The Crusades and the Discourse of the Philosophy of History

Metageographical category of the West retains its currency in the media and in academic discourse mainly due to the fundamental longitudinal divide severing the West from the East. The spatio-temporal universalisation of World History, is at the same time an arbitrary originally European construction. If we investigate the origin of the modern notion of Europe and the European identity, we realize the extent to which Islam was a factor in their creation. Early modern European humanists rediscovered ancient constructs of East and West or Europe and Asia as hard cultural and political boundaries. However, in so doing they have primarily begun the secularization of Christendom (Christianitas) as the medieval form of western unity Because the aforesaid identity was essentially formed during the Crusades, it is quite natural to situate this subject within narrower Southern-European and Mediterranean context of relations between different traditions. This paper endeavours to link the reflection on the given portion of the discourse of the philosophy of history with the recent results of postcolonial theory and medieval studies.