ifversen myth & history politics

8/18/2019 Ifversen Myth & history politics

1/51

1

Myth and History Politics in European integration

The Myth of the Fathers

By Christoffer Kølvraa and Jan Ifversen, Aarhus University

Introduction

States have their identity politics. Identity plays an important role in foreign policy, not least in marking

similarities and differences vis-à-vis other states in the international system. But states are also involved

in domestic identity politics. They actively take part in producing and institutionalizing the community,

which justifies their existence. Identity politics is probably as old as societies have been organized

politically. But it was the emergence of the modern nation state which brought identity politics to the

fore. States became concerned with disseminating the nationalist ideology that grounded the nation as

an essential community. History has a preponderant place in this ideology. When the state practices

history – in schools, in museums, through monuments and other commemorative efforts – it engages

itself in what we will call history politics. As an important part of a wider identity politics the purpose

of history politics is to offer a temporal meaning to the national community.

Nation states became the dominant form of political organization in the 20th which saw

the breakdown of empires and the rise of many new states through decolonization. At the same time,

the 20th century also gave birth to new forms of political organization that has challenged the nation

state. One of the most successful among these is the regional integration project in Europe. The

transnational political institutions that developed in Europe after the Second World War combined

classical federalism with new intergovernmental survival strategies of the nation states and with

functionalist ideologies. As we show in the next section, the European project has taken a bumpy road

from market based integration with an identity deficit to a union with clear ambitions of conductingidentity politics. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of history politics in the unfolding

of European integration. We are particularly interested in the way history has been used by the

promoters of the European project to justify their endeavour. We thus work with the assumption that

the effort to gradually developed state like institutions at a European level has opened the road for

identity politics and consequently history politics. Due to the transnational character of these

institutions we expect that the challenges for a history politics will be different from those encountered

by nation states.


2/51

2

To engage in history is to deal with the past, but there are several ways of doing this.

Some are strictly narrative, others less. History is bound to a certain chronology. Memory is free to

select among events, and even to bypass the distances in time (‘I remember this as was it yesterday’).

Myth is yet another way of coping with and telling the past. All of these modes are used in history

politics. History is produced in the educational and academic institutions of the state. Memory is

important in commemorative practices and institutions. Myth is at the core of communal self-

understandings. In this paper we give particular attention to the role of myth in identity politics. This

entails looking into the complex relations between myth, memory and history.

Our basic assumption in the paper is that European identity politics – as any other

identity politics – must include a myth.1 To support this assumption we include a lengthy reflection on

how we understand myth, and particularly modern political myth. The general purpose of the paper is

to investigate the production and the role of political myth in the European integration project. The

context of this investigation is the development of European identity politics from the 1950s and

onwards. We thus intend to examine the politics surrounding the making of the myth, including the

institutions involved in this endeavour. The broader context of identity politics is treated in a separate

section.

The study the myth in history politics we have selected to particular cases, namely two

museums that serve to present two of the so-called founding fathers of Europe and their role in

European integration. The two museums are the house of Robert Schuman and the house of Jean

Monnet. As the names indicate, both museums are located in and around the domiciles of the

important, European figures of European integration, Schuman and Monnet. Both museums receive

funding from the European Union and see their role as linked to European integration. To do justice to

the particular setting in which myth, memory and history is engaged in these museums we also include

a reflection on the relation between materiality, memory and narrative. Museums have their own

language and codes which include the display of authentic artefacts. They thus practice a multi-medial

approach, which cannot be captured only with means of textual analysis or similar. The analysis must

include the arrangement of artefacts, the role of guides, the routes proposed, the materiality of

buildings etc. To capture the different media and the materiality involved at these sites we have relied

on a sort of thick description inspired by our colleagues in anthropology. We are aware of some of the

pitfalls in practicing this method where we are holding the cameras reproducing the sequences offered

1

To our knowledge, the only scholarly contribution which has seriously studied the role of political myth in Europeanintegration is Della Sala 2010.


3/51

3

to the reader. But we think that an important dimension of these places is to be present and let the

atmosphere grip you. It is certainly our impression that the myth and the fathers come more alive here

than in many other media.

Myth and identity politics

Identity politics as a scholarly term emerged in the 1990s to characterise a new form of political

demands based on the claims of particular group identities (Calhoun 1994). But the study of identity

politics actually goes further back. Research on nationalism has provided valuable insights in older

forms of identity politics. Many studies have been devoted to the institutional anchoring of national

identity in educational policies, in the army and in commemorative policies (Hobsbawm 1990, Weber

1977, Nora 1984). This concerns the management rather than the creation of identity. But studies of

nationalism have also dealt with the latter. There are basically two ways to approach the question of

how identity is created. The first way has been practised by Hobsbawm and Ranger in their famous

study of how traditions are invented (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983). Here the focus is entirely on the

political agency often at the risk of instrumentalising the ideology. The second approach is to highlight

the ideological dimension. In the oldest studies of nationalism, this was done genealogically as an

investigation of ideological roots in older configurations (e.g. the tracking down of Herder, the usualsuspect). Inspired by anthropology and sociology, more recent studies on nationalism have broadened

the perspective to include the role of the nation as an efficient symbolic community. 2 The sociologist

Anthony Smith is one of the pioneers in dissecting the basic elements of this symbolic community.

Based on a general sociological theory of community making he assumes that all communities are build

around a core, a so-called ethnie . This core is made up of ‘myths, memories, values and symbols’ (Smith

1986: 15). Of these, what he calls the ‘myth-symbol complex’ or – with an expression borrowed from

the political scientist John Armstrong – the ‘mythomoteur’ comstitutes the real glue and driving forcein any community. With this renewed focus on myth, Smith laid out a new anthropological path in the

study of nationalism, which would also have implications on later studies of modern, political identity

building.3 We intend to go along this path in our investigation of European history politics.

2 Benedicts Anderson coined his now famous concept of the imagined community to capture the role of the nation as amodern, abstract and emotionally binding community.3

See for instance François and Schulze (1998) )who argue that myth constitutes the emotional ground for the nationalcommunity.


4/51


5/51

5

problem of delimiting myth from ideology. Given the prominence of the concept of ideology in

political science and - with the influence of Marxism - in other disciplines the necessity of clarifying the

difference between the two becomes imperative. Flood takes a the pragmatic solution of defining

åplitical myth as ”a type of ideological discourse” (Flood 1996: 42). He defines the myth itself as a

narrative serving an ideological purpose. Ideology thus concerns the values of a particular group; the

myth expresses these values in ”narratives of past, present, or predicted political events” (Flood 1996:

41). To this formal definition of myth is added the sacral dimension highlighted in classical theories of

myth: “The term myth designates a story which has the status of a sacred truth…”(Flood 1996: 32). In

the classical theories, the sacred status refers to the cosmological and cosmogenic nature of myth. It is,

however, what this means for political myths. Flood is very careful not simply to transfer the cognitive

normative functions that classical theory finds in the sacred myths to political myths. On the otherhand, he is also aware that the formal definition of myth as narrative is unsatisfactory. This is probably

the reason why he relies on ideology as the substance of myth. In doing so, Flood faces the problem of

reducing myth to a narrative ornament.8

Another problem facing the definitions of political myth is to make clear wht is meant by

the qualification political . Friedrich solved this problem the easy way by simply defining a political myth

as a myth valued by a political community. Flood adopts the instrumental approach developed by

Georges Sorel where myth is viewed as a tool for political action. But nor does he escape the circularclaim that myths are political because they tell about political events. Chira Bottici, who has developed a

whole theory on political myth, puts more emphasis on function than on form in her approach to

political myth. She draws on Hans Blumenberg’s existentialist understanding of myth as the basis for

human orientation in stressing the function of political myth as the moral compass for a group or a

community. A myth thus provides rationale for the basic values of a community. According to Bottici

the myth points out what is really significant – translating Blumenberg’s concept of Bedeutsamkeit - for a

community. She distinguishes between the general cognitive function of myth – mentioned in mosttheories – and the existential meaning. The latter produces what she terms significance (which is more

than just meaning). Political myth is thus defined as ”the work on a common narrative by which

members of a social group (or society) provide significance to their political experience and deeds”

(Bottici 2007: 14). But myth is still basically understood as a narrative . Like Flood, Bottici does not see

other forms of expression for the myth. No explanation, however, is given for why this is the case. If

everything can be ‘mythologised, as Bottici seems to imply we are left with the problem that all

8 Chira Bottici directly criticizes Flood for confusing myth and ideology (Bottici 2007: 186).


6/51

6

narratives providing significance are mythical. Bottici and Flood misses an important point here,

namely that narrativization is linked to the role of the myth in managing time. Narrative and myth both

have to do with the control of time.

