Beyond 'Hellenes' and 'Barbarians': Asymmetrical Concepts in European Discourse 9781800736801

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Beyond ‘Hellenes’ and ‘Barbarians’

Beyond ‘Hellenes’ and ‘Barbarians’ Asymmetrical Concepts in European Discourse

Edited by Kirill Postoutenko

berghahn NEW YORK • OXFORD www.berghahnbooks.com

First published in 2023 by Berghahn Books www.berghahnbooks.com © 2023 Kirill Postoutenko All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Postoutenko, Kirill, editor, writer of introduction and conclusion. Title: Beyond "hellenes" and "barbarians" : asymmetrical concepts in European discourse / edited by Kirill Postoutenko. Description: [New York] : Berghahn Books, 2023. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2022019388 (print) | LCCN 2022019389 (ebook) | ISBN 9781800736795 (hardback) | ISBN 9781800736801 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Discourse analysis--Political aspects--Europe. | Discourse analysis, Narrative--Political aspects--Europe. | Europe--Civilization. | Europe--Ethnic relations. | Other (Philosophy) | Koselleck, Reinhart--Influence. Classification: LCC P302.77 .B49 2023 (print) | LCC P302.77 (ebook) | DDC 401/.41--dc23/eng/20220727 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022019388 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022019389 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-80073-679-5 hardback ISBN 978-1-80073-680-1 ebook https://doi.org/10.3167/9781800736795

Contents

List of Figures and Tables viii Acknowledgements x Note on Transliteration xi Introduction. ‘Asymmetrical Counter-Concepts’: Chances and Challenges Kirill Postoutenko Chapter 1. Treason as Touchstone: Asymmetrical Relations between ‘Heathens’ and ‘Christians’ in Middle High German Epic Literature Paul Paradies Chapter 2. ‘Blond Flowing Hair’, ‘Tumid Lips’, ‘Rigid Posture’ and ‘Choleric Temperament’: Universal Aspirations and Racial Asymmetries in Linnaeus’s Descriptions of Homo Sapiens Monica Libell Chapter 3. The Contribution of Asymmetrical Concepts to the Building of Spanish Liberal Discourse in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century: Methodological Reflections and Applications Ana Isabel González Manso

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41

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Contents

Chapter 4. ‘Kultur’/‘Bildung’ vs ‘Civilization’: A Close Look at One Conceptual Asymmetry in the Early Nineteenth-Century Finnish Discourse 101 Heli Rantala Chapter 5. Liberales vs Serviles: Symmetrization of Asymmetrical CounterConcepts and Political Polarization in Spain and Portugal (1810–34) 124 Luis Fernández Torres Chapter 6. ‘Hellenes’ Revisited: Asymmetrical Concepts in the Language of the Greek Revolution Alexandra Sfoini Chapter 7. ‘Civilization’ and ‘Barbarity’ in French Liberal Discourse during the Conquest and Colonization of Algeria Nere Basabe and María Luisa Sánchez-Mejía Chapter 8. ‘People’, ‘Plebs’ and the Changing Boundaries of the Political: Asymmetrical Conceptualizations in Spanish Liberalism from a Comparative European Perspective Pablo Sánchez León Chapter 9. ‘Order’ vs ‘Chaos’: Asymmetrical Counter-Concepts and Ideological Struggles in Early Twentieth-Century Russian Poland Wiktor Marzec

149

181

205

225

Chapter 10. Dutch McCarthyism? The Asymmetrical Opposition of ‘Democracy’ and ‘Communism’ in Holland between 1920 and 1990 258 Wim de Jong Chapter 11. Asymmetrical Oppositions and Hierarchical Structures in Soviet Musical Criticism: The Case of the Essay Collection Za rubezhom (Abroad) (1953) Kirill Kozlovski Chapter 12. ‘We the Basques’, and the ‘Other(s)’: Ethnic Asymmetries in Basque Nationalist Discourse Iñaki Iriarte López

