Europe’s geography has ensured that the peoples and nations of this continent can never fully forgive, nor entirely forget. One might assume that the lesson of European history is self-evident: conquest cannot create a lasting unity capable of surviving the erosion of time. Yet prosperity often teaches a different lesson. The warmth of comfort and the security of peace gradually plant within societies the seeds of complacency. They make stability appear natural, and permanence seem inevitable.
This may be one of the greatest paradoxes of the so-called postmodern Europe.
The so-called European project emerged from the ruins of a continent that had nearly destroyed itself, leaving scars that will likely never fully heal. Tens of millions perished in wars, civil wars, famines, political persecutions, and ideological experiments. Out of these experiences emerged a determination to build something different: a Europe defined by peace, cooperation, prosperity, and stability. In many respects, it succeeded beyond expectations.
For almost 80 years, large parts of Europe have enjoyed a degree of peace and a relative prosperity unprecedented in their history. Entire generations have grown up without experiencing war, occupation, or genuine deprivation. What previous centuries considered exceptional gradually became normal.
What was once a remarkable achievement slowly became an expectation. The circumstances that had produced Europe’s values faded from memory, while the values themselves remained. Europe did not forget peace, cooperation, or human dignity. It gradually forgot why these things mattered so much in the first place. The interpretation, the inspiration and the fundamentum behind them slowly disappeared.
This is why Europe’s crisis is often misunderstood.
It is commonly described as a crisis of values, yet Europe speaks endlessly about common values. Political institutions, media platforms, universities, and public debates are saturated with discussions about rights, identities, responsibilities, and principles. The deeper problem is far more complicated. We lost the wisdom of lived experience. Certainty replaced curiosity, while arrogance replaced humility. Public discourse drifted away from questions of home, belonging, beauty, and meaning. The practical knowledge that once connected individuals to their communities gave way to abstraction and ideological certainty. To borrow from János Pilinszky: not everything that appears literary is literature. Likewise, not every public debate deepens understanding, and not every expression of opinion contributes to wisdom.
‘Europe…debates identity while becoming less certain about where identity originates’
Europe struggles to remember the civilizational foundations from which those values emerged. It is true for all countries, in its own unique way. It debates identity while becoming less certain about where identity originates. It seeks meaning in institutions, procedures, and ideological struggles, while neglecting the cultural, historical, and spiritual foundations that once gave those institutions meaning.
We Hungarians belong to European civilization, and European civilization itself remains a child of ancient Greece. The roots of our culture were already present on the shores of the Aegean Sea. Our distinct form carries an originality that remains recognizable in any part of the world, just as our differences from other civilizational families remain equally apparent.
At the same time, Europe’s particular character emerged from the meeting of East and West. It is the result of knowledge, traditions, and experiences carried across centuries and exchanged between worlds. The mixture has become so complex that generations of scholars have attempted to separate its elements from one another. Yet such a task increasingly appears not only impossible, but perhaps unnecessary. European culture remains recognizable everywhere, and so too does the existence of a common European civilization.
Whenever identity becomes the subject of discussion, we are tempted to assume that geographical categories provide clear answers. Yet the more rigorously we attempt to define such realities, the further we often drift from reality itself. Interestingly, Hungary is both East and West at the same time. Development and crisis often emerge from the same source.
One must remember: the meaning of a home does not reside in its furniture, but in the feeling it creates for those who live within it.
The same misunderstanding shapes public life among public intellectuals. We celebrate democracy and the importance of debate, yet the substance of debate has gradually given way to performance. Increasingly, what matters is not who is closer to the truth, but who can better ridicule an opponent, dominate a narrative, or mobilize an audience. This is perhaps one of the fundamental misunderstandings of modern public discourse.
The result is a peculiar form of uncertainty. Europe has not fallen silent. Quite the opposite. It speaks constantly—through institutions, media platforms, political campaigns, and public debates. Yet the more it speaks, the less certain it seems of what it is trying to express.
At the same time, another transformation has taken place.
Europe remains one of the most intellectually sophisticated and culturally accomplished civilizations in human history. Its literature, philosophy, music, science, and artistic traditions continue to shape much of the world. The continent possesses an extraordinary reservoir of intellectual and cultural background. Yet this depth increasingly struggles to compete with the logic of modern public life.
The challenge is therefore not simply European. It is also Hungarian.
A nation cannot build a confident future if it defines itself primarily through its fears or limitations. Nor can it endlessly retreat into the small certainties of private life. Hungary must preserve its historical memory without becoming imprisoned by it. It must recover confidence without abandoning humility.
‘Hungary must preserve its historical memory without becoming imprisoned by it’
The question facing Europe is ultimately the same question facing Hungary: what remains of a civilization once comfort is no longer sufficient to explain its existence?
The answer cannot be found in technocratic institutions alone, nor in economic indicators. Civilizations endure because they cultivate habits of character that survive both prosperity and crisis. Responsibility, restraint, character, faith, and substance cannot be manufactured by policy. They emerge from civilizational culture, but not just high culture.
Europe’s crisis is therefore not the loss of identity, but the weakening of the instincts that once sustained it. The continent has not forgotten everything. It has merely spent so long living in comfort that it has begun to forget how fragile comfort truly is.
Perhaps renewal begins with a simpler task. An elderly Transylvanian gipsy musician once explained a tradition to me in a remarkably simple way: ‘If it was good enough for my father, why would it not be good enough for me?’
At first glance, this seemingly oversimplistic remark carries a fascinating wisdom: traditions should not be copied mechanically; it is quite the opposite. Not to imitate the form, but to rediscover the source and the inspiration from which the form emerged.
The same may be true for Europe.
The challenge is not to recreate the past. It is to understand what made it possible. Identity cannot be manufactured through political campaigns, institutional reforms, or economic programmes alone. Nor can it be sustained by prosperity itself. Prosperity is not a civilization. It is often the consequence of one.
The crisis of the modern European is not that it has lost its identity, but it searches for it in the wrong places. Prosperity cannot replace civilization. Institutions cannot replace culture. Politics cannot replace belonging.
And until Europe remembers the source from which its civilization emerged, it will continue mistaking the achievements of civilization for civilization itself.
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