Bottici rightfully criticizes the tendency to define myth from a particular content. A

typical approach in much literature on political myth is not to beyond a simple categorisation according

to content.9 In order to work in interpretations of current events, myths must be flexible. Bottici refers

to Blumenberg’s powerful dictum that the work of a myth is a work on the myth. Myths are sustained

in a constant process of interpretation in which they are exposed to new events. This flexibility of

myths does not, however, answer the question of what makes them political, or at least only in the

indirect way that interpretations of what is significant for a community seems to imply a form of public

involvement. Bottici’s only answer is that myths bestows significance on ”the specifically political

conditions” (Bottici 2007: 180). In his study of political myths, Yves Bizeuil goes a step further in

providing an answer. He links the function of the political myth to the foundation of a political regime

(Bizeuil 2006: 21). Classical myth theories emphasize the cosmogenic function of myth. It is therefore

that so little importance has been granted to the foundational role of political myth in the literature. As

we shall argue, the role of political myth is to help in founding and stabilizing new, political regimes.

Here we are not thinking of its mobilizing capacity, which George Sorel makes its prime function.

What we have in mind is the legitimation and ritualization of the political act of founding a regime.

The basic functions of myth

All the authors previously mentioned all draw on classical myth theories in defining the political myth.

Based on these theories, Bizeuil outlines three basic functions for the political myth: the cognitive, the

integrative and the justificatory function (Bizeuil 2000: 21). Most theories points to the basic cognitive

function.10 What interests us here is not the creation of a cosmos, however, but the foundation of a

community or as Jean-Luc Nancy poignantly formulates it: ”Myth arises only from a community andfor it: they engender one another, infinitely and immediately” (Nancy 1991: 50). As we see it, the

cognitive function is intimately related to the integrative function. A community is thus constituted

through myth. The myth works as an ”identificatory machine” in the sense that it makes peoples know

that they belong to the same community (Lacoue-Labarthe and Nancy 1990: 296). There is nothing

new in pointing to the link between myth and identity building. But it is important to underline that the

9 See for this approach Girardet (1986) who lists the following types: conspiration myths, savior myths, myths of the golden

age, unitary myths. For a similar critique of this approach, see Flood 1996: 158-9.10 For an overview of how this basic function has been approached in myth theory, see Jamme 1991: 95-135.


7/51

7

myth operates the two functions, the cognitive and the integrative, simultaneously.11 Myth thus partakes

in the symbolic constitution of community. Following Cornelius Castoriadis’ theory of the imaginary

institution of society we see myth as part of the social imaginary which conditions the symbolic

constitution (Castoriadis 1975). Nancy is arguing the same when he speaks of “foundation by fiction”:

”Mythic thought (…) is in effect nothing other than the thought of a founding fiction, or as a

foundation by fiction” (Nancy 1991: 53). Nancy signals that the foundation of community presupposes

a fiction or the social imaginary which for Castoriadis signifies the dynamic and creative force in the

social. This force also signifies potentiality. In this vein, Victor Turner speaks about the ”limitless

freedom” and ”pure potency” in the myth (Turner: 1968: 577). Myths are basically concerned with

creation. They are as Eliade points out accounts of a creation (Eliade 1963: 6). At the same time, a myth

must stand as truthful and consequently conceal its fictional character. In no community can thefoundational act appear only as pure potency.

The myth is this creative force. But it is also a narrative, as we have seen. We furthermore

know from Ricœur’s groundbreaking work that narratives deal with time. The narrative form points to

the role of myth in dealing with time. The myth has two basic functions concerning time. Firstly it

constitutes time. The myth is prior to time and accounts for things in illo temorere , as Eliade famously

puts it (Eliade 1963: 11). Secondly, the myth functions as a sort of compass for explaining incidents

taking place in time. Ricœur sees the linking of “our time” – typically rendered as history – and the timebefore history as crucial for the myth (Ricœur 1987: 273). For him, the myth is what constitutes a

“narrative identity” for a community (i.e. a foundation in time) as well as that which makes sense of

time. In the latter case, the myth contributes to turning incidents into events that are seen as valuable

and meaningful for the community.12 He therefore chooses to underline the temporal dimension in the

general cognitive and integrative function of the myth. Myths are not only foundational fictions; they

are certainly also about time. This explains why they appear in the form of narratives.

As mentioned by Bottici, myths more specifically work as normative guidelines for a

community. Due to the myth those values which make sense of the community are related to the

foundational moment. They are so to speak there from the beginning. They therefore have a universal

status which the actual community can only strive to realize.13 When Eliade defines the myth as a

11 It is only in the mythical narrative itself that cosmos is created before man.12 In a similar way, Jan Assmann points to the temporal role of myth, but contrary to Ricœur he sees the linkage to “ourtime” as one fabricated through memory, not history (Asmann 1922: 66-87). By emphasizing memory, Asmann, however,leaves out the relation between myth and narrative.13

André Rezler emphasizes how the ”the perfect universality of the laws” is established through the myth (Rezler 1981:214).


8/51

8

sacred narrative he links its transcendent character with its normative function (Eliade 1963: 5). What is

the sacred for Eliade is the significant for Bottici. The difference is only that Bottici defines significance

in existentialist terms, not in religious.

Classical theories of myth do not distinguish sharply between the normative and the

cognitive function. This has to do with the fact that they were developed to the sacral and holistic

approach to knowledge typical for so-called archaic societies.14 Political myths are modern and more

limited in range since their role is not to create a world, but only to provide the rationale for a political

foundation. This does not reduce the normative function of the myth, however. The founding of a new

political order – what Claude Lefort has called the political to distinguish it from politics which only

denotes political acts within the established order (Ifversen 1997) – must include a reference to basic

values. Without this reference the foundational act will appear as egoistic and violent. In emphasizing

the normative function in modern political myths we rely on Hayden White who to our knowledge

must convincingly has for the moralizing capacity of myths. White sees myths as narratives directed by

a principle of “propriety”: “ …the life-world of myth is governed by the principle of ’propriety’ and not

‘causality’” (White 2000: 51). Myths or at least modern myths, does not fulfill a cognitive function.

According to White they do not explain, they moralize. In myths incidents are told in way that makes

them appear as consequences of a moral problem. Myths are therefore only activated when there is a

need in the community for serious corrections in its moral orientation; corrections so serious that theydemand “a reconstruction of society” (White 2000: 51). Following White, the mythical discourse

appears in situations characterized by chaos and moral breakdown. They are involved in reestablishing

social order. Based on his general understanding of narratives he sees their role as producing morality.

Narratives dramatize situations so that they appear as moral conflicts; and narratives provide endings

(the whole point of the story). But is White here not doing the same as Flood and Bottici, that is, giving

all the credit to the narrative and leaving nothing to myth? He is certainly eligible to these objections,

but he also highlights the foundational role of myths for instance in reconstructing communities after acatastrophe. Although not mentioned explicitly, White hints at the basic structure in the mythical

narrative, which is the transformation from chaos to order. In the mythical narrative, chaos is the

condition prior to order, but also the rationale for the necessity of order. Myths are about “how chaos

became cosmos to quote Victor Turner (Turner 1968: 576). Turner takes this structure astep further in

viewing myths as liminal phenomena that make room for imagination. He sees myths not only as

ordering narratives, but also as an activity for imagining novelty. He thus locates the social imaginary in

14

This is probably also the reason why these theories from Malinowski to Cassirer and Lévi-Strauss have been tackling withthe problem of determining whether mythical thinking is primitive or advanced.


