The European collective identity has much to do with the Danube, a river in the heart of Europe, which crosses or borders ten of its emblematic countries – Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Croatia, Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova and Ukraine.
Its journey interacts with all those diverse central-eastern European languages and cultures, these national linguistic and idiosyncratic manifestations being the “deep companies” that make up any individual or collective soul in the eternal flow of life, as Dr. Gregorio Marañón said. .
That water-bearing and spiritual continuity of the Danube, flowing with ineffable fullness through these varied territories of undeniable beauty and diversity, prophetically foreshadows its deep and silent end in the Black Sea, after 2,850 kilometers of travel, almost as a way of freeing oneself from its load of more than a thousand bloody battles, crowded throughout its warrior history, since ancient times.
Its warlike history begins in a world that has already disappeared, since its waters and currents, being a natural border, were used by the first Neolithic bands settled on its shores to defend their sites, with the same ferocity that later the Romans, Teutons, Slavs, Magyars, Ottomans and Austro-Hungarians used to defend or attack each other in our era. Witness to this are the many fortresses and castles that abound on its banks.
For years, then, the Danube was a sentinel that walked around its sentry box until it was able to transmigrate to the other side of the bank, eager to see its absolute penetrability, becoming a political, economic, cultural and religious link, not only between its neighbors, but between East and West.
This dynamic internal and ancient dialogue with its surroundings, languages and cultures, like a spiritual tentacle, make the Danube the architect par excellence of the European soul and its habits of spiritual complexity. Just see cities like Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest, or Belgrade; or medieval towns, such as Passau, Durnstein, Mohacs or Vukovar, among many others located on the banks of the Danube to discover that unifying spirit and that common soul.
But what do these once warlike and aggressive nations and peoples have in common? At first glance, this Europe of the Danube appears with different semblances, each one with different gastronomy, folklore and customs, so much so that Montesquieu described it as a nation made up of several nations.
But these differences are human forms of spirituality that highlight the intertwining of their culture, that is, the unifying soul of these peoples, the result of processes and creations with common historical roots based on the rationality of European culture and its Judeo-Christian values.
These values and rationality give it a shared way of understanding the world and of being an urban reference for others: there we see towns with clean streets; wide pedestrian areas; well-kept historical centers with low buildings; integral and well-planned public spaces; intermingled shops and homes, where groups and social layers converge, promoting a more democratic social life, efficient public transport, etc.
What subsists in that flow of the Danube and ties it to its past and future is the European spirit that incorporates it into eternity.
The mythological image of Zeus, transformed into a white bull, carrying the princess Europa on his back, is an artistic reference painted by many European artists, to represent the “Rapture of Europa”, the same princess who gave her name to this continent. .
What lessons can this spiritual dynamic of the Danube give us in the Panamanian context? This will be the subject of a later article.
Former diplomatic official.