DOCU-DRAMA

THE MYTH OF EUROPE, The Great Mother and the Danube Civilisation

* This document is the property of Alpina Srl © 2008. All rights reserved.

Executive summary The need to widespread, among European citizens, the feeling to

belong to one large entity will grow only insofare there will be a widespread knowledge of the different elements constituting Europe. The initiative “a Solu for Europe” was born out of the understanding of this need.

This is still more true in a moment, such as the present one, a large

number of new peoples are joining the European Union. Hence, the risk of misunderstandings and of conflicts is growing and growing.

The need for a better mutual knowledge and understanding can be

partially satisfied by political and economic information. Much more important is the knowledge of the history and cultures of the countries of Europe.

However, in the “communication society”, the media are the most

adequate instrument for diffusing information and culture.The European Union has created, through the MEDIA program, an instrument for fostering Europewide cooperation in the area of media.

The idea underlying the project of this Docu-drama is to take profit of

such framework for a cooperation between several producers and televisions for producing documentaries about the European Identity.

The first of these documentaries, devoted to the pre-historic and

mytical origins of Europe, must start from the Balkans, because it is in the Balkans that the first agricultural civilisation of Europe was born, an it was in Greece that the Middle Eastern Civilisation was introduced via the Minoan, Mycenean and Hellenic cultures.

Hence, this documentary would be perfectly act to celebrate the adhesion of Serbia to the European Union. General Framework

Alpina, a publishing company in Italy, has developed and registered, with SIAE (the Italian State agency responsible for the protection of IP), a cluster of subjects for documentaries on European Cultural Diversity, derived from Mr. Lala’s books “10.000 anni di Identità Europea” and “Europa e Identità regionali”, whose development, adaptation, production and broadcasting are currently offered for translation and publishing as a book outside of the Italian market, and whose adaptation and broadcasting as documentaries is under negotiation with Italian and Austrian producers and televisions, and are eligible for MEDIA grants for

documentaries development and broacasting. In fact, the overall idea is that a project which is European in content must be developed jointly all over Europe, throughout all media, and enhancing the exchange of ideas, skills, information, capitals, products, languages.

As such, such documentary series is completely consistent with

the spirit of the initiative “A Soul for Europe”, in the sense that it strives to go beyond the “surface” attitude of day-to-day chronicles, aiming to attainin the core meanings of European History.

As anticipated above, the referred cluster of

documentaries is derived from a stock of essays, but, especially, from two books:

- “10.000 anni di identità europea” is an

historical-philosophical work, worked out according to an unconventional approach, in 3 volumes, aimin at tracking the evolution of the understanding that Europeans have had of their own identity in the course of their history, starting from the most ancient times. The history is tightly related to the challenges of the incoming institutional deadlines of the European Union. The first volume of “10.000 anni di identità europea”, already published, deals with the great Neolithic civilizations,

seen in connection with the founding myth of Europe, as well as the relationship of the Greek and Roman World with the Middle East, and, finally, the Middle Ages, with special reference to the first supporters of the historic and cultural ideal of a European Federation.The second volume, which is going to be published soon, deals with the relation between Europe and modernity, with special regard to the European Constitution, and/or Constitutional Treaty. Some of the projects are derived from this second volume, others from the third one. This third volume, under preparation, deals with the European Identity facing the challenges of future.

- “Integrazione Europea e Identità Regionali” is a book with a

cultural and geographical orientation, aiming at defining the terms of cultural diversity of the different regions of Europe.

What the different documentaries have in common is that they

constitute a multidirectional experiment on how to approach cultural diversity in Europe under the most different points of view.

The commercial target is a European market consisting in a

cultivated public, characterized by a general level of cultural and political interests, and, in any case, intrigued by the European adventure.

“10.000 anni di identità europea” is an already published book (first

volume). Europa e Identità Regionali is a book to be published (2nd and 3rd volume). Most attractive formula seems to be joint development of book, documentary and audiovisual all over Europe. A fiction version is foreseen.