9/51


10/51

10

be based in the authority of the foundational act itself. Following Arendt, we will claim that both of

these basic reasons will have to be translated into a mythical discourse. The absolute mentioned by

Arendt is the universal dimension which eliminates the relativism of the political act. In Arendt’s

analysis of the French revolution, the absolute appears in the form of the universal declaration of

human rights which is supposed to found the order of freedom. But because the French revolutionaries

are not capable of forming a formalized practice of how to interpret these rights they end up acquiring

a semi-religious status, which turns them into an absolute in Arendt’s sense. The American

revolutionaries, on the other hand, succeed in giving the foundational act itself legitimacy or, in her

words “…the authority which the act of foundation carried within itself” (Arendt 1973: 199). Arendt is

only interested in the institutional dimension of this authority, but she does hint at the “spirit of

foundation” needed to link actual politics to the foundational act. In our view, it is precisely this spirit which is developed in the work on myth. In fact it is the form which the work on myth takes in the

context of a modern linear conception of time, which distinguishes modern political myths from

archaic ones. Modern politics involves the future – it is the practice of making present dispositions so

as to secure a desired future state. But as Eliade argues there is no future in archaic mythical time –

there is in fact no real time in the linear sense at all. Archaic myths are structures of ‘Eternal Return’,

through ritual the community returns to the Mythical moment of Origin, their world is literally ‘re-

booted’ through this practice(Eliade 1954:34-35). To archaic man therefore myth and its accompanying

rituals is a ‘defence against time’, a structure of ontological security founded on a denial of qualitative

changes in human existence. Myth sets archaic time in an unbreakable circular loop, in which the

moment of origin can be replayed infinitely unchallenged by any notion of History as a qualitative linear

sequence of different events. In archaic societies the time of origin and the time of the present become

one through ritual acting of the myth (Eliade 1954:10-11).

In a modern linear conception of time, however, a there will always be a gap between

present times and the origin. The present is always a different time and leaves no possibility of a ritualreturn to the origin. But even if the ritual practice of a return is lost, the need for a stable ontological

and moral framework of existence persists. That is why there is a continued need to reconnect – but not

return - to the ‘spirit of foundation’. It is this reconnection which is entailed in the work on myth

associated with modern political myths. The work on myth is the operation through which the values

of the foundation are brought into the present and future community issues – in short with the politics

of a community. The work on myth is its political interpretation in a present context (cf. Armstrong

2005:111-113).


11/51

11

In order for the foundational moment to be activated in the present it must be lifted out

of time and installed in a static eternal sphere beyond history. Therefore the values, texts, events or

actors of the foundation must be freed from the immediacy of their historical context and become

‘empty signifiers’ of the unchangeable moral foundation of the community. Only in this way can the

community relate its political present to its foundational moment without the experience of

anachronism. The relevance of a constitution in politics is not meant to be limited by its age or the

historical context of its making; it is the moral backdrop against which all potential issues at all times

can be debated. What in archaic times was made up by the stable sphere of the sacred is in modern

times represented in a secular form by such ahistorical elements in the sense that the origin does not

limit the ways in which they can be employed as interpretative frames for issues and choices in radically

different historical contexts.

Founding fathers

It is in this sphere that the special group of historical actors referred to as ‘founding Fathers’ reside. In

order to develop further the specificities of how father figures function in political communities, we can

draw inspiration from psychoanalysis which more than any other theory has sought to conceptualise

the role of the Father figure both in the family and in the wider society. Already in his theory of the

Oedipus complex Freud made clear that he regarded the position of the Father as a unique one (Freud

1927)17. In this theory, Freud argued that the child was introduced to the moral codes of life through

the initially devastating experience of the Father’s prohibiting powers. According to Freud the position

of the Father was not experienced as one formed and legitimated by a general symbolic framework (the

moral codes), but as a position from which this whole framework was instituted. The Law – as Jacques

Lacan termed the moral-symbolic codification of community 18 – was the Law of the Father. Being

above the Law or identical to it, the father position contrary to all other positions is not prudcued by

Law, but rather is its originator. If we transpose this theory to the political sphere this means that

Founding Fathers is not a category of ‘exemplary predecessors’; they are not simply actors who

conducted themselves admirably in relation to the morals of their community. Founding Fathers

institute a new set of moral codes: they change history and establish a new foundation for generations

to come. The mythical narrative of the community’s origin is often the story of how the Fathers laid

down the Law; how a new symbolic structure was erected and replaced the chaos of an unstructured

17 For a more detailed discussion of the Oedipal complex, also in its later Lacanian elaboration see Lorenzo Chiesa,Subjectivity and Otherness – A philosophical Reading of Lacan (MIT Press 2007) or Sean Homer, Jacques Lacan (Routlegde 2005).

Freud’s idea of the Oedipal complex can be found in Sigmund Freud, The Ego and the Id (Hogarth Press 1927)18. This is elaborated in (Lacan 1977)


12/51

12

world. Consequently, as Jean-Michell Rabaté points out, “A father is not simply an ‘individual’, but mainly a

function; paternity is that place from which someone lays down a law(…)”(Rabate 1981:74). Here Rabaté implicitly

articulates the tension between ‘the individual’ and the position of the Father. If the Father is to be

beyond the Law as its originator, then his individual preferences and failures under it must be

suppressed. The whole spectrum of idiosyncratic desires, whims, failures and flaws which make up an

individual person, must be pushed into the background if he is to emerge as a position which embodies

the law, the whole law, and only the law (cf. Verhaeghe 1999). Obviously, this does not entail that the

intimate biographies produced about Founding Fathers are always patricidal. The inherent tension

between the position of the Father and the individual which fills it can never be completely resolved,

but it can be handled if the personal narrative of the man is isolated so that it has bearing on the

greatness of his ideas, or if it is carefully configured to mirror the narrative structure and core elementsof the mythical narrative. This way the mythical narrative of the Father’s founding genius is implicitly

mirrored in the biographical narration of his most intimate life. We might even venture the point that in

modern communities where the founders are political individuals rather than Gods, there is a need to

offer a more intimate mode of identification with the father than that which is instituted simply

through the adherence to his political vision.

But even if a more personal narrative of the father can be dealt with, his main function is

still to be the main character in the communal mythical narrative. For political Father figures this meansthat they have to be lifted out of the general category of ‘former politicians’. This process which often

happens posthumously transforms their ideas from political viewpoints coloured by and aimed at a

particular historical context to ‘visions’, indicative of a structure of fundamental values which transcend

the context of their formulation (Kølvraa 2010). Freud argued that the final confirmation of the

Father’s authority arrived only when he was internalised as the child’s Super Ego – as the ever-present

berating voice of our guilty conscience (Freud1963). Because the actual father only incompletely fills

the symbolic position of the Father figure, it can be argued that the power of the latter is greatest in theabsence of the former. It is the continued references to or invocation of the Father’s authority in his

actual absence which make up the primary form of his authority 19. The devastating exclamation ‘what if

you Father could see you now’ is an example of such an invocation in the family (Rösing 2007). The

political parallel would be the way in which various political endeavours – often long after the physical

death of the Founding Fathers – are rhetorically linked to their visions or ideas. Such invocation of the

19 Indeed Freud argued in Totem and Taboo that the first human communities were established around the figure of a deadFather (Sigmund Freud, Totem and Taboo, Kegan Paul 1918). For a discussion about the ‘absent Father’ in literature see Regis

Durand, ‘The Captive King: The Absent Father in Melville’s Text’, in Robert Con Davis (ed.), The Fictional Father – LacanianReadings of the Text (University of Massachusetts Press 1981)


13/51

13

Father’s authority is possible only because his vision has been disconnected from its immediate

historical context and has become an interpretative framework for approaching issues that the actual

founding actors could never have imagined. Or put more precisely, the reference to the father has

become a mode of political legitimation which imports an authority from the past to justify present and

future dispositions. The invocation of the Father is therefore an element in the more general work on

myth. It is a rhetorical mode of reconnecting to the ‘spirit of foundation’ in order to legitimate a

particular political goal as expressing the foundational communal values given by the founding fathers.