285

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Conclusion. Beyond ‘Hellenes’ and ‘Barbarians’ Kirill Postoutenko

325

Index

335

Figures and Tables

Figures The first edition of Carl Linnaeus, Systema Naturae, Leiden 1735, 10. Public domain (www.alvin-portal.org). 63 2.2. Schematic figure representing the relationship between the four elements, humours and temperaments. Image created by the author following Galen, Method of Medicine [ebook], edited and translated by Ian Johnston and G.H.R. Horsley, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011, vol. 1, lix. 64 2.3–2.5. The tenth edition of Carl Linnaeus, Systema Naturae. Monstrosus was a fifth variety, following the basic four varieties. Group a is monstrous as a result of ‘loco’, that is, geographical location and climate (Alpini stands for the Sami people). Group b is monstrous as a result of ‘arte’, that is, human culture (this group includes Hottentots, as well as young European girls who suffocate in tight corsets). Carl Linnaeus, Systema Naturae (Holmiae: 1758), 22. Public domain (www.alvin-portal. org). The over-cultivation of Europeans that led young girls to suffocate in corsets, might be behind Linnaeus's suggestion that Europeans are governed by ‘ritibus’. Most scholars of Linnaeus have chosen to translate the word into law, but the Latin word is more akin to custom and Linnaeus might have used it to mean trend or fashion. 68 2.1.

Figures and Tables

9.1. 9.2. 9.3.

Initial revolutionary mobilization. © Wiktor Marzec. Reconfiguration of the political field via chaos vs order division. © Wiktor Marzec. New political antagonism. © Wiktor Marzec.

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237 237 238

Tables 0.1. 0.2. 0.3. 0.4. 0.5. 0.6. 1.1. 1.2. 1.3. 2.1.

Koselleck’s general references to and specific examples of symmetry and asymmetry in conceptual pairs. Koselleck’s general references to and specific examples of the grouping of asymmetrical counter-concepts (AC). Koselleck’s general references to and specific examples of relations within the conceptual pairs of AC. Koselleck’s specific examples of preferred modes of reference, parts of speech and modalities in AC. Bundling of AC in Koselleck’s article and the collected works of Plato, Friedrich Nietzsche and Lothrop Stoddard. Differentiation and non-differentiation between AC in Koselleck’s article and the collected works of Plato. Characters’ collocations in the Song of Roland. Male characters’ collocations in the Song of Nibelungs. Female characters’ collocations in the Song of Nibelungs. Linnaeus’s four human varieties and their assigned character traits.

4 5 6 7 15 15 45 49 50 71

Acknowledgements

T

his volume owes its existence first and foremost to the initiative of Willibald Steinmetz and was supported at a later stage by the editorial board of the European Conceptual History series. Financial support of various kinds was provided to the editor by Ikerbasque – Basque Foundation for Science (Bilbao, Spain), the Academy of Finland (Helsinki, Finland), the Aarhus Institute for Advanced Studies (Aarhus, Denmark), the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Bonn, Germany), and Waseda Institute for Advanced Studies (Tokyo, Japan), and Special Research Area 1288 ‘Practices of Comparing’ of the German Research Foundation (Bonn, Germany). I am also grateful to Javier Fernández-Sebastián, Tomi Huttunen, Jan Ifversen, Wiktor Marzec and Irina Valkova for their intellectual, technical, institutional and moral support. Kirill Postoutenko

Note on Transliteration

R

ussian words have been transliterated according to the Library of Congress Russian romanization table.

