Online Survey: And Now about Europe, Mr. Eco!
Connoisseur of Europe Eco: “A certain optimism” (Photo: Das blaue Sofa / Club Bertelsmann)
4 July 2013
Leonardo da Vinci is the most significant artist, democracy the most significant contribution to world culture, and Latvians love Winnie-the-Pooh. These are, at any rate, some of the results of an online survey about Europe. Umberto Eco comments on the outcome of the Europe List.
To get things straight from the start: The Europe List, an online survey by the Goethe-Institut, of course is no representative survey of the assessments and states of mind in the 30 participating countries. With a remarkable number of 22,235 respondents, the survey rather aims to give new impetus to the discussion about a European identity. This is also the very idea of the comments and essays by various European intellectuals that the Goethe-Institut will publish in the coming weeks in collaboration with its media partners, Welt and Deutschlandradio Kultur.
The Goethe-Institut wanted to find out what actually joins us together as Europeans. Regardless of the financial crisis and rescue packages, the most frequent answer to the question “What does Europe personally mean to you?” was “culture.” Many participants also agreed on “unity” and “free movement.” The most significant contribution of Europe to world culture is democracy, slightly ahead of classical music and printing press. The declaration of human rights scored high among French participants, and art among Italian participants.
The cultural rankings that result from the responses include both classics and surprises: Most Europeans regard the Eiffel tower as the most significant European building, Life is beautiful by Roberto Benigni as the best film. Cervantes’ antihero Don Quixote is the greatest literary figure, according to the total results. The Baltic region, however, shows a preference for childhood heroes: Estonians most frequently cited Pippi Longstocking and Latvians Winnie-the-Pooh. Among politicians, Angela Merkel achieved first place (18 percent), just ahead of Winston Churchill (14 percent). The answer to the question on the greatest European sportsperson came as a surprise: 72 percent of Serbian participants cited tennis player Novak Đoković, thus catapulting the former No. 1 of the ATP world rankings to the first rank of the Europe List in the total results – outdoing even Michael Schumacher and Roger Federer.
However, the list of questions went on. Which country has the best European cuisine? How strongly do you feel European? Or: How do you see Europe's future? The detailed results of the Europe List can be accessed here.
And here is the commment by Umberto Eco on the result of the “Europe List:”
The Goethe-Institut wanted to find out what actually joins us together as Europeans. Regardless of the financial crisis and rescue packages, the most frequent answer to the question “What does Europe personally mean to you?” was “culture.” Many participants also agreed on “unity” and “free movement.” The most significant contribution of Europe to world culture is democracy, slightly ahead of classical music and printing press. The declaration of human rights scored high among French participants, and art among Italian participants.
The cultural rankings that result from the responses include both classics and surprises: Most Europeans regard the Eiffel tower as the most significant European building, Life is beautiful by Roberto Benigni as the best film. Cervantes’ antihero Don Quixote is the greatest literary figure, according to the total results. The Baltic region, however, shows a preference for childhood heroes: Estonians most frequently cited Pippi Longstocking and Latvians Winnie-the-Pooh. Among politicians, Angela Merkel achieved first place (18 percent), just ahead of Winston Churchill (14 percent). The answer to the question on the greatest European sportsperson came as a surprise: 72 percent of Serbian participants cited tennis player Novak Đoković, thus catapulting the former No. 1 of the ATP world rankings to the first rank of the Europe List in the total results – outdoing even Michael Schumacher and Roger Federer.
However, the list of questions went on. Which country has the best European cuisine? How strongly do you feel European? Or: How do you see Europe's future? The detailed results of the Europe List can be accessed here.
And here is the commment by Umberto Eco on the result of the “Europe List:”
Surveys should always be taken cum grano salis. The fact that a majority thinks Berlin is the most attractive city could have something to do with there being three thousand German respondents and only half that number from France. Knowing the French, I would have put money on Paris winning if the proportions had been reversed.
Similarly, answers on Europe’s most important structure seem to reflect the stereotypes vehicled by the press and, in the case of the Eiffel Tower, by cinema. The Colosseum and the Parthenon rank high enough but any interviewee over the age of forty would have put the Parthenon in first place. So the Eiffel Tower it is.
Leonardo da Vinci’s ranking also appears to me to be driven by media exposure, in the sense that fewer Japanese as well go to see the Mona Lisa than visit the Sistine Chapel. I’m disappointed at Shakespeare’s low score but we have to take young people’s opinions as we find them.
The Europe Quiz: Ouzo or Whiskey?
I’m pleased that Italian cooking is regarded as the best. I think that this is partly down to the Germans but if there had been more French respondents, my money would have been on French cuisine. I can see that for many young people the most important politician is Angela Merkel, not least because there aren’t any other equally influential politicians around. But when I see Napoleon – who, for good or ill, left his mark on Europe, – languishing at four per cent, I get the impression that the question wasn’t fully understood.
The young live in the present and perhaps for them even the Colosseum is of today, something that you see on postcards. Napoleon is not part of young people’s memory but this could jeopardise their understanding of European history, and of why Napoleon meant so much to Beethoven.
But that’s what young people think and that’s what we have to acknowledge. If there had been three times as many Italian respondents, Berlusconi might even have featured. The interest, undoubtedly aesthetic and moral, in La vita è bella (Life is Beautiful) speaks highly of the younger generation’s sensibilities but a generation ago, interviewees would have said Battleship Potemkin .
On the other hand, there is a string of answers that I think are extremely significant. To sum up what Europe means to them, a majority – albeit a tiny one – said “culture”. It is important that at least an elite of young people should be aware that what binds together Europe’s different languages, territories and forms of government is culture, much more than the euro.
I do not know whether the respondents had in mind the Christian tradition, Jewish influence via the Bible or the heritage of Greece and Rome. Perhaps that would have been too much to ask. Whatever the case, it must be the reason why the great majority feels “quite a bit” or “full-blooded European”, and looks to Europe’s future with quiet optimism.
This cultural orientation seems to be confirmed by the good position of Don Quixote. Evidently, Europe has a right to exist, beyond its national differences, because of its shared culture and it is to be hoped that the young will come increasingly to understand this. Equally, I regard it as significant that almost twenty per cent identify the European heritage with the discovery of printing, and democracy as Europe’s greatest contribution to world culture.
In short, the answers inspire a certain optimism while revealing a generation that remembers almost nothing of the past. This is something that an education for Europe ought to recover.
Umberto Eco, 81, is one of the best-known Italian intellectuals. He achieved world fame with his novel The Name of the Rose.