We expect the ‘Houses of the founding Fathers’ which we will focus on here are core

sites both for understanding how a political Father-figure is ‘mythically’ constructed and institutions

who are like to be heavily engaged in a ‘work on myth’ from this basis.

Before turning to the actual analysis of the exhibitions and practises of these institutions

we will however need to develop a framework for analysing the distinct genre of museums that is the

‘founders dwelling’.

Houses with Fathers – Analysing paternal authority on display

Much has been written on the museum as one of the decisive institutional innovations emerging in the19th century. It has been suggested by Douglas Crimp that alongside the asylum, the prison and the

clinic,– famously analysed by Foucault - the museum should also be ranked as a core institution for the

articulation of the power/knowledge nexus of modernity (Crimp 1985:45). And indeed Foucault does

point out that the museum (together with the library) are core examples of what he terms

‘heterotopias’: spaces in which there is an attempt to simultaneously ‘represent, convert and invent’ the

entirety of a cultural structure (Foucault 1986:26). The ambition expressed though these institutions of

collecting and safeguarding the entire bewildering multiplicity of a cultural and historical context, of

ordering and controlling it, is part and parcel of a modern construction of community. It is the material

support for those imaginings of commonality, consensus, and congeniality which was at first centred on

the idea of the nation.

These aspects, however, primarily concerns the wider function of the museum in modern

society and give us only tentative clues on how to approach the specific expression of this function in

the houses of the fathers. We approach these museums as institutions navigating a triangular force field

constituted by their status as lieu de memoire , by their collections of artefacts and by their exhibitionary


14/51

14

narratives. The first inscription of both Schuman’s and Monnet’s house is arguably that of a lieu de

memoire. Pierre Nora, who coined the concept, argues that the meaning of such sites has to do with a

fundamental difference between memory and history (Nora 1989). History always has a critical agenda.

It interrogates its sources, compares them and discredits some of them. It approaches the past as a

‘radical Otherness’ the truth of which is not readily available, but must be painstakingly forced from it

(Nora 1989:8-9). In memory, on the other hand, the past speaks its eternal truth out loud and clear.

Memory is, as Peter Novick has argued “(…) in a crucial sense ahistorical. (...) Historical consciousness,

by its nature, focuses on the historicity of events – that they took place then and not now, that they

grew out of circumstances different from those that now obtain. Memory, by contrast, has no sense of

the passage of time; it denies the ‘pastness’ of its objects and insists on their continuing presence”

(Novick 1999: 4). Memory claims that the events and lessons to be remembered have a permanentmoral relevance. For his reason, Memory is closely related to myth. What is remembered as

permanently relevant, is often the mythical origins with its moral values that are made present through

the work on myth. According to Peter Mostow memorials – which are a kind of lieu de memoire - are

akin to Miceau Eliade’s notion of ‘sacred spaces’ (Mostow 1994). These are sites which are exempt for

the activities of everyday life because they function as places for ‘hierophany’ – communication with

the sacred world and thus – in mythical terms – and for the ‘eternal return’ to the founding moment

and values of the community; even if only in the act of remembering (Eliade 1959).

Memory is all the more effective when tied to a material site – as a lieu de memoire –

because a metaphorical transfer is instigated. In such a form, the disembodied sphere of community

values borrows the solidity of a material object. But it also has to do with the fact that when memory is

materialised in a site, the process of remembering can be tied to a bodily practice. Lieux de memoire –

as we consider them here20- are points in space which direct a movement. One travels to, visits and sees

a lieu de memoire. When this physical activity of moving about is coupled with the mental activity of

remembering it constitutes a mnemonic technique; a remembering of and in the body. The movementto and around lieux de memoire therefore happens both in space and time; you travel there – to the site

- and back – to the time of foundation. As the goal of a journey – potentially of a pilgrimage - the

materiality and locality of a lieu de memoire have the function of orchestrating a bodily reaffirmation of

20

Nora emphasises the materiality of lieux de memoire, but does not – as we will do here - restrict the concept to ‘sites’.Different forms such as texts (a school book) or practices (a parade), can be memory sites (Nora 1989)


15/51

15

the community values – as a modern echo of Eliade’s archaic ‘Rituals of Eternal Return’ (Eliade

1954)21.

What is invested in the materiality of lieu de memoire is therefore not primarily a claim to authenticity.Ruins or other material traces of the past might serve as a lieu de memoire, but it is not their claim to

be authentic remains of a time past, which make them this. Monuments or memorials are also lieu de

memoire, but they are not in the same sense as ruins ‘authentic remains’. Peter Mostow instead defines

a memorial as “an aesthetic mode of conveying a moral message” (Mostow 1994:408). Nor for Nora is

authenticity central to a lieu de memoire, but rather its communicative intentionality; its ‘will to

remember’, as he phrases it (Nora 1989:19). A material site becomes a lieu de memoire when it is made

the referent of a ‘defence against history’, in the sense that it is made to embody values which are

thought unchangeable – safe from the changing historical context – and sacred – and exempt from the

critical impositions of historical science. Historical remains are never more ahistorical than when they

are related to as a lieu de memoire. Monnet’s house is a historical building; it has an architecture, a style

and a layout which signifies a certain historical period of which it is an authentic product. But for its

function as a lieu de memoire this authenticity is irrelevant. What matters is the intention to remember,

the will to hold that sacred, which it orchestrated for those travelling to it.

But both houses are more than pure lieux de memoire. They are also museums, the

keepers of a collection of artefacts and the frame for a narration of European integration. Traditionally

the collection of a museum is the sign of authenticity. The collection of ‘real remains’ is the raw

material from which a historical science, and not simply a memory, might emerge. The museum

collection, according to Benedict Anderson, was from the beginning part of the modern scientific

ambition for a ”totalising classificatory grid” (Anderson 1983: 184). In the same vein, Anthony D.

Smith remarks that such collections served to deliver a ‘scientific representation of the nation’ as “a

vision of eternal fraternity uncovered and represented in the museum” (Smith 1983:172-173). The

‘authentic’ collection therefore does not share the strong presence and immediacy of the lieu de

memoire. The act of collecting is to price objects from a past which did not intend to give them up to

the future, to uncover and secure the scattered few survivors of time. The authenticity of the object is

crucial because it is that which defines them as a limited presence in a sea of absence. Most is lost, but

the little left is collected.

21 Paul Connerton has argued that ‘social memory’ must involve the transfer of memories between generations and that the way in which younger generation are made to remember (the founding) events which they have never experienced, is exactly

by tying such memories to bodily practices which can be experienced – for example ceremonies or rituals ofcommemorations (Connerton 1989).


16/51

16

This interplay between presence and absence at the heart of authenticity is the basis for

what Krzysztof Pomian has argued is the function of all collections, namely to organize an exchange

between the fields of the visible and the invisible (Pomian 1990). The visible display is meaningful as a

collection only if it offers access to a realm of significance which is not directly detectable, for instance

‘the Order of Nature’, ‘the National Culture’ or ‘History’. The authentic materiality of the objects on

display substitutes metonymically for the true object of interest which is itself absent, and only in this

way does it (Nature or History) become representable. It is though the web of materiality that

confronts us in the collection, that the inherently immaterial is made to feel present and proven.

Because the collection – the entire system of objects before us – serves to make visible a wider

structure, the individual object need not have significance in itself. There is a distinct difference

between the pre-modern Wunderkammer in which each object was to be individually marvelled at for itsown distinct beauty or curiosity and the modern form of the collection (Bennet 1995:34-36). In the

latter the individual object might be meaningless or banal, but as part of a metonymic system it is not.

In this system, it receives the dignity of being part of the ‘wider picture’, of lending however small an

amount of support to a grander claim.

