Your understanding of Greek and Roman history is laughable. While the Greeks can claim some precedent for the Roman Republic (which by its apogee had grown far beyond the Greek levels of government) the Roman Empire arguably had more in common with the Persian Empires (although not much) than with the Greeks. All, of course, under the domination of Rome since Pydna. Incidentally, do you know what the Byzantines called themselves? The Romanoi. So much for the lack of a link. The Byzantine Empire, which was primarily a combination of imperial Rome (and which saw itself as the true heir to the Roman Empire) and Christianity - all concepts borrowed from other cultures. Meanwhile, what are the current cultural links between Greece and the Arab world, exactly? That they both eat food wrapped in wine leaves and like feta? Not in this case. There's nothing cultural about a cyclical boom and bust in Spain. Spain was running a surplus in the middle of the decade - hardly a profligate way to do business.
Probably not, but it would be close. There are certainly Italian-language speaking Swiss who're more like Swiss-Germans than they are southern Italians. Whatever that means.
Well, that's your interpretation of it, but then, what exactly is an "Italian"? Are you telling me the Piedmontese are more similar to the Calabrians than to the Savoyards? What about the clowns in the Northern League desperate to claim they're Lombards/Celts rather than Italians? You speak about an Italian national identity as if it was fixed in stone when Victor Emmanuel proclaimed the Kingdom of Italy. It doesn't work that way.
No doubt. Clowns, you say it yourself. Northern League's platform is entirely centered around the economy, those overtly invented Celtic cultural traits are just lame propaganda which is ridiculed even by most of their militants. Anyway yeah, united Europe and Padania are very similar concepts. Both make no ********ing sense at all from any standpoint, never at any point existed in the history of mankind and are only being talked about 'cause they suit the needs of capitalistic elites. A common Italian national identity existed long (centuries, but a united Italy - Augustus' Italy - already existed more than 2000 years ago) before 1861. It's not like Garibaldi united foreign lands which had nothing to do with each other.
Of course there's a doubt. Piedmont-Savoy was an ancient entity that was still in existence less than 150 years ago. Except they've found a cultural component. Clearly there's something to it, as silly as I find their posturing. The reason Marxism works badly as social criticism is that it imputes financial reasons to all actions; that's not the primary reason for the European project. Augustus' Italy doesn't mean anything. There was an Italia in the 1st century BC for all of 15 minutes, but that was a confederation of Italian tribes which excluded much of what would be considered Italy today - swathes of central Italy, all of northern Italy and all of Sicily. That it was called Italy just serves to confuse today. An administrative region does not a culture make. Meanwhile, since the collapse of the Empire, Sicily has been ruled by Arabs, Normans, the Aragonese, the French and the Castilians. Much of southern Italy was still speaking Greek more recently than people imagine, northern Italy was a confluence of Burgundian and Provencal culture, the Lombards were a unique northern culture as well, etc. etc. The notion that there is a historical concept of Italy that includes Sicily and Piedmont is just not true - Italy is a very modern creation. Over the last 150 years that has obviously developed further, but seeking an Italia in deep historical antecedents is folly - it implies a nation state mentality to a historical age where it simply did not exist.
It's not the primary reason...it's the ONLY reason. And you certainly don't need to be a Marxist to see it.
Given the reason France pushed for closer financial integration in the first place that's downright absurd. And you do need to be a Marxist to think that way.