Introduction

‘Asymmetrical Counter-Concepts’ Chances and Challenges Kirill Postoutenko

‘Asymmetrical Counter-Concepts’: Reinhart Koselleck’s View

T

he notion of ‘asymmetrical counter-concepts’ (asymmetrische Gegenbegriffe, hereafter AC) is one of the finest inventions of Reinhart Koselleck’s creative genius.1 In a nutshell, it traces many important cases of social, political and cultural domination to the string of recurrent asymmetries between standard self-ascriptions and pejorative otherascriptions: thus, ancient Greeks (‘Hellenes’) rhetorically asserted their sociocultural supremacy by summarily branding their diverse opponents as retarded speechless mutterers (‘Barbarians’). Conceived on the crossroads of mainstream historical research and semiotic structuralism, the composite term offers an eminently attractive alternative to the onesidedness of both approaches. Indeed, Koselleck’s persistent focus on the ‘written and spoken word’ in his articulation of sociocultural disparities effectively kills two birds with one stone.2 Whereas historians studying non-consensual differentiations between social, ethnic and linguistic groups are offered reliable indicators of the divisions’ strength, cultural theorists addressing the same phenomena are relieved of the suffocating stringency of logically perfect but practically questionable binary oppositions.3 Koselleck’s determination to include the article on AC in the Spanish translation of his Futures Past attests to his awareness of its actual and potential significance for wider scholarship.4 In fact, the popularity of his model quickly transcended the boundaries of conceptual history,5 becoming particularly noticeable in postcolonial studies,6 global

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Kirill Postoutenko

and comparative history7 and anthropology,8 but also being applied in literary and linguistic scholarship,9 discourse analysis,10 communication studies,11 sociology,12 political and legal history,13 theology,14 the history of music15 and gender studies.16 Despite this torrent of publications, systematic inquiries into the development and deployment of AC  have  not yet been undertaken. In an attempt to fill this gap – and departing from  the  conceptual pairs suggested by Koselleck (‘Hellenes’ vs ’Barbarians’, ‘Christians’ vs ‘Pagans’, ‘Super-Humans’ vs ‘Under-Humans’) – this volume explores the use of these and other significant conceptual asymmetries (‘civilization’ vs ‘barbarity’, ‘liberalism’ vs ‘servility’, ‘plebs’ vs ‘people’, ‘order’ vs ‘chaos’, etc.) in the political, scientific and fictional discourse of European societies from Antiquity to our time. Before embarking on a large-scale field study, though, it is worth checking the equipment at hand. Among the handful of scholars who chose to take a close and attentive look at AC, some took issue with Koselleck’s cryptic and occasionally hurried style, stressing the fuzziness of his major terminological invention.17 However, his argumentation has hardly ever been the object of thorough examination. The direct consequence of this uncritical approach has been the mechanical application of his brief theoretical sketch to all kinds of contexts. It seems like Koselleck’s discovery deserves better. To give AC their due, it makes sense to assess their methodological foundations, performing a bit of fine-tuning whenever necessary, and then test some of Koselleck’s original hypotheses on further historical evidence. A possible starting point could be the somewhat enigmatic double qualification of the key term – (1) asymmetrical (2) counter-concepts. When two prepositive qualifiers are consecutively placed in the sentence and subordinated to the same noun, they could either have a single combined meaning within an idiomatic construction (‘brand-new start’) or limit one another’s scope (‘white fireside chair’).18 This leaves us with four possible options: 1. If counter-concepts is just another name for asymmetrical concepts, the only meaningful distinction would be between asymmetrical counter-concepts and symmetrical non-counter-concepts: whereas all unilaterally imposed other-references would go hand in hand with universally accepted self-references, all conceptual oppositions would be asymmetrical. In other words, Hellenes vs Barbarians would be as asymmetrical as Germans vs non-Germans or Germans vs French or any other pair of labels with somehow contrastive semantics.