We should be careful, however, not to eliminate agency from the metonymic mode of

representing the past. Collections on display are almost always a product of two selective practices: the

‘natural’ selection which only leaves remains and traces, is coupled with an intentional selection of whatto display and how to display it. It is from the authority of authentic remains that the critical

examination of the past in historical science can potentially proceed. The uncritical assumptions of

memory can potentially be questioned by pointing to remains or sources which potentially tell different

stories. But there is certainly no iron law of causality from the authentic to the critical; quite the

contrary. Authentic remains can just as well be used and selected to support the dominant discourses of

collective memory – to lend a scientific gloss to revered and popular views about past events, actors or

lessons. The collection is not simply the ‘site of science’ as opposed to the uncritical – we might sayideological – mode of communication materialised in the lieu de memoire. Rather the collection – and

its arrangement as a metonymic system on display – is the battleground on which different

interpretations of the past can clash and compete. The metonymic field of authentic objects can equally

well be configured to aid the orchestration of reverence in and around a lieu de memoire, as it can be

the context from which new critical views on the past are made ‘visible’ to the public. As Tony Bennet

remarks, collections can be differentiated also as regards the way they support the viewer in his ‘seeing

through’ the metonymic surface of the collection, and how the display itself invites a certain view and

certain viewers and not others (Bennet 1995:34-36); in short, how it requires a certain cognitive


17/51


18/51

18

But the special composition of the museums under investigation also throws up some

more particular issues. For these ‘houses of the Fathers’ it is the grand mythical narrative of Europe

which supports their status as lieu de memoire. The mythical narrative underpins their embodied will to

remember and their claim to have something worth remembering. Their claim to relevance is closely

tied to the narrating of the myth of Europe. But the artefacts in their collections are in fact not the

‘objects of European Integration’ – whatever that might be – they are the material fabric of the

everyday life of Monnet and Schuman. The collections of banal objects – from the pots and pans in

Schuman’s kitchen to the set table in Monnet’s dining room, can certainly be read as a metonymic

system. But the absence that this most readily makes presents is the personal life of the men – their

everyday existence as ‘ordinary people’. A potential tension therefore arises between the personal and

the paternal; they are only interesting as Fathers, but it is only as individuals that they can bemetonymically represented by these objects. Both museums therefore encounter a need to bridge the

gap between the ‘little narrative’ of the man and his personal life, and the grand narrative of the Father

and his myth. To achieve this three major strategies are employed. Firstly a ‘documentary strategy’

which establishes the link by situating an object intimately connected to the narrative of European

integration in the personal setting of the house. Secondly a ‘metonymic strategy’ which through the

collection of personal objects demonstrate and emphasise those character traits of the man which are

implicitly claimed to have explanatory power in relation to his political actions. And thirdly a

‘metaphorical strategy’ in which a singular object on display becomes a metaphor for the Father’s

founding vision. The exhibitions of two houses differ, especially in regards to which of these strategies

are dominant in their presentation of and negotiations between the private and the paternal dimension

of Monnet and Schuman. However since both these house employ, capitalise on and elaborate a wider

mythical narrative of Europe and its founding fathers, we will need to shortly sketch how this narrative

emerged and how Monnet and Schuman came to ascribed such central roles in it.

The making of a myth

In 1945, the European populations were desperately in need of visions for the future. Old orders had

broken down; basic societal structures were threatened. Political parties and movements that had

benefitted from their resistance engagement eagerly tried to set the ideological agenda for the post-war.

Communists promoted radical, social change; conservatives tried to save old values from the ruins of

nationalism; and federalists revitalised ideas of a united states of Europe. All over Europe, there were

tensions between delegitimized political elites, new elites coming out of the resistance movements and


19/51

19

disillusioned intellectuals lamenting the zero hour of humanity. In this political and mental climate, the

situation was fertile for political myths. Most Europeans found themselves in the midst of chaos and

were desperately longing for order. Politicians and intellectuals were discussing values and seeking to

establish new communities or re-establish old ones. The immediate post-war years were the high time

for European federalists of all kinds. Along with communism, federalism had been introduced within

the resistance movements as a positive, political vision. Federalists met in secret during the war. After

the war, federalist organisations mushroomed. 22 Some of them, like the Union of European Federalists,

established in 1947, had a visible, European presence, others were rather insignificant. Intellectuals met

to debate the malaise of the European spirit and find solutions to cure it. A prestigious rencontre

international was organised in Geneva in 1946 and featured prominent figures like Karl Jaspers, Julien

Benda, Georg Lukacs and George Bernanos. The participants devoted much time to diagnose thecurrent crisis. Classical critiques of modernity clashed with federalist criticism of nationalism. Some

found hope in Europe’s age old spiritual values; others argued for a federal Europe. The former clung

to an idea of European universalism; the latter were looking for a different myth.

In drawing up their visions for the future, European federalists had to think politically.

They were envisioning a political foundation that would ground a new, European community.

Although the common inspiration from the famous American prototype did not reduce ideological

cleavages among the federalists,23 there existed a basic federalist imaginary, which contained the properquality for myth-making. With his usual hunch for pathos, Churchill, in his famous Zurich speech from

1946, began the build-up of a mythological scheme for a united states of Europe. Churchill depicted a

chaotic Europe ‘over wide areas a vast quivering mass of tormented, hungry, care-worn and bewildered

human beings gape at the ruins of their cities and their homes’ (Churchill 1948: 199). The ‘remedy’ to

overcome this chaos was to build ‘a kind of United States of Europe’ (Churchill 1948). Churchill laid

out a basic mythical structure in which a federation was the only order that could save Europe from

‘final doom’. He referred to federalism as ‘a wish’, but he did not conceive of a particular foundationalmoment. Federalists were, however, desperately searching for this moment.

22 The classical work mapping and documenting all these movements is Lipgens and Loth (1988). Documents on thehistory of European integration Vol. 3 : The struggle for European Union by political parties and pressure groups in Western European countries 1945-1950. Lipgens is also the author of the most detailed book on the role of federalism inthe European resistance, Lipgens (1968), Europa-Föderationspläne der Widerstandsbewegungen 1940-1945 : EineDokumentation.23

Studies of European federalism have mainly focused on the ideological or ’doctrinal’ differences between the movements,see for instance Vayssière 2007; Réveillard 2001.


20/51

20

The years 1946 and 1947 saw a number of meetings and conferences among European

federalists. On the agenda was the foundation of a European federation and more particularly the

political action needed for it. The meetings functioned as a prelude to the grandiose Congress of

Europe assembled in The Hague in May 1948. The congress was intended by (some) federalists to be

the foundational moment to which the European states were invited. Despite many references in the

opening speeches to the need for a new or reborn Europe, the result was meagre. Only die-hard

federalists were able to see the resulting council of Europe as a real step toward a federal Europe. The

Schuman declaration from 1950 also set the necessity of cooperation within the larger framework of

chaos and European unity. In the famous text, war is directly linked to the lack of European unity: ‘A

united Europe was not achieved and we had war’ (declaration 1950). These first rudimentary elements

of a myth were reiterated in the preamble of the 1951 Treaty of Paris establishing the ECSC. Thesignatories resolved “...to create, by establishing an economic community, the basis for a deeper

community among peoples long divided by bloody conflicts (Treaty). Neither the declaration nor the

treaty, at the time, had the symbolic power of standing in for the foundational moment. 24 But for

European federalists disappointed by the very limited powers of the Council of Europe, the declaration

and the ECSC was still seen as a possible beginning of a federation. Already in October of 1950 the so-

called Pleven Plan – named after the French Prime minister Rene Pleven, but (again) authored by

Monnet – had suggested a wide-ranging defence cooperation between the future ECSC countries as a

solution to accommodating American pressure for the rearmament of West Germany. According to the

plan, the new defence community would have a single minister of defence, a single defence budget and

a unified arm industry. The EDC Treaty signed in 1952 entailed an article (38) that within six month

plans should be drawn up for “a permanent organization of a confederal or federal structure”. The plan for a

European Political Community (EPC) combining the ESCE and the EDC can be characterised as the

great European federal ‘might have been’. It entailed a classical federal structure with a directly elected

assembly ("the Peoples’ Chamber"), a senate appointed by national parliaments and a supranational

executive accountable to the parliament. In 1954 however the French Parliament – convinced by

Gaullist fears that this would mean the end of national sovereignty – refused to ratify the EDC treaty,

and the EPC never got off the ground. This was collapse of the federal imaginary in its most elaborate

form. The federal moment might have been relatively short-lived in post-war European history, but it

did leave imprints on later actions towards European integration. More importantly, it produced the

mythical reservoir from where future identity politics could feed.

