What is going on in Europe? The actual conflicts between its nations or states can be traced back to old and revived cultural complexes. In this book, first compiled in 2016, Jungian analysts explore the cultural identities of their European homelands and nations.
This is a new approach to old questions: What makes a people feel at home? How do their traditions and narratives form a cultural Self and identity? How do they differ from one another? Exploring cultural complexes blends knowledge of history, economics, sociology, anthropology, geography, psychology, religious studies, literature and poetry. But as every complex is built around an emotional core, the study of how cultural complexes live in the psyche is not limited to these disciplines. Each author and reader engages in a confrontation with their emotions, prejudices, and projections. The shape that the ideas and feelings of a cultural complex take in the psyche can be inchoate, rapidly shifting and yet paradoxically long standing, and often quite immune and impermeable to the reason that traditional disciplines of thought would impose on them. These cultural complexes do not necessarily provide a coherent or linear sequencing of facts and events because that is not how they actually exist and function in the psyche of individuals and groups. At the same time, cultural complexes shape what it means to be a citizen of a particular city, region, or country of Europe.
This remarkable book is an important read for Jungian analysts and those interested in Europe’s historical and cultural development.
Table of Contents
Part 1: Soul, Identity, and Cultural Complexes in Individual European Countries
1. Poland: The Suffering Hero and Messianism in a Polish Cultural Complex
Malgorzata Kalinowska
2. Greece: The Inner Riddle of “Greek Psychic Debt,”
Evangelos Tsempelis
3. Spain: The Catalan Vault
Olivia del Castillo
4. Czech Republic: The Forefather Cultural Complex
Martin Skála
5. Serbia: Belgrade: Limes and the City
Marijana Popović and Jelena Sladojević Matić
Part 2: The Feminine and Cultural Complexes in Europe
6. Denmark: Mother Denmark
Pia Skogemann
7. Italy: Queens, Saints, Heretics, Prostitutes
Caterina Vezzoli
8. Austria: Sisi
Maria Kendler
9. Italy: “Small Mother Complex” and the Royal Feminine
Marta Tibaldi
Part 3: The Greater European Family: Cultural Complexes in All European Countries
10. Europe: The Jewish Anima
Jörg Rasche
11. Israel: My European Animus
Erel Shalit
12. Israel: A Very Narrow Bridge: Israel and Its Cultural Complexes
Henry Abramovitch
13. Europe: The Ghosts of Two World Wars
Kristina Schellinski
14. Europe: Europe and Islam
Jörg Rasche