Research on the process of European integration is usually restricted to
the political, economic and legal aspects of Europeanisation. Still, we
do not know enough about practiced Europeanisation in terms of everyday
life and popular culture. Here, Peter Pichler explores a new area of
research. He links the latest insights into the cultural history of the
European Union with interdisciplinary research on heavy metal as a
subculture throughout Europe. He presents the first historiographic
exploration of European integration in this subculture since 1970.
In general, subcultural Europeanisation predates even political
Europeanisation, as evidenced by networks of the metal scene breaking
through the Iron Curtain in the beginning of the 1980s. The European
metal scene constituted a borderless space. Today, the shared knowledge
of rituals, codes, clothes, history and values of metal are present
across the continent. Pichler interprets this from a cultural-historical
perspective against the background of Europeanisation after 1945.