24

To really evaluate their symbolic status it would be necessary to examine the reception of the declaration and the treaty inthe European publics, for instance be looking at the coverage in European news papers.


21/51

21

Because a grander federal foundational moment thus never materialised, the Schuman

declaration could now be hailed as the Moment of foundation itself. And indeed inside the European

institutions, especially in the Parliamentary assembly, a certain limited ritual practice did evolve already

in the 1950s and 1960’s to mark and celebrate the anniversaries of the document, and of the man

whose name it bore. Outside this limited circle, however, the grand gestures of the federalist imaginary

seemed to be replaced by the quiet labours of functionalism. The institutions of the ECSC were built

on inter-governmental cooperation with a small dose of federalism (the High Authority).

The shift from federalism to functionalism is well-described in the literature on European integration.

There is, however, at tendency to overstate the groundbreaking nature of the functionalist approach to

regional integration.25 It can be argued that functionalism was strongly ingrained in the imaginary of

interwar politics.26 The corporatist current in the European states in this period favoured functionalist

thinking. After 1945, the anti-political or so-called pragmatic approach to state development in

functionalism could be presented as a reasonable alternative to the irresponsibility of the old European

politicians. Functionalist ideology shifted the focus from parliamentary politics and party politics to the

‘pragmatic’ decision-making of those involved in regulation and production.

Although from the beginning characterised as a community to be ‘deepened’, the identity

politics of the EEC in the 1950s and 1960s did not develop much from these general appraisals of

peace and cooperation. The Treaty of Rome kept the reference to peace and to a European community

in the famous dictum of the ever closer union, but did not relate them to the Second World War. The

1960’s witnessed a transformation of the union loosely aimed at into a common market rid by interest

conflicts. The declaration on European identity at the Copenhagen summit in 1973 marked a slow

relaunch of identity politics.27 It opened with a reference to past enmities which had been overcome by

the member states because they had decided “that unity is a basic European necessity to ensure the

survival of the civilisation which they have in common” (Declaration on European identity,

Copenhagen, 14 December 1973). However, European identity was at this point no longer a purely

abstract issue. The lack of a common European identity was directly connected to questions legitimacy.

25 In the standard narrative of European integration, functionalism is what makes the project take off. This narrative issupported by Ernst Haas’ important book from 1958, the Uniting of Europe, in which he introduced neo-functionalism asan explanation for the dynamics of regional integration. But the European institutions themselves have also played a role indisseminating the narrative.26 The influence of theoretical functionalism in the interwar years – and particularly David Mitrany’s works – isacknowledged by scholars of integration theory, see Chryssochoou 2003; Rosamond 2000, but this does not include thebroader ideological ramifications.27

Bo Stråth has forcefully argued that the 1973 declaration marked a decisive ideological shift from integration to identity asthe mobilizing concept (Stråth 2005: 261-2). As we see it, the shift was more gradual and characterized by several setbacks.


22/51


23/51

23

partly because the myth is now connected to a new European ambition of being a global player

(Kølvraa 2010, Ifversen & Kølvraa 2011).

The construction of Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman as ‘Founding Fathers’ alsogathered pace from the 1980’s onwards. Their fame was certainly already well established in European

political circles. In parts of the press and in the academic literature they had both long enjoyed

designations such the ‘architects’, ‘founders’, ‘designers’, ‘originators’ or even ‘fathers’ of Europe. From

a more official position Schuman was honoured in 1960 as he retired from his position of President of

the European Assembly due to his failing health, by the assembly electing him Honorary President, and

in this connection the Head of the High Authority Piero Malvestiti did indeed describe him as the

father of the European enterprise32. Also in his obituary in the Bulletin of the European Communities

in 1963 was he entitled a founding father of Europe. It is worth noticing that this official paternal

inscription happened only as he was leaving active political service, and that Jean Monnet who was at

this time still very much politically active was only referred to in the obituary as ‘his friend’33. Monnet

survived his friend by more than a decade, and it was only as he withdrew into retirement in 1975 that

the European Council named him ‘Honorary European’. In the official obituaries and speeches after

his death in 1979 he was repeatedly announced as the Father of Europe. For both men it seems that it

was their eventual absence from the political field which opened up for efforts to make them all the

more symbolically present as father figures. Their houses can be seen as the material sites at which thememory of these men is held after their deaths and from which their status as Fathers are disseminated

and defended posthumously.

Schuman’s House had been had been bought by the Local Government after his death

and left to the care of an Association of Friends of Robert Schuman. The first initiative of this

organisation was to renovate the 11th century fortified church next to the house as something of an

exclusive mausoleum for Schuman’s body which was moved there in 1966. In 1986 the house became

an information centre about Schuman and European integration, but it was not until 2000 that it was

opened to the public, who could thus experience the it and its interiors as it had stood in the last years

of Schuman’s life. In 2009 a modern annex was built with funding from the European Commission to

house an exhibition of Schuman’s role in European integration.

32 The fact that Schuman’s followers have since interpreted this as Schuman being officially ‘declared’ the father of Europe,illustrates that the paternal metaphor has a power and authority which not even the actually afforded title of ‘Honarary

President’ can compete with (Cornelia 2009).33 Bulletin of the EEC , September/October 1963, 9/10, p.5


24/51

24

Monnet died in 1979, at the very time when issues of identity and common symbols

where returning to the European agenda, and it was his memory which seem to have primary focus in

that part of the 1980’s identity-politics which centred on constructing a parental figure for the

European Community. Indeed Peter Odermatt remarks that it was in the 1980’s that Monnet seemed

to overtake Schuman as ‘the Founding Father’(Odermatt 2000:228). Soon after Monnet’s death the idea

emerged that the European Parliament should purchase his house. From the correspondence around

this purchase which involved several Presidents of the Commission and the Parliament, it is clear that

the intention was indeed to secure something of a lieu de memoire for European identity. As President of

the European Parliament Pieter Dankert put it in a letter to the President of the Commission, Gaston

Thorn, the acquisition of the house was nothing less than “a symbolic act which aims to honour the memory of

the man which contributed so much to the European construction” 34

. That this was an acquisition of a symbolicsite, rather than of a building as such, is further indicated by the fact that when the European

Parliament finally bought the house in late 1982 there seemed to be no precise idea as to what kind of

activity would unfold within its walls. After a much needed restoration it was decided in 1986 to follow

a suggestion from the Association of the Friends of Jean Monnet and make it an ‘ Information centre

on Jean Monnet and the European Construction’. The running of the centre was given over to the

newly established ‘ Association of the Friends of Jean Monnet’s House’ (Kølvraa 2011). The main

purpose of this organisation, as it was stated in its bylaws, was to: ”make known the European thought

and the action of Jean Monnet, as well as the great moments of European construction.”35 Within this

frame the new President of the European Parliament, Pierre Pflimlin suggested a display of “photographs

of Jean Monnet surrounded by the personalities which played a part in determining European History (…). These

photographs will be underlined by comments drawn from the Memoires of Jean Monnet (…)”36. And indeed the first

exhibition displayed in the house consisting mostly of display cases and information plaques seemed to

follow this idea. Only in the 1990’s was it decided instead to attempt to decorate the space as it would

have been when Monnet lived there.