In particular, on the first episode The first of the above documentaries deals with a fascinating theme, very known in higher culture (which has devoted, to it, since the most ancient times, fundamental works, like the ones of Bachofen, Jung and Kereny,Gimbutas), but unknown to the larger public, the Greek myth of Europe, from which the ancient authors (like Haesiodus, Erodotus, Moschus, Ovidius), had derived the origin of our Continent’s name.

The documentary, developing among mythology and archaeology,

literature and psychoanalysis, eroticism and history, deals with three, mutually interconnected, aspects:

a) the Greek legend of Europe, which hints to the introduction into

Europe the pre-Aryan, Eastern, religion of the Great Goddess;

b) its connection with the Mother Goddess cult all over the

Mediterranean Sea and in Europe; c) the role, within the

civilisations dominated by the Myth of the Great Goddess, of the Old Danube civilisation (Serbia, Bosnia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria) , probably, the oldest metallurgic and alphabetical civilisation of the world.

A message of this documentary might be that, for tracking a

narrative really common to all Europeans (from the West to the East, from the North to the South), we must go backwards, to the most ancient eras, where we may find an exciting bundle of meanings, of archetypes and of historical truth, whose imprint is still deeply entrenched in the cultural memory of all the Europeans.

The starting point of the kidnapping of Europe, and of our documentary is present days Lebanon, and, in general, the East Mediterranean Sea, with its stupefying contrast between dolce vita and glamour, from one side, and relentless political and military conflicts, from the other. The scene moves through the landscapes of Eastern Mediterranean Sea and of the Aegean Sea, arriving at Crete and in Thebes, where impressing remnants of the epos of Europe may still be found.. Here, an excursus is made on the Minoan Civilisation and on the arrival in Greece of the Phoenician Alphabet (the “Cadmean Letters”), which are linked to the history of the descent of the Europe/Cadmos family, the Lambdacydes, whose name are focal in the history of Greek tragedy..The documentary will go in depth into

different aspects of the above myth, such as the origins of the word “Europe” and the ones of the Greek alphabet.

Crete is the linking point between the Myth of Europe and the

religion of the Great Goddess. A typical example thereof is constituted by the “Goddess with the Snakes”, which is the Minoan avatar of the Mediterranean Great Goddess. Other impressive sites for the cult of the Great Goddess are Çatal Hüyük, in Turkey, the neolithic temples of Malta,

and, specially, the Danubian archaeological sites. The documentary introduces, thus,

into the atmosphere of the Great Mother cult, starting from the earliest prehistory, going through the history of the archaeological searches carried out in Transylvania by Zsófia von Torma, down to the theories of Bachofen and of Maria Gimbutas, up to the cult of the Holy Mary and of the Hagia Sophia in the Middle Ages and up to now. In the docu-drama, the image of the Great Goddess seems to be indistinguishable from the ones of Europe, of Zsófia von Torma and of Marija Gimbutas.

The concluding, and the most stupefying, part, of the documentary is devoted to the Danube civilisation, which, according to the studies of Marija Gimbutas, constitutes the original and fundamental melting pot, where the basic aspects of the Middle Eastern civilisations (pictographic alphabet, as documented in the tablets of Tordos and

Gradeshnitsa, metal melting technologies, building of town systems, aristocratic society, Great Goddess/Isis/Ishtar) could have found their starting point.

The study of the Danube Civilisation constitutes an outstanding

stimulus for an excursus into all European neolithic civilisations, on the invention of agriculture and of alphabet, on the myths of the Golden Ages, of the Deluge and of the common Indo-Aryan Fatherland, as well as on origins of the Grecian people and of the “Dionysian Spirit”, celebrated by Nietzsche.

Further developments of the Project

As anticipated at the beginning, this project constitutes just a part of a further Program that Alpina is developing in its capacity as promoter of initiatives in the area of multimedia.

Therefore, we expect that, in case we succeed, thanks to this experimental case, to show the viability of the proposed scheme of European cooperation, further documentaries may be produced alongside the same scheme.

These documentaries will deal on other aspects of European Identity,

such as: - East and West in European culture; - The ancient roots of the European project; - European Identity and local identities.