폴 발레리(Paul Valéry)와 ‘통합적’ 유럽

Paul Valéry and ‘Integrative’ Europe

The purpose of this article is to reconstruct Paul Valéry s thought about the identity and integration of ‘Europe’ in inquiring its appearance background, contents, and problems. It came out of the catastrophic circumstances such as World War I, political division and independence of small and medium-sized nations in Europe, and fascist (totalitarian) movements in the 1920 and 1930 etc. In a word, it resulted from the total crisis of european civilization. For the purpose of overcoming these difficulties, Valéry proposed and demanded the integration of Europe by virtue of an european identity made out of the conception of ‘Europe’, ‘European People’, and ‘European Spirit’ which he has in his own words defined. His plan focused on the cultural integration of europe, where nations and states were politically and economically divided more and more. But his discourse on european integration remained only in a vague idealism in setting political considerations aside. Furthermore he laid excessive emphasis on the european spirit and the superiority of european people, which opens always the possibility to go the wrong way named ‘Europeanism’ or ‘European Nationalism.’