?? Privileged province of the Roman empire (the only one) and existed for several centuries. This is basic, elementary school history. Not sure what's to even debate about it. What?? It was a political entity and it left huge marks on the Italian culture. Who all left little cultural marks, especially the first 2. Sicily is incredibily similar to other Southern Italian regions who never had any Norman or Arabic influence ever. Southern Italy was entirely latinized. Just look at Southern Italian dialects. Greek people constantly immigrated to Southern Italy, even in the post-Roman era, and mostly kept their traditions. Some 'grecanic' areas still exist today. In the high middle ages, when all of Italy was ravaged by Barbaric peoples. But the Roman culture was too radicated and lived on. Most of those tribes actually adopted it. Basic elementary school history once again, like Roman Italy. The historical and cultural concept of Italy already existed in about 1200. Plenty of literary and historical works make direct references to it. http://www.italica.rai.it/scheda.php?scheda=dante_purgatorio_vi&monografia=dante The nation state obviously didn't and nobody ever stated the opposite. I'm not even sure what you're trying to argue, really. Are you some sort of nordic white suprematist who believes that the original Roman Empire was stuff of the vikings but that modern Italy is Arabic and has nothing to do with it?? Comparisons between the Italian cultural identity and the bogus alleged common European one can't in any way be suggested.
Attempts at sterilizing currency exchange rate risks and creating a common free market have been made since at least the early 1970s and Germany was at the forefront together with the France. Even Europeanist ideologists such as Haas focused heavily on financial aspects.
The same guy who claims that identities can change quickly is the same guy giving history lessons. I actually tend to agree with nicephoras' idea that identities can change quickly. Which is why Greeks no longer consider important to their identity the Byzantine Empire (at least not compared to more recent events). That abruptly ended when the "Megali Idea" went out of style a long, long time ago. National identity is decided by the people who the identity is attached to. Things that happen centuries ago certainly have an effect on national identity but they are not outright deciders of it. The political and social climate of the country at the end of the junta is much more relevant to Greek identity than the Byzantine Empire or Rome. The examples of food and music are more relevant to Greek identity than anything from Rome (the view I expressed before is the general view Greeks have). And I agree that the European Union was not initially created by capitalists hellbent on exploiting the weaker nations of Europe. There actually was a genuine idea by some that European identity can be created through closer economic and political ties. But this is not our fathers' European Union of course; neoliberal policies were not nearly as widespread as they are today. The Eurozone and its central bank is indeed one of many conduits through which the political and economic elite can gobble up more power at the expense of weaker entities. Furthermore, the "multilateralism, opposition to the use of force, and political positions generally to the left of other regions" shared between European states does not an identity make.
They don't exist in the least either. Several wars were unilaterally triggered by European nations (while at the same time other European nations steadily opposed them) in the past 2 decades and the Maastricht treaty (which is still the backbone of the European project) is one of the most right-wing political-economic manifestoes to ever see the light. Even worse than the American constitution.
It's an administrative division of the Empire. Does Gallia Comata become a country because it existed for several centuries? What exactly does "privileged" mean, anyway? Italy wasn't technically a province, by the way, but that's somewhat moot. The Roman Empire did. Italia left none. Tell me, what exactly were features of "Italia"? Who called themselves "Italian" at the time? There had been a distinction between Roman, allied (socii) and Italian prior to the Social War in the 80s, but that was simply a designation of Roman and non-Roman; certainly the Italia entity collapsed as soon as the Samnites and the Marsi did. Not to mention, of course, that Sicily and Sardinia were explicitly not Italian. Sicily actually has a pretty distinct history, not to mention the claim of southern Italy having no Norman influence is........bizarre. The Kingdom of Sicily carved out by the Norman Hautevilles encompassed all of what is now the Mezzogiorno and reached as high as Pescara in the northeast. That was followed by Hohenstaufen conquests, Angevin conquest and Aragonese conquests. Not very similar to, say, Firenze, is it? Oh, I agree. That's why the notion that the "Greco-Italians" of Calabria are very similar to the Piedmontese funny. I'm not sure you quite understand your elementary history. What "high middle ages" are we talking about? The High Middle Ages are generally read as between 1000 to 1300. That's long past the time of any barbarian incursions. Beyond which, the barbarian incursions were very different in separate parts of Italy; while the Goths and Vandals never settled there, Arabs held Sicily for nearly two centuries while in the north the Lombards settled. Those aren't at all similar. Err.....Dante was referring to northern Italy. Not Italy as you think of it now. Romans had an Africa province, for instance - I wouldn't consider that to be Africa today. For instance, what is the "Italian" language that Dante wrote in and what became the language Italian is today? Mostly the Tuscan dialect of Italy. The point, as I've said repeatedly before, is that a common Italian identity is very recent and still not even agreed upon. There are cultural differences in Italy that largely stem from the very different historical backgrounds of the various regions. Which means that a European identity is no more unnatural than an Italian one. And no references to Roman administrative regions will make a difference.