Introduction

3

2. However, if one interprets counter-concepts as a sub-category of asymmetrical concepts, then the number of logically permissible options rises to three – symmetrical concepts vs asymmetrical counterconcepts vs asymmetrical non-counter concepts. In this interpretation, some conceptual asymmetries would be bundled into stable pairs of counter-concepts and others would not, but non-asymmetrical concepts would not be able to form any kind of oppositions with each other. Specifically, Heathens could be an asymmetrical concept with or without Christians, but a dyad such as Russians and Ukrainians would not become a conceptual opposition no matter what. 3. Inversely, if asymmetrical concepts is a variant of counter-concepts, then the corresponding triad would include asymmetrical counterconcepts, symmetrical counter-concepts and symmetrical non-­counterconcepts. This reading, too, would rule out the formation of conceptual asymmetries outside of verbal pairs with contrastive meanings, but it would allow the symmetrical coupling of words with opposed semantics. In practical terms, while Christians could form a pair of asymmetrical counter-concepts (with Heathens) or be a part of a symmetrical conceptual pair (with Muslims), the term Heathens by itself would never become an asymmetrical concept. 4. Last but not least, if asymmetrical concepts and counter-concepts are both equal to and fully independent from each other as categories, there are no less than four conceivable interrelations between them – symmetrical counter-concepts vs symmetrical noncounter-concepts vs asymmetrical counter-concepts vs asymmetrical non-counter concepts. According to this most liberal interpretation, Under-Humans would be an asymmetrical concept both coupled with Humans and on its own, and Northerners could equally have a fully developed meaning in opposition to Southerners or as a standalone term. For the reader trying to evaluate the comparative likelihood of these interpretations, Koselleck’s arresting narrative is of limited help: freely roaming between all four standpoints, he drops hints and suggests preferences but refuses to be pinned down on any of them. Given the complexity of the material and the woolliness of conceptual semantics in the case discussed, this reluctance is quite reasonable. Its downside, however, is the variance between the relatively stiff theoretical imperatives and the sundry empirical data enlisted to support them (see tables 0.1–0.3).

Kirill Postoutenko

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Table 0.1. Koselleck’s general references to and specific examples of symmetry and asymmetry in conceptual pairs. Koselleck’s general references to symmetry/asymmetry within conceptual pairs

Koselleck’s specific examples of symmetry/asymmetry within conceptual pairs

symmetry ‘symmetrisch’ (symmetrical)

asymmetry ‘Asymmetrie’ (asymmetry)

symmetry ‘Man’/‘Frau’ (man/woman)

asymmetry ‘Christen’/‘Heiden’ (Christians/Pagans)

1 (5.6%)

17 (94.4%)

19 (30.6%)

 43 (69.4%)

Type

31 (18.9%)

133 (81.1%)

token

Koselleck’s terminological packaging of AC conveys the impression that symmetrical concepts barely exist, or, even if they do, hardly matter: only once, at the very end of his article, does he mention them, compared to the seventeen references to conceptual asymmetries. However, the nearly complete absence of symmetrical counter-concepts from Koselleck’s theoretical framework is challenged by his own empirical data: among the sixty-two conceptual pairs discussed in his text, almost a third (19, or 30.6 per cent) – exemplify conceptual symmetry (for example, man vs woman; see also table 0.1). The fact that asymmetrical concepts discussed in the article are much more frequently repeated than their symmetrical counterparts – see the type–token ratio in table 0.1 – renders this discord between speculation and illustration less conspicuous. But the overall feeling is that the difference between conceptual opposition and conceptual asymmetry has been given short shrift. To be sure, Koselleck had every reason to focus on his finding at the expense of all adjacent notions: in a short article specifically devoted to introducing the novel theoretical concept, there is little room for discussing its counterpart. However, Koselleck’s understandable reluctance to give AC a clear-cut definition from the start and to support it with the appropriate range of unambiguously interpretable examples comes at a cost. Indeed, attempts to define the notion, whose semantic core remains rather opaque, keep driving abstract assumptions and first-hand observations further apart, with the resulting void being filled with sweeping shortcuts and problematic generalizations. Indeed, the unsettled relation between asymmetry and contrast in AC  surfaces again in the search for the appropriate generic reference to  AC as a set. To illustrate the kaleidoscopic flickering of references to AC in Koselleck’s texts, a list of such mentions within a single paragraph would suffice: ‘conceptual pairs . . . rigorous dualisms . . . contrary

