Selected Contexts of the Contemporary Imaginarium of Europe: Metamorphoses and Activations of Political Images and Myths

Abstract

This article reflects on contemporary images and myths of Europe as well as on those that accompanied European political discourse, or funded it. The choice of specific elements of the imaginarium is dictated by their rank and their political and social impact, as well as their links with the recent and current political and social reality (the Cold War period, the transformation years in Central and Eastern Europe, the ongoing migration crisis). The author considers the sources, transformations and activation of political myths and the specificity of political stories and structures, as well as the political and social functions that they perform. The significant motif of this article is related to the thought of Hans Blumenberg. The work on political myth is linked with the ‘socio-political’ need for significance and understanding of the processes, phenomena and events taking place in the social and political domain.