Where did anyone post that? The question isn't what Greeks consider "important" - the question is what is their cultural heritage derived from. I, for instance, do not consider almost anything I was raised with early in my life important to my identity, but that doesn't change whether or not it influences my culture anyway. So your argument is that people are shaped more by recent events than by things that happened 2000 years ago? Well no kidding! But that doesn't explain why things have developed the way they have. To go back to the Italian argument, by your logic, Sicilians and Piedmontese should have almost the identical culture due to shared recent experiences, and yet they don't. No, but a common cultural canon does. The point is, given enough time, a European cultural identity can be created. I'd say a weak one already exists today. Whether it will occur or not, is not clear, though this crisis is certainly putting it to the test.
Reading mattteo's comments, I really get the impression that Marxism really isn't all that far away from nationalism. That kind of rhetoric sounds an awful lot like that of the black shirts. Anyway, I still think that the question of the nation state is an important one today. It's a rather new concept and the question is: Should we overcome it in order to create a better Europe? And more importantly, can we overcome it in the first place. Now I'm not married to the concept of the nation state, but at this point, I don't see a better alternative. It seems to be natural for people to create groups they are part of, groups that get their support and which in return supports the individual when they're in need. The larger this group becomes, the more difficult it is to keep that sense of community and to justify transfers of money and power. We have managed to increase the size of the group from small villages and tribes to massive nations with millions of inhabitants. But can we increase that over night to include all of Europe (at gunpoint no less) so that Europe can be saved? I really have my doubts. Or even more ambitious: Can we let the in-group-out-group thinking behind, leave our tribal brain behind?
If you move in digital circles, there is a lot of new writing about the move to horizontal, network structures and away from vertical thinking which has dominated human thinking for a long time. I don't have time to post a long post now - but the big creative destruction happening right now relates to the inefficiency of top down structures in a big data environment.
You clearly have no clue what you're talking about. About Sicily (who the hell cares about who ruled politically?? Most courts never even left Palermo...I'm talking about cultural identity, not administrative history. And Calabrian Greeks are a recognized ethnic minority, so they obviously aren't Italian. Are you suggesting that Sicilians are culturally different from Calabrians or people from Salento?? Even some dialects are exactly the same - Salentino, Reggino, Catanese - and the latter 2 never ever 'enjoyed' any Islamic or Viking administration ever. And yeah, Nordic influence left very little marks in Sicily...unless you're talking about blonde people, but I already said I couldn't care less about eugenetics), the history of the Roman Empire (Augustus' Italy was in place for centuries and was unique among Roman provinces, its inhabitants, unlike those in the colonies, were all Roman citizens), Italian culture (Dante talked about Northern Italy?? LMFAO), Italian partisans, history of socialism.... Not sure what's your point in arguing with me about simple historical facts which are set in stone. You have an inferiority complex against Italy's unique millennial culture?? Meh, you're not the only one, deal with it. And educate yourself before trying to argue with me about things you clearly don't know anything about. Wikipedia isn't enough.
What?? I'm vehemently anti-nationalist. Which doesn't mean I should throw my own culture down the toilet and not defend it. My arguments are entirely based on history and completely alien of any fascist rhetoric...which is usually 'blut und boden', 'Italy is superior to any other country on Earth', 'Italy is the only direct descendant of the Roman Empire', 'Italia agli Italiani', 'we had Iulius Caesar, Augustus and Vergilius when Germans weren't even able to write' and mindless crap like that. I also don't see where exactly have I used any 'Marxist' theory...I'm merely stating historical facts, not discussing why they happened.
