Fratture del tempo, forme del potere: Reinhart Koselleck e la semantica della modernità

This article offers a theoretical contextualization of the volume Crisi, sovranità, Europa, dedicated to the centenary of Reinhart Koselleck’s birth. It revisits some central categories of Koselleck’s thought—crisis, sovereignty, and Europe—highlighting their genealogical complexity and their continued relevance in the analysis of contemporary political structures. Far from being static notions, these concepts are presented as dynamic and historically contingent, shaped by ruptures, institutional transformations, and evolving semantics. Drawing on Koselleck’s conceptual history (Begriffsgeschichte), the article reconstructs the critical potential of his approach in confronting the tensions and discontinuities of modern European political experience. Particular attention is paid to the temporal semantics of crisis, the transformation of sovereignty in the post-national age, and the symbolic construction of Europe through language, institutions, and collective expectations.