a particular and a general identity area.