You think who ruled a place for thousands of years is irrelevant to its history? Seriously? You really need to read a bit more about the Normans. The point is that if you look at communities living next to each other they seem very similar culturally. That's why Savoyards and Piedmontese have a lot in common - they were part of the same political entity for hundreds of years. Yet, according to you, there was always an imaginary line drawn there between Italians and non-Italians, which is ludicrous. Anyway, of course people living next to each other will be similar culturally. But once you get 5 steps removed, from, say, Sicily to the Veneto, suddenly 5 levels of small differences begin to make a larger difference. That's the whole point! You can't draw an arbitrary line on a map and declare that everyone within that line is the same culturally. Normans weren't "Nordic"; their culture was Frankish. Italy was not a province of the Empire, it was a possession of Rome. As far as citizenship, that only occurred after the Social War of the 90s BC, before which Italy was full of colonies, allies, etc. What happened in Italy was simply a faster process of Romanization than in the colonies - by the early 3rd century all residents of the Empire were citizens. This isn't a meaningful distinction. Besides which, different parts of what are now Italy were granted citizenship at different times. The area north of the Rubicon, for instance, the fact that the Romans referred to it as Cisapline Gaul, that they viewed northern Italians as Gauls, more similar to Gallia Transalpina/Narbonensis. And again, Sicily was never part of Italy, neither was Sardinia. Again, point me to anything indicating an Italian cultural identity in the Roman Empire. There's literally nothing, because it was an administrative creation. Dante talked about Italian partisans? That's new to me. You don't understand what's being written if you think I have an inferiority complex about Italy. It does take a fool to claim that there's a sole and unique Italian culture that's equally shared by Sicilians, Romans, Venetians and Piedmontese, while those who happen to live across an imaginary line drawn at a pan-European political convention are thereby non-Italian.
Thousands?? Vikings ruled (parts of) Sicily for about a century. Same goes for Saracens. And again, administrative control was often superficial and it really had no deep influence on peoples' life. Which is why Sicily is perfectly interchangeable with other Italian regions who never ever were conquered by nordics or muslims. Me, huh?? Savoyards were assimilated by France long ago, they're culturally similar to French people from Val d'Aosta and some Piedmontese alpine communities (like Salice d'Ulzio) who are a recognized ethnic minority and aren't classified as Italians (just like Alto Adige Germans, Sardinians and Calabrian grecanics). This is the third time you go on wikipedia looking for some irrelevant ethnic minority living in Italy in order to dismiss the notion of an Italian culture existing for centuries. Who's next?? Apulia Albanians?? Valdossola Swiss?? Gorizia Slovenes?? Ladins?? Italy is a tolerant multicultural country, we all know that. Not sure what it has to do with the existance of the Italian culture. And still people from Veneto have absolutely nothing to do with some of their close neghbors and are linguistically and culturally Italian. It isn't a matter of geography, it's a matter of culture. Go tell a Venetian that , due to geography, he's really a Slav. Not really, the were Vikings from Scandinavia who conquered both Normandy and Sicily. Colonies received Roman citizenship in about 300, when the Roman empire was in heavy crisis. Italians (unlike colonized people) were already Roman citizens when the empire was at its heyday. Italian people were assimilated much faster and more homogenously than other conquered tribes. Plenty of Italians reached ranks which foreigners, at the time, could only dream of. Again, this is basic history, nothing to even argue about. This obviously doesn't mean that today's Italy can claim direct successorship to the Empire (which some lunatics still say) or that today's Italy is the same as 2000 years ago...just that Italy and its culture started being shaped millennia ago. Sardinia isn't culturally Italian and I've never claimed the opposite. It has a different history, traditions and language. Sicily was autonomous due to political reasons but was culturally very similar to other Southern regions due to heavy ancient Greek influence, similarity which is still overt today despite a different administrative path. Nobody has ever disputed the fact that, before the Roman empire, the Italian peninsula was inhabited by various different cultures. But they left no significant marks on Italian culture and were wiped away by Roman civilization. It was a