Arts & International Affairs: Vol. 4, No. 2, Autumn 2019 | Page 6

EDITORIAL: COSMOPOLITANISM AND ITS BORDERS
J.P. SINGH
Editor
ARTS & INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS • 4.2 • AUTUMN 2019
The Europeans from Orlando Figes (2019) narrates a glittering history of culture: the
flows of technologies and artists as they traverse the routes of Europe from Madrid
to Moscow to create cosmopolitan beliefs and identity. From railways to book production,
nineteenth century Europe made possible cultural flows that changed the way
people thought of themselves. “Before the railways it was not uncommon for citizens to
spend their whole life in the town where they were born” (ibid.:47). A pan-European
ideal emerged. The technologies of circulation and movement produced spectacles such
as French grand opera that were ‘universally’ understood in Europe. The emerging sense
of a European community symbolized moral progress and was viewed as cosmopolitan:
“The arts played a central role in this evolving concept of a European culture identity.
More than religion or political beliefs they were seen as uniting people across the continent”
(ibid.:478).
The Europeans explains the emergence of European cosmopolitanism across the many
borders of Europe but with an awareness of its limitations. One of the protagonists in
the story is the French-Spanish nineteenth-century opera star Pauline Viardot (1821–
1910). Her career intersects with the spread of the railroads, but as she grows old, traditional
Europe is re-asserting its borders. The Dreyfuss case unleashes anti-Semitism at
the turn of the century, and four year after Pauline Viardot dies in 1910, Europe is at war
with itself.
The cultural history of European cosmopolitanism that Orlando Figes describes must
be read against other universalisms in European history, and the continual fight between
tradition and Enlightenment, and between reason and passion. Jacques Barzun’s (2000)
history of ‘Western’ cultural life begins with the figures of the humanist Erasmus (1466–
1536) and the evangelical Martin Luther (1483–1546). They represented opposing visions
of how humanity could live with itself, with or without religion. Evangelicals made
the gospel universally available and understood�and with a passionate case for faith.
Erasmus, a former monk, provided a reasoned view of Christianity. Erasmus was a good
Christian�a monk when he was young�and critiqued the same superstitions as Martin
Luther. However, one’s reason challenged the other’s passions. Luther found Erasmus
to be blasphemous.
1
Arts & International Affairs issue of cosmopolitanism and its borders reflects on the cosmopolitanism
of Europe through its historical tribulations and complexities but extends
those discussions worldwide. It celebrates Wroclaw, but the ‘incredible’ cosmopolitanism
is of a city that over the last 1,000 years has known both Europe’s traditions and modoi:
10.18278/aia.4.2.1