Cultural Heritage: a bridge between Western and Eastern Europe. Politics for tutelage and valorization in a comparative approach

The problem this paper will try to focalise in my paper, what is trying to answer this question: can be cultural heritage an opportunity to build Europe? A matter of great relevance in a moment of tremendous crisis of Europe as a political and above all financial and economic institution. What was the Europe in the idea of the Founding Fathers, and all the most important political parties and also non institutional subjects had been working around during the period after the end of the second world war, looks today affected by a tremendous crisis, a very great decline, involving not only the economic aspects, but also the political, social and cultural ones. We are today, we could say, in front of the very concrete risk of the death of Europe because of its weakness and almost absence from a political and in particular cultural point of view. So to reflect about cultural heritage in Europe and of Europe means to reflect about the real identity, the past, the present, and above all the future of Europe. The subject will be developed along three main topics, both at a methodological level and at a level of contents: A problem of definition and methodology, developed along the introductive part, trying to answer the question: what is cultural heritage and what we exactly mean using this category of analysis, and also what was its evolution along time? What were the different approaches to management of cultural heritage, for tutelage and valorization, in Europe, and especially, till 1989-1990, in the two main different areas of Europe: the Western and Eastern part; What was and what could become the role of Europe? What are risks and opportunities Europe offers from this particular point of view