political entity with unique privileges, and it was the first step in shaping the Italian culture. This is what I've said. The culture of Roman Italy was, duh, Roman, not sure what indications you need. He didn't talk about Northern Italy either. As for partisans, you did in the past, once again displaying your ignorance. Yet you really seem disturbed by the existance of Augustus' Italy with unique privileges and prosperity and Italy already being mentioned as a culture (in opposition to 'foreign' invaders) in about 1300 (to the point of trying to distort Dante's words, one of the lamest debate tricks I've ever witnessed). The only fool is you and your arguing for the sake of it even if it means ignoring history, making up facts and shamelessly distorting reality. Give it a rest, seriously. An Italian culture exists and has for centuries. There are regional differences obviously but they all stem from a common root. Same, I'm sure, goes for the French, German, English, Greek, etc. culture. Deal with it. A common European cultural identity on the other hand doesn't exist and never will, simply because there is no shared heritage, history, ideas, language, nothing. Like it or not. Attempts at creating a common European state have nothing to do with a pre-existing culture (like it was the case for 1800 nationalistic movements), it's all about better protection and valorization of accumulated capital. End of debate on my part.
Probably not, but wider identities are created all the time. Various empires in time immemorial united disparate groups under one banner. There's no reason Europe can't do the same thing. The Roman Empire is a pretty good example - there's no question that it created a deep cultural imprint, but despite that, most of the Western Empire reverted to quasi-tribal groups fairly quickly when it fell apart. Who exactly is throwing your culture down the toilet? Just because the Italian cultural identity is a relatively new creation doesn't mean it denigrates Italians or their culture in any way. There's nothing wrong in admitting that yes, Venetians, Calabrians and Romans have similar but somewhat different cultures. You're not using historical facts. The historical record clearly indicates that the creation of the EU was not a neo-liberal idea, and that the creation of the Euro was actually initially envisaged as a way to control Germany. The French President who pushed for it said so.
That is what I don't understand. I think the Catholic church is one of the most fundamental differences between Europe and the rest of the world. She shaped large parts of the intellectual development of Europe, especially before the Reformation (for nearly all old universities theology was the most important subject for centuries). And she used a language which was spoken and read by most learned people in Europe up until the 19th century, Latin. Of course different countries reacted to and interpreted ideas differently but denying that there was no exchange or that no cultural similarities developed out of all this is pretty weird. Even after the church lost its power the pan-European interconnections continued, at times moving to a different language, like French from 17th century on or nowadays English.
Nobody, clearly. I was just saying that talking about Italian culture and analyzing its basic traits (or debunking politically-motivated bullshit aimed at somehow diminishing its uniqueness) doesn't automatically make me a nationalist. Quite the opposite, actually. It is because of my deep disdain of silly, suprematist, artificial nationalism that I oppose any concept of a single, common European culture. PS: you're Russian and American, why do you even care about European cultures?? And the German president said that austerity is being implemented because it helps Greece. Since when is history made by looking at what politicians say?? That's called gossip journalism, not history. The creation of the European Union was just an intermediate step in a process that started in 1957 in order for the Italian capitalistic establishment to get rid of excessive workforce and the German and French governments to facilitate commercial relations (and find enough capital to keep investing in research and new technologies) when it came to steel, carbon and nuclear energy. Then came the common market, the repeated attempts at protecting capital against currency exchange rate floating and the constant need of cheaper labor. The fall of socialism (and its political implications, such as the criminal annexation of DDR by West Germany) was just a catalyst, nothing more. 'La scimmia del quarto Reich ballava la polka sopra il muro'
So things like preventing another world war by entangling European economy and cultures were a minor afterthought? I think you are judging history too much through your own glasses (not that I am surprised).