“So, while communication culture is certainly of prime importance to describe how Europe is, it is hardly appropriate to say what it basically is. And while it is also important as an advice of how to make a political Europe, as a definition it would make a separate political Europe, rivaling the United Nations, pointless and questionable,” wrote Hans-Peter Geissen as a conclusion of the first part of his last contribution to Turquie Européenne. It is now hight time to bend on the possibility of a “hard” definition of what could be Europe in a geographic sense. Quite an iconoclastic approach...
Hans-Peter Geissen lives in Koblenz (Germany), at the confluence of the Rhine and Moselle rivers. Interested in all what concerns faunistics (data about animal species) of the Midrhine region, he is the author of many scientific publications on these issues. He bent on the Turkish issue with a very specific approach so as “to prevent a self-definition of Europe on the grounds of historical or religious mythologies.”
Geography describes spaces on and near the surface of the earth. There is a great many of details, which may be sorted. For instance, in those occurring naturally and those made by Man. In fact, it’s not always easy to distinguish the two, because they interact and did so historically. I let aside the question wether Man is himself a natural feature and so, thus, are his effects on his environment, too. The question is pointless as long as our viewpoint is from inside humanity and evaluates options from there. For mere description of course human activities and their effects are seen as factual like any other, non-human force/event.
Humanity “constructs” its (perception of) spaces socially. Different viewpoints or interests may compete about how to construct (conceptualize) them. Geography assumes that there is an objective world outside human spirit. Which may be interpreted and handled in various manners, the reality of which however must be respected. It naively assumes that a tree is indeed a tree and one should avoid to collide with it. You may assume the opposite, but if you try, try it slowly.
Geography tries to establish the spatial relations of the tree. Once these are reasonably clear, humans may decide wether they need a path right through the tree (the advice would then be not simply to run through the tree assuming it is not there, but first to cut it), or prefer to take another route. For the decision to be reasonable it may gather and provide information about historical experience with trees and pathes in general or/and with this particular tree, and about related physical traits, economy, ecology, and cultural perceptions of both the tree and the path. Then, space may be constructed avoiding, to some degree at least, hurting experiences.
The basic assumption always remains that the tree is indeed a spatial and physical reality.
This may be and indeed is contested and debated in the case of “Europe”. Defined as Christian, for instance, it has no spatial borders (but temporal and ideological ones). In case it is seen as a geographical entity, it has spatial borders, but is freed of temporal limitations and ideological imperatives. (To avoid misunderstandings: This is not the case for political entities like the EU, which is, contrary to an informal use of the term, not identical with “Europe” – but is designed to unify Europe along certain political premisses, such like creating peace, democracy, prosperity a.s.o..)
A geographer who gave an hitherto unrivaled geographical explanation of what is Europe was Herbert Louis.
Herbert Louis
Professionally, Louis was in first line a geomorphologist and topographer, and as such not much inclined to explain geography spiritually. The matter has much to do with physics and geometry, possibly with a share of chemistry and biology. But as to geography in general, he didn’t take it just from a narrow angle, but encyclopaedically, including the natural basis and the human dealing with it in general, including references to economy, culture, and history. Exemplary for that view, which today many consider to be somewhat old-fashioned, are his descriptions of Albania and Turkey “preferentially based on own travels”. And in fact, it was said by colleagues and students, preferentially by feet and in long forced marches, finding recreation in exact determination and documentation of the features of the respective landscapes, and reflecting it during the next march.
Between the two countries mentioned above, he had also worked in Macedonia and Bulgaria. Further excursions explored aspects of the continent from Norway to the Pyrenees, from Britain to the Carpathians. In later years, some professional travels also led him to Eastern Asia and Africa. In Turkey, the “travels” contained a professorship in Ankara from 1935-43. An innovation introduced by him in the country’s still young discipline were long research excursions with the students of, it is mentioned, both sexes.
While spending most of the “Third Reich” in Turkey, Louis was no political dissident or victim like many of his German colleagues in the country at that time, but just a professional. He then took a professorship in Cologne in 1943, in midst of heavy bombardments. Moreover, he visited Turkey repeatedly throughout his later life, as a leader of German research excursions, as a guest professor, and privately with his wife Susanne, a geographer and close collaborator herself. He then published his “Geography of Turkey, preferentially based on own travels” at the age of 85 years.
As we will see, Louis’ understanding of Europe has basically to do with communication, too; but not in the elitist way that is so typical for the humanities. His style of question was somewhat of the geomorphologist’s type, like for instance “what was it that shaped this hill, so that it is a hill of that shape?” Whereas some rivaling standpoint of “European History” and Identity may rather refer to the question “What was it that made us this much admirable?” Louis, instead, is described by colleagues as an habitually humble, though professionally brilliant and demanding, personality.
What is Europe, geographically ?
