Europas postnationale Utopie: Robert Menasse zwischen Brüssel und Auschwitz

The essay examines Robert Menasse’s literary and theoretical exploration of the European project through his major works Der europäische Landbote, Die Hauptstadt, and Die Erweiterung. Menasse conceives Europe as a “post-national utopia” founded on the moral legacy of Auschwitz and the Enlightenment ideals of solidarity and peace. In Die Hauptstadt, the European Commission becomes both stage and metaphor for the contradictions of a union torn between bureaucratic pragmatism and ethical purpose. By linking Brussels and Auschwitz, Menasse exposes Europe’s amnesia toward its founding principle – “Never again” – and its transformation from a peace project into an economic mechanism. Der europäische Landbote reinterprets Büchner’s revolutionary pamphlet to call for a renewed European democracy beyond national frameworks, while Die Erweiterung tests these ideals within the realpolitik of EU enlargement and the instrumentalization of historical memory. Through irony, polyphony, and intertextual dialogue, Menasse constructs a moral and literary space where Europe’s failures and hopes are confronted. His vision, as the article shows, remains both critical and utopian: a defense of a Europe capable of remembering its past while imagining a future of shared responsibility and transnational justice.