Introduction

5

groups . . . global dualisms . . . counter-concepts . . . in dual (im Dual) . . . antitheses . . . counter-concepts . . . negation . . . antithetically managed concepts . . . antithetic concepts’.19 However, as tables 0.2 and 0.3 purport to show, this apparent chaos is not without its order. Whereas the equation asymmetrical concepts = counter-concepts is never explicitly asserted (or rejected), it is tacitly upheld in Koselleck’s choice of terminology: throughout the article, he unmistakably favours binary references to asymmetrical concepts (such as ‘dualisms’), which constitute 70 per cent of all mentions, compared to 18.5 per cent for singular terms (‘generic name’) and 11.5 per cent for multiple terms (‘the row of negations’). As seen previously, Koselleck’s own examples paint a much more varied picture than his terms: among the AC actually cited in the article, just over half (54.2 per cent) are pairs (Hellenes/Barbarians), whereas almost a third (30 per cent) are standalone terms (Barbarians) and the rest (15.8 per cent) are triads (Christians/Hellenes/Barbarians). And, as with the data presented in table 0.1, the disparity between theory and data is concealed by the over-exposure of favourable empirical material: whereas the examples of conceptual pairs are repeated over and over, amounting to 61.0 per cent of all illustrations, single and ternary terms are quoted more sparingly (31.1 per cent and 7.9 per cent of the total respectively). Still, the most glaring contrast between descriptive vocabulary and supporting data is evident in the specific relations within the conceptual pairs constituting AC (table 0.3). Again, abstaining from any overt categorizations, Koselleck nevertheless makes his classificatory preferences plain by readily addressing AC as ‘negations’, ‘antitheses’ and similar Table 0.2. Koselleck’s general references to and specific examples of the grouping of asymmetrical counter-concepts (AC). Koselleck’s general references to the grouping of AC single ‘Sammelname’ (generic name)

dual ‘Dualismen’ (dualisms)

multiple/unspecified ‘Negationsreihen’ (rows of negations)

74 (18.5%)

278 (70%)

47 (11.5%)

Koselleck’s specific examples of the grouping of AC single ‘Hellenen' (Helenes)

dual ‘Hellenen/Barbaren' (Helenes/Barbarians)

multiple ‘Hellenen/Barbaren/Sklaven’ (Hellenes/Barbarians/Slaves)

32 (30%)

 58 (54.2%)

17 (15.8%)

type

68 (31.1%)

133 (61.0%)

17 (7.9%)

token

Kirill Postoutenko

6

Table 0.3. Koselleck’s general references to and specific examples of relations within the conceptual pairs of AC. Koselleck’s general references to relations within conceptual pairs of AC open set ‘Sprachfigur’ (figure of speech)

pair ‘Wortpaar’ (verbal pair)

opposition A vs B ‘Gegensatz’ (antagonism)

opposition A vs non-A ‘konträr’ (contrary)

18 (6.6%)

74 (27.0%)

90 (32.8%)

92 (33.6%)

Koselleck’s specific examples of relations within conceptual pairs of AC open set pair ‘Hellenen-Barbaren’ ‘Freund-Feind’ (Hellenes-Barbarians) (friend-foe)

opposition A vs B ‘Ihnen-Außen’ (inside-outside)

opposition A vs non-A ‘Mensch-Unmensch’ (human-unhuman)

36 (62.1%)

5 (8.6%)

10 (17.2%)

 7 (12.1%) type

98 (73.7%)

8 (6.0%)

17 (12.8%)

