Eurafrica: A Pan-European Vehicle for Central European Colonialism (1923–1939)

• Published in: European review (Chichester, England) England), 2018-07, Vol.26 (3), p.503-513
• Main Author: Thorpe, Benjamin J.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Archives & records; Colonialism; Colonies; Colonies & territories; Etymology; Fascism; Focus: Central Europe and Colonialism; Geopolitics; Interwar period; Neologisms; Political discourse; Politics; Population density; Propaganda; Semantics
• ISSN: 1062-7987; 1474-0575
• DOI: 10.1017/S1062798718000200

‘Eurafrica’, the continental-scale fusion of Europe and Africa into one political entity, was first developed as a political concept in the 1920s by the Pan-European Union, and named as such in a 1929 article by its founder and leader Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi. Within five years, this neologism had become a commonplace, as Eurafrica exploded across public political discourse. This paper unpacks what Eurafrica entailed in its original expression, what made it a useful concept for the Pan-European Union to employ, and what made it so appealing to a wider (European) public. It does so with particular reference to the way in which Eurafrica was presented as a means of opening up colonialism to those European states that lacked their own colonies. Partly, this meant appealing to German colonialists resentful at the stripping of Germany’s colonies at Versailles. Crucially, however, it also meant appealing to the broader ‘historical injustices’ that meant that Central European countries did not have access to colonies, and promising a future in which these intra-European ‘injustices’ could be transcended and Central Europeans could thus become equal partners in Europe’s mission civilisatrice in Africa.