No geomorphologist would probably consider just for a minute wether Europe may be a geomorphological continent. In this sense, it is all-to obviously situated on the western part of the continent of Eurasia. Which implicitely means that geomorphological features cannot by themselves determine “Europe”.
As to the question of definition, the term means to draw borders (finis in Latin). So far, everyone with a map and a pencil may do it at any time in any way, which may have a lot to do with the line drawn across the Ural hills, along the Ural river and so on. It may only become a problem in case someone is forced to explain why there should be a border, or more precisely: of what there is/should be a border. What is on one side, but not on the other, so that there is evidently a borderline between a and non-a? What’s the matter, my friend? Got a cold?
In this way, at least, it is a question of communication.
When Alexander von Humboldt, himself a name in geography, had crossed the Ural in the early 19th century, he hadn’t found reasons to distinguish what was on the left and right side, and Herbert Louis repeated this experience when crossing the Bosphorus.
Living on the banks of a river like the Rhine, one would probably not expect a river to be a border by itself. Not, at least, as long as one can see the opposite bank. (Which may, by the way, also be seen as a comment on some centuries of French foreign policy.)
As was shown above, Louis experienced both sides of the Bosphorus extensively by feet, from the Adriatic to Lake Van (or, in some sense, from Norway, Britain, the Baltic and the Pyrenees to Lake Van), but couldn’t find the geographical border between the two continents, Europe and Asia. Which may be a bit humiliating for a proud borderline of continents. But Louis just repeated what innumerable generations of humans also had experienced: There was hardly a border of provincial districts at the Bosphorus throughout history, and already the mesolithic culture of the region had settled equally on both sides of the Marmara sea.
The result
But how could it be that this all was known since long, and despite this practical knowledge people inherited that Europe was a spatial entity? Which, then, must also have some borderline, somewhere. This FEELING had become obvious in quite some arbitrary borderlines drawn in history, and Louis was too much an empiricist to simply ignore such a fact. Something must have induced this feeling.
Like many in the humanities, Louis acknowledged that this feeling was communicated and had to do with communication. But by profession he was the one to look for the “hardware”.
The hardware he found was neighborhood, or, more professionally spoken, coherent settlement density. Evidently, neighbors tend to communicate with one another, intermarry, drink tea together, exchange knowledge or malices, and so on. Louis took the communication of the common people no less important than that of cultural elites, but, tendentially, rather more. It is then the question of how neighbors are spaced, which determines how much they may communicate. This in turn may be mapped, and Louis was a bit famous among colleagues for his cartographic skills.
He found a more or less equally spaced and rather high settlement density stretching from the Atlantic shores to the outskirts of the Iranian and Syrian, as well as Central-Asian deserts and dry-steppes. Which, in other words, also means (the “hardware” of) communication density. The economic basis of which was however the possibility of rain-fed agriculture, which made settlement possible and sustainable nearly everywhere. This, obviously, was Europe.
There was also a borderline in the North. The main factor shaping settlement density was rain-fed agriculture, limited in the North by the length of the vegetation period, in the south roughly by the balance of precipitation and evaporation. Yet, another borderline is given by sea shores, which effectively interrupt everyday’s communication.
The general picture for the continent of Eurasia shows three distinct “anthropo-geographical continents”, in each of which settlement is rather dense and coherent: Eastern Asia, India, and Europe. Their interspace, in which settlement is limited to stripes along coasts, rivers and mountain ridges, or punctual oases, is considered a “continent” of its own, the geographical Orient according to Louis. While each of those entities had a distinct cultural and historical development, they communicated through the “Orient” (the term as such, meaning East, is of course eurocentric). Culturally, thus, each of those continents is not only shaped by its internals, but also by the influx from the neighboring region(s).
If we let the question of a northern border of Europe aside –it is not very relevant in political terms-, western Siberia is still a part of (possible) geographical Europe up to the upper Jenissej, or Krasnojarsk. However, the densely settled region becomes very narrow there between “too cold” and “too dry”. Less than half the territory of Russia, but certainly three quarters or more of the population are geographically European. Politically, this is a big Eurasian empire with the center of gravity clearly in Europe. It certainly will remain a big political question, too.
Clearly, all states west of Russia belong to geographical Europe. This concerns Belarus, Moldavia and Ukraine, but also the Transcaucasian republics Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. So these might apply for membership in any organization that contains the notions of “European” and “union” in its headline or subtitle. Azerbaijan is geographically the extreme eastern state of Europe (if we let Russia aside), and was not much involved in its historical dealings above the regional level, accordingly. The European prospects of the region between Turkey and Russia depend primarily on Turkey, and then on their own internal relations. But the whole of relations between union-Europe and Russia will certainly not just also have a role in that, but generally remain the most important strategical problem of Europe in terms of security, and probably also of economy and anything else.
Télécharger le texte de l'article au format PDF
RSS 2.0