10 (7.5%)

token

‘contrary’ verbal oppositions of the kind A vs non-A. At any rate, this and other allusions to logically perfect privative oppositions are the most common kind of references to AC in the article, making up more than a third (33.6 per cent) of the total. The less stringent but almost as popular way of mentioning AC in the text is the equipollent binary A vs B (‘contradistinction’, ‘antagonism’, etc.), which amounts for 32.8 per cent of the whole. This category is closely trailed by a loosely defined coupling of individual terms (‘verbal pair’), constituting 27 per cent of all references to AC. The last, and decidedly less common, designation is an open set consisting of the unspecified number of elements with uncertain relations (‘categories’, ‘figure of speech’, etc.), which account for just 6.6 per cent of all references to AC. The summary impression conveyed by these statistics is that AC are nearly always verbal pairs held together by binding semantic or even logical ties. This neat picture gets shattered as soon as we glance at Koselleck’s examples, which suggest the exact opposite order of preference within AC. Indeed, the bulk of illustrations of his theses involve open sets of terms that, in a linguistic sense, owe little to each other and can be extended or reduced at will, as in the case of Hellenes/Barbarians/?. Such pairs (or, rather, groups) constitute 62.1 per cent of all AC discussed as type in the article and 73.7 per cent as token, although the latter figure is partly the result of the use of just a handful of pairs as ubiquitous poster examples. The cumulative frequency of the other AC with closer ties and stricter internal rules hovers around a third of all examples – 37.9 per cent

Introduction

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Table 0.4. Koselleck’s specific examples of preferred modes of reference, parts of speech and modalities in AC. Koselleck’s specific Koselleck’s specific examples of preferred examples of preferred parts of speech in AC modes of reference in AC identity tags ‘Barbaren’ (barbarians)

nouns all other modes of ‘Barbar’ reference (barbarian) ‘Barbarei’ (barbarity)

Koselleck’s specific examples of preferred modalities of AC

negative all other ‘Heiden’ parts of (pagans) speech ‘barbarisch’ (barbaric)

 81 (75.7%) 26 (24.3%)  88 (82.2%) 19 (17.8%)

positive ‘Über-menschen’ (supermen)

 88 (82.2%) 19 (17.8%) type

181 (83.0%) 37 (17.0%) 196 (89.9%) 22 (11.1%) 176 (80.7%) 42 (19.3%) Token

as type and 26.3 per cent as token; the immaculate privative oppositions such as humans/under-humans, prioritized by Koselleck in theory, make up just 12.1 per cent as type and 7.5 per cent as token respectively. The historian’s intuitive identification of ostensible codependency within AC with the minimal pairs in logic (A vs ¬ A) and grammar (‘Human’–‘Unhuman’) thus fails to be corroborated even by his own data. Besides those basic considerations concerning the form and substance of AC, confirmed (or, in many cases, challenged) by examples, Koselleck grounds his argument on some unspoken assumptions (deducible from his choices of empirical data) and also proposes a couple of basic theoretical suggestions without attempting to prove them empirically. The first concerns the referential, grammatical and model properties of AC: the overwhelming majority of corresponding examples provided by Koselleck are identity tags (pagans rather than paganism), nouns (Barbarians rather than barbaric) and pejorative terms (‘Under-’ rather than ‘Super-’ – ‘Humans’; see table 0.4.). The second has to do with the roots of AC in the surrounding social reality: whereas Koselleck sees the genesis of AC in pre-existing ‘conflicts’,20 the affinity between conceptual asymmetry and deictic unilaterality, particularly noticeable in identifications (us vs them) and spatial delimitations (inside vs outside), is supposed to shed the light on the communicative functioning of conceptual asymmetries.21 To sum up, Koselleck’s views of AC could be presented as a list of theses, supplemented by empirical conjectures (listed in square brackets): 1. Asymmetrical concepts are rooted in human conflicts and related to deictic distinctions.

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2. Asymmetrical concepts are [predominantly]/almost exclusively conceptual pairs. 3. Asymmetrical concepts are typically/[sometimes] privative oppositions. 4. [Asymmetrical concepts are usually identity tags]. 5. [Asymmetrical concepts are normally nouns]. 6. [Asymmetrical concepts most commonly have pejorative meanings]. The fact that Koselleck did not try to streamline or finalize this rather disjointed and sketchy picture attests to his modesty, open-mindedness, respect for facts and trust in future generations of scholars. Hence, it would be natural to check these hypotheses one by one against the available theoretical knowledge and textual evidence, relying on both the chapters collected in this volume and external materials. Among other things, this composite summary would help the reader to view this book in the context of what has – or has not – been done so far in the studies of asymmetrical counter-concepts in European discourse.