But Monnet’s symbolic rise in the 1980s did not culminate with the acquisition of his

house. In late 1987 it was suggested by the Council President speaking in the European Parliament that

1988, the centennial of Monnet’s Birth, be made the “European Jean Monnet Year”. Both the

parliament and the Commission President Jacques Delors enthusiastically jumped on the idea. The Jean

34 (MT) Letter from President of the European Parliament Pieter Dankert to the President of the Commission Gaston Thorn , Brussels 11th August 198235 (MT) Association des Amis de la Maison de Jean Monnet a Bazoches dans la Region de Rambouillet; Statuts , Annexed to Letter from Jean-Maurice Duval to General secretary of the European Parliament Monsieur Vinci, 16th April 198636

(MT)Letter from President of the European Parliament Pierre Pflimlin to chairwoman of the Committee of Youth, Culture, Education andSports Winifred Ewing , 15th of July 1986


25/51

25

Monnet Year of 1988 therefore served as the frame for a wider range of symbolic activities to do with

the memory of Monnet, some of which was centred on the House in Houjarray. Jean Monnet prizes

were established, a torrent of pamphlets, brochures and even a movie was produced, and the European

Parliament went so far as to suggest that the newly launched channel tunnel project should be named

the ‘Jean Monnet Europe Tunnel’37 (Kølvraa 2009). It all culminated in a ceremony on Monnet’s

birthday where his remains were moved from the village cemetery in Bazoches-sur-Guyonne to the

Pantheon in Paris under the attendance of most European leaders. President Mitterrand speaking on

the occasion exclaimed: ”We need to offer great examples to our youth, here is one”( Quoted from Lewis 1988).

In fact, it was on this occasion that an offer was made that also the remains of Robert Schuman could

be moved to the Pantheon, but the family and the Association of the Friends of Robert Schuman

declined the offer. Schuman’s memory was from the beginning symbolically inscribed in the regionalcontext of Lorraine. Monnet did not have any comparable attachment to Houjarray.

Although Monnet was the dominant Father in these early years of identity politics, the

names of both men have become interwoven with the symbolic dimension of European integration in

following decades when identity became a major concern of the European institutions. Both names are

widely attached to prizes, lectures, events or locations in order to signal a European agenda or

European symbols. In the political rhetoric of European integration Monnet and Schuman are regularly

referred to as ‘founding fathers’. However a closer investigation reveals that there are distinct andinteresting differences in how this imagery is communicated and exploited at each of their houses.

La Maison de Robert Schuman

Schuman’s house is located in the small commune Scy-Chazelle about 7 kilometers west of down town

Metz. To reach it you cross the Moselle river and drive up the Saint Quentin hill. The house is nicely

placed on a slope overlooking the river. Opposite the house is a small square named Place de l’Europe.

The pavement is decorated with the twelve stars. A wall facing the medieval church of Saint Quentin –

which we will return to in a moment – is engraved with the flags of the 27 EU member states. The

house itself is accessed through a small iron gate flanked by two identical posters with a picture of

Schuman in blue and purple tones and a title saying “la Maison de Robert Schuman – Père de

l’Europe”. The same picture is used on the frontispiece of the leaflets we were sent when we

37 Presumably as a gesture towards the national sensibilities of one of the tunnel partners the motion was sent to the political

committee and came back slightly altered; the tunnel was now to be named ‘The Winston Churchill-Jean Monnet tunnel’. European Parliament session documents , 3rd October 1988, Series A, Document A 2-202/88


26/51

26

announced our visit.38 The reason why we are here is that we want to see how the construction of

Europe’s father is operated by the peoples responsible for the house. We have an appointment with

Jean-François Thull who is vice-director of the house and employed by le Consil Générale de la

Moselle.39

The gate opens towards a small courtyard. The main entrance is just in front of us.

However, we turn left into the building which was earlier occupied by Schuman’s gardener. Here we

find the reception selling the tickets and some books and merchandise on Schuman (tea mugs, pencils

and medallions). A plaquette commemorates the opening of a museum building annexed to the

gardener’s house in 2009 in the name of four partners, the Moselle county, the French republic, the

Fondation Robert Schuman (based in Paris) and the European Union. Mr. Thull receives us in his small

office on the second floor.

Robert Schuman acquired the house in Scy-Chazelle in 1926 and used it as a second

resident until his retirement as president of the European Parliamentary Assembly in 1960 (Roth). He

spent the last years of his life in the house and died there on the 4th of September 1963. Schuman never

married and lived in the house with his house keeper Marie Kelle, whom he employed in 1919. Some

years after his death the house was bought by the regional authorities at the instigation of the association

des Amis de Robert Schuman , founded in 1964 by his friends and former collaborators. 40 The association

had a strong regional anchoring and certainly also worked to have Schuman commemorated as a man

of the region. This proved so efficient that they managed to convince the regional authorities to acquire

the house. The first effort in turning the house in to a lieu de mémoire was in 1966 to have Schuman’s

tomb removed from the local cemetery to the interior of the newly renovated Church of Saint Quentin

just opposite his house. As we shall see, the church now functions as a kind of mausoleum for

Schuman. It took longer to establish a museum. Parts of Schuman’s possessions were bought by the

association at auctions in 1965, 1966 and 1968. The property was acquired by the Conseil Général de

Moselle in 1968.41 For many years the association was responsible for running the place. In 2000, a new

non-profit association, The Centre Européen Robert Schuman , was created with the purpose of developing

pedagogical tools to inform young Europeans about the history of European integration.42 In

cooperation with the Conseil Général, the Centre was given the task of running the centre and

38 Le Conseil Général de la Moselle présente: La Maison de Robert Schuman: Père de l’Europe (n.d.)39 Interview with Jean-François Thull at La Maison de Robert Schuman the 12th of January 201140 Cornelia Constantin has shown how the various association of friends played an important role as ‘memorialentrepreneurs’ in promoting the different fathers of Europe, see Constantin 2003; 2007.41

Information given by Jean-François Thull in an e-mail to the authors.42 The pedagogical dimension was already introduced within the association in 1983, (Constantin 2007: 7).


27/51

27

developing pedagogical and scientific information about Schuman and European integration. A staff of

three is responsible for the pedagogical site. At the house five persons are responsible for the museum,

the running exhibitions and the scientific information, including a publication series, les Cahiers Robert

Schuman, conferences and seminars. The five people based at the house are employed by the Conseil

Général, but funds also come from the French state, the European Commission and the European

Parliament.43 The museum in its present form was open to the public in 2000. Schuman’s house

underwent a thorough renovation in 2004 and in 2009 a brand new two-storey exhibition and

conference building (‘l’espace museographique’) was added to the house. Today the site consists of the

house, the garden, the exhibition hall and the church.

In the first year, the site had 3,600 visitors. In 2010 the number had increased to 15,000.

Most visitors come in groups, of which school classes make up the majority. Out of the 15,000 visitors,

more than half comes from the region. Foreign visitors make up less than 20%. In our interview, Jean-

François Thull emphasized the role of the running exhibitions in attracting visitors.

The centre and the house see their function as communicating the importance of Robert

Schuman for the ongoing European integration. We asked whether the choice of framing Schuman as

‘father of Europe’ in all the presentations of the house was to be seen as conventional or as significant.

Mr. Thull strongly underlined the linkage to the current European integration project. Hinting at the

symbolic meaning, he stated that the role of a father is to give directions and transmit history and

values. Presenting the house was not only a question of keeping the memory of Schuman alive;

according to Thull, it also served the purpose of informing people on the values and the actuality of the

project Schuman allegedly gave birth to. As mentioned in the previous section, the construction of

fathers of Europe represented the first serious work on the myth from more or less official myth

makers. In a way, the Schuman house rather directly buys in to this myth (or continues the work, as we

would say).44 The link between Schuman’s personal biography and his role in the greater European

history is thus presented as the organizing principle of the site.

