Interwar Blueprints of Europe: Emotions, Experience and Expectation

Abstract

The notion of European integration has been contested from its very start. In the interwar period many ideas were floating around on how to shape European unity. These interwar Blueprints for Europe have to be understood in the context of conflicting and contradictory emotions of enmity and amity. This article looks at the emotive vocabulary of the canonical text of Coudenhove-Kalergi’s Pan-Europa. It applies an emotion discourse analysis, using Koselleck’s notion of “space of experience” and “horizon of expectation”. As such it shows the connection between the understanding and use of time and emotions in discourse—thereby demonstrating the necessity of “reading” the blueprints of European integration as highly normative and moral claims on the design of this European order.