‘Asymmetrical Counter-Concepts’: Violent Origins or Deictic Features? Koselleck’s anchoring of conceptual asymmetries in the human propensity for squabbling has many antecedents, sources, motivations and parallels. He himself acknowledged his debt to Carl Schmitt’s fundamental dichotomy friend vs enemy and most of the scholars revisiting his legacy have followed his lead.22 However, the tradition of associating semantic oppositions with violent conflicts has a much longer history and a wider context: having begun at least with Heraclitus (who considered strife – πόλεμος – the ultimate source of difference between things),23 it was logically refined by Baruch Spinoza (who saw the destructive potential of different things as the proof of their contrariety)24 and later flourished in transcendental idealism, modern anthropology and postmodernist philosophy.25 Whatever the historical merits of this approach, its explanatory power remains, by and large, on the metaphorical and metonymical level:26 in this sense, Schmitt’s contradistinction is more an example of AC than a tool for their investigation.27 It is hard to deny that military conflicts such as the Persian Wars in the fifth century bc or the world wars served as potent catalysts for the development and spread of AC.28 However, this mere fact does not say much about the functioning of conceptual

Introduction

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asymmetries in communication and social life in general. In my opinion, the second, fully original parallel drawn by Koselleck between AC and the deictic terms ‘us’ and ‘them’, ‘inside’ and ‘outside’, is much more fruitful in both a theoretical and historical sense. Indeed, both oppositions are not only closely interconnected but also share their essential properties with conceptual asymmetries without losing their referential exceptionality. It is this special kind of semantics and pragmatics that the tangled meanings of AC are arguably modelled upon. The difference between the intimately familiar, physically close, interconnected and orderly ‘self’ (or ‘us’) and the alien, irrelevant, distant, disparate and dishevelled ‘other’ (or ‘them’) derives from the way most human and other systems operate. Indeed, one of the major functions of an open system is the production of order, or, in other words, the retention of distinct identity in a potentially hostile environment:29 the activities encompassed by this description range from the seemingly primitive (keeping warm in the cold) to the exceedingly complex (staying sane in a lunatic asylum).30 Under such circumstances, it is only natural that the Self – or whatever the centre of such a unity could be called – defines and (re)produces its ostensible goodness, intactness and territorial integrity on its own terms, branding as the inferior and potentially harmful Other everything that does not match its auto-description. One typical example of this asymmetrical binary logic is the immune system, whose major reason for demonizing and keeping out pathogens is their perceived strangeness.31 Another is the workings of a secret society defending itself from potential intruders before actually meeting them.32 Both in living beings and social organisms, preservation of the reflexively construed order and protection of the space enabling its safety go hand in hand: while the tightly knit, eminently valuable, meaningful, central ‘inside’ is reserved for ‘us’, what is left for ‘them’ is the porous, peripheral, senseless and dangerous ‘outside’.33 To be sure, neither the personal pronoun ‘us’ nor the adverb ‘inside’ (which, depending on the context, can also be an adjective, a preposition or a noun) are as inextricably tied to their utterers as the immune system to its body. In reality, all deictic terms are constructed by means of a commonly recognized digital code (a verbal language) and their meanings routinely alternate thanks to the interactional equilibration: every socially competent adult knows that his/her ‘I’ has the same signified as the ‘you’ of his/her conversation partner, and vice versa.34 Nevertheless, the rotation of deictic meanings is subject to restrictions imposed by the limited expressive powers of language: neither subjective certainty (‘I believe that x’) nor physical sensation (‘I feel y’) could be translated into (*‘You believe that x’ or *‘You feel y’) without substantial semantic losses.35 Most likely,