This principle is displayed most clearly inside the house.45 Although the permanent

exhibition in the exhibition building also displays artifacts from Schuman’s personal life (school

diploma, glasses) it is clear that the official Schuman and his connection to the grander regional,

43 La Fondation Robert Schuman based in Paris is member of the scientific committee of the house.44 In their main leaflet, the house reiterates the conventional mistake (or mythical displacement) that Schuman was discernedthe title ‘father of Europe’ by the European Parliamentary Assembly in 1960 (leaflet).45

The fourth part of the site – the garden - is of a different nature. It is presented first as place for the display of regionalplants and only secondly as Schuman’s garden.


28/51

28

national and European history is the dominating narrative holding the different parts together. The

church with its monumental design only indirectly hints at Schuman’s religiosity. A small brochure

available inside the church stresses his faith and offers quotes from his writing in which he praises God.

We do not enter the house through the front door, but through the kitchen. Mr. Thull

has kindly accepted to take us on a guided tour. We follow the route that visitors are taken on the

guided tours. The house is only accessible on these tours. As our guide explains, due to the small size of

the house and the open access to all rooms, there are strict limits to how many visitors at a time can

visit the house. The carefully displayed artifacts give the impression of an interior left untouched since

the death of Schuman in 1963. We ask whether the artifacts originally belonged to Schuman or were

acquired later. There is no doubt that the organizers of the house put great pride in possessing as many

original artifacts from Schuman’s home as possible. Part of his belongings – not least his books - were

sold after his death and in building up the museum industrious efforts were made to buy them back.

Authenticity is an important principle in any museum, and the Schuman house takes pride in being a

real museum with all the scientific authority it requires. But it is also under the obligation of filling the

rooms. No room is left empty. That is why some rooms had to be furnished with copies of the original

or artifacts suitable for the period. The kitchen where are tour begins is a case of reconstructing a

typical kitchen from the 1950s.

We enter the house from the back door. The kitchen belongs to the private Schuman.

From the kitchen we come into the dining room. The table is laid for four with only bread and water.

The message disseminated is clear. Modesty and simplicity were basic values for Schuman. The text in

the brochure describing the different rooms in the house spells it out: ‘The dining room is surprisingly

modest’ (le Conseil Générale présente). The surprise hinted at is probably that we would expect the

father of Europe – or at least a former French prime minister and minister of foreign affairs to live less

modestly. On a photo displayed in the house we see an elderly, smiling Schuman casually dressed and

standing in his doorway, the surrounding walls unpainted; more a nice grandfather than the father of

Europe. The brochure is full of references to Schuman’s modesty and devotion to the spiritual side of

life. About the entrance hall, which we reach from the dining room, we learn, in the brochure, that it

illustrates his lack of interest in decoration. A copy of the Figaro Littéraire from 1963 is casually placed

on a table in the hall to signal his intellectual interests. A photograph on the wall with Schuman and the

pope Pius XII indicates his faith. Modesty, faith and intellectuality are the elements that undergird the

narrative of Schuman.


29/51

29

A staircase surrounded by bookcases brings us to the first floor. It is on this floor that the

private Schuman connects with the father of Europe. Here we find his library and his study. The walls

of the library are covered with book cases full of multi-volume works. Books on history and theology

dominate. We are informed that theology books constituted almost half of his 8,000 books. Books on

Europe are carefully posed on tables together with books on the region and on theology. We are left

with the impression of an erudite man. Photos of foreign state leaders, monarchs and presidents hang

on the wall or stand on tables. This is Schuman the important state official which is presented to us.

We reach his study which our guide points out as the major place in the house. On Schuman’s desk are

placed books on Europe and the ECSC, but most importantly a copy of the famous 1950 declaration

with Schuman’s personal annotations. We are at the heart of the myth. As the text in the brochure

emphasizes: “Here Robert Schuman must have prepared the famous declaration (…). This address(gave a political footing to the study prepared by Jean Monnet and laid the foundations of the

unification of Europe” (le Conseil Générale présente). The route from the library to the study links the

personal biography to the grander history in which Schuman is a leading statesman and the father of

Europe. His role as a politician on the domestic scene is hardly mentioned, however. References to

politics would probably not go well with his symbolic status as father. Fathers do not strive for their

position; it is given. The impression conveyed in the study is of an industrious man working in solitude

on the great declaration. The only collaborator mentioned is Jean Monnet.

From the study we come to Schuman’s bedroom. A small bed and some book cases fill

the room. Portraits of his father and mother hang on the wall. We are back in the private sphere for a

moment. In entering the study we missed the bedroom of his loyal house keeper, Marie Kelle. Both

bedrooms, however, are just felt as annexes to the centre, the study. The guided tour takes us back to

the hall in the first floor. We enter a second bedroom, which was arranged for Schuman in 1961 due to

his decreasing health. We learn that this was the room where he died the 4th of September 1963. On the

closets next to the ‘death bed’ are religious artifacts (among others the Virgin Mary with Jesus). Withthis room the museum almost adds a sacral dimension. Here the private Schuman died leaving us his

oeuvre. To emphasise the latter, papers concerning European integration are dispersed on the table

next to the bed. Among these papers is a letter from eight young people having attended a lecture he

gave and thanking him for struggling for their future. The choice of displaying this letter is hardly

incidental. Neither is the decision to end the guided tour in this room. The narrative conveyed is one in

which private Schuman agonizing in his bed turns into a father legating his project to future

generations. The private and the public Schuman finally merges into the father of Europe. The guided

tour does not quite end in this symbolic place. A small door takes us to the larder and to the garage in


30/51

30

which a copy of Schuman’s modest Simca Aronde Étoile from 1960 is parked. We learn that this was

identical to the car in which his last personal secretary took Schuman to Strasbourg, where the first

European institutions were set up. The directions are given!

From the house the guided tour goes to the neighbouring Church of Saint Quentin where

Schuman was re-buried in 1966. The interior of the church is entirely dedicated to the memory of

Schuman. On the floor in front of the newly erected pulpit is a large bronze relief of Schuman. The

European flag is hanging in a side nave. In the back of the main nave hang the flags of all the current

member states. We are definitely in a basilica. The association of his friends refused the offer to have

him moved to the Panthéon next to Jean Monnet in 1988 because they wanted keep the attachment to

his native Lorraine. But they certainly managed to erect a tomb and a lieu de mémoire of a symbolic

status comparable to or even more significant than the Panthéon . In the latter Monnet has to share

symbolic space with heroes of the French Republic. In the Saint Quentin Church only Schuman is

commemorated, and despite the regional arguments for keeping him there, all the symbols refer to his

European status. On leaving the church we notice a small leaflet from the Institut Saint-Benoît Patron de

Europe , an organization that lobbies the Vatican for the religious canonization of Schuman. It is thus

interesting to note that there is a mythological competition between turning him into a saint or a father.

Though not formally collaborating, both organizations combine Schuman’s religiosity

with the European cause. In the narrative that is constructed by the route taken in the house we are left

with the impression of a man that lived only for the cause. He did not care for personal comfort; he

worked hard in his study; he did not have a family. The strong display of his faith (the books, the

religious artifacts; the church) only adds to the presentation of a man who sacrificed himself. When

asked about this our interlocutor, Jean-François Thull said: “he was a religious man. He had the sense

of sacrificing himself for a more important cause” (interview).

As a museum, the house is bound to create the narrative from the artifacts collected anddisplayed. The house does not have any archival functions, but possess a small amount of documents.46

Since the museum is also a lieu de mémoire – the place where Schuman lived – the narrative derived

from the artifacts (sources) has to start from his personal life. We will learn about the European project

that he founded through a presentation of his life or rather of its essence, his true character. To make

sense of the father, the biography must be linked to the larger history, which is presented by artifacts

46 Most of Schuman’s papers are in the archive départementale and in the Fondation Jean Monnet in Lausanne.


31/51

31

(photos of statesmen, copies of important papers) and not least by the guide that accompany the

visitors.47

The new exhibition hall, which is the last part of the site we visit, has a different functionand a different layout. It consists of two separate rooms. On the first floor is space for the running

exhibition and for small conferences. There is no exhibition taking place in the period we visit the

house. But the website announces coming exhibitions with the f