European Civilization Chair

The European Civilization Chair works on modern European history within the wider context of European Civilization, in the conviction that understanding Europe’s past helps us to imagine and shape Europe's future.

The first holder of the European Civilization Chair at the College of Europe in Natolin was the distinguished Polish and European statesman and medieval historian Professor Bronisław GEREMEK. After his death in 2008 the European Parliament refounded the Chair in his memory, with a focus on Europe’s division and reunification.

Like the Natolin Campus itself, the Chair’s mission, in appreciating the roles and contributions of all its parts of Europe to European civilization, can be seen as a ‘reunification’ of perspectives on Europe, following the divisions of the twentieth century. For the challenges faced by Europe require creative thinking and imaginative responses. These should be grounded in a broader and longer view of Europe: one that includes viewpoints situated well beyond the EU’s current borders and that looks back over three millennia to the genesis of Europe as an idea and a civilization.