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it is this genuine inexpressibility of some fundamental states and beliefs in symbolic terms that breeds the associations between incontestable personal self-reference (‘us’), its exclusive monitored location (‘inside’), epistemic predominance (‘true’) and deontic pre-eminence (‘right’).36 Jean-Jacques Rousseau was arguably one of the first thinkers to derive civil society – the well-scrubbed version of the good old-fashioned bellum omnium contra omnes – from the ruthless use of this linguistic, spatial and cognitive symmetry: for him, grabbing a piece of land and telling gullible bystanders ‘This is mine!’ (‘Ceci est à moi’) is all it takes to become its sole legal proprietor.37 The modern version of this grabbing is the information asymmetry strategically deployed in sales, politics and other public and private settings: the meaning of the last word in the sentence ‘Our country is doing well’ may have very different meanings for the politicians imposing their judgement on potential electorates and their audiences, who are unable to access, interpret or effectively challenge the sensitive security data.38 Even a brief look at AC would allow one to detect the same interweaving of self–other distinctions that was registered above in deictic terms and other reflexive elements of natural and social systems. Similar to the differences between *system and *environment, ‘us’ and ‘them’, ‘inside’ and ‘outside’, oppositions such as ‘Hellenes’ vs ‘Barbarians’ appear to amalgamate and blur systemic, territorial and communicative contradistinctions, continually rotating the hidden and the explicit facets of their meanings without losing their overall semantic multidimensionality. To begin with, the identification of the system in question with ‘here’ – the unilaterally defined domain of systemic identity encircling its symbolic and functional centre – pushed Barbarians into ‘there’ – the unspecified, possibly disjoint and partially hypothetical periphery, which, under some circumstances, could begin as close as at the city limits of Athens.39 Furthermore, the non-belonging of Barbarians to the ‘territory of self’ stripped them of any positive value, justifying, in Plato’s words (readily quoted by Schmitt), the wars of annihilation against them.40 In a similar vein, the systemic self-ascription of justice, order and other less specific pre-eminence made Barbarians the bearers of lawlessness and chaos: if we are to believe Plutarch, the Greek king Pyrrhus could not believe his eyes when he saw the Roman – ‘Barbarian’ – army encamping with perfect discipline (τάξις).41 Last but not least, the extension of the ‘firstperson authority’ (see endnote 36) resulted in the Hellenic monopolization of communicative ability: accordingly, Barbarians in Aristophane’s comedies were twittering like birds and the verb immediately derived from their designation – βαρβαρίζειν – onomatopoetically referred to the substandard use of the default idiom – the (Greek) language.42

Introduction

11

How do the authors of this volume interpret the blurred traits of AC, their social roots and their communicative origins? While Paul Paradies and Heli Rantala explicitly admit the need to clarify the meaning of conceptual asymmetry, other authors support and further develop Koselleck’s genealogical observations, refining and illustrating his distinctions. The catalytic influence of the Spanish Revolution of 1854 upon the development and dissemination of the conceptual opposition ‘people’ vs ‘plebs’ highlights the role of political upheaval in the formation of AC (Pablo Sánchez León). The territorial imperative reveals its strength in the NeoHellenic demands of relocating the tyrannical Ottoman ‘barbarians’ to Africa (Alexandra Sfoini). At the same time, following Koselleck’s apt distinction between ‘non-Christians’ and ‘not-yet-Christians’, many chapters feature time – as opposed to space – as an equally potent differentiator between ‘us’ and ‘them’.43 Thus, the alleged ‘barbarity’ of both Algerian natives (Nere Basabe and María Luisa Sánchez-Mejía) and Spanish serviles (Luis Fernández Torres) stems from their belonging to earlier stages of human civilization than their self-appointed critics (respectively French colonizers and Spanish liberales). To be sure, the tendency to incorporate sociopolitical distinