The Invention of “Europe”: Humanists and War against the Turks

Abstract

The author takes issue with the post-Cold War historiography of Europe which, while extending the geographical scope of history of Europe towards the East, continues to trace the “origins of Europe” back to the ancient Greece. He argues that the history of Europe is no older than Europe as a community conscious of itself. This consciousness emerged when Latin Christians began to use the name “Europe” to describe the collective entity to which they saw themselves belonging, and to talk of themselves as “Europeans”. Before the fifteenth century, the word Europe was used sparsely; it had little general meaning and lacked the power to mobilize, integrate, and exclude. The change, resulting in the word Europe becoming the bearer of the political collective consciousness in the West, crystallized with the response of Latin Christians to the capture of Constantinople by the Ottomans. Citing a number of contemporary sources demanding that “the Turk be driven out of Europe”, the author concludes that Europe as political community was formed by talking and making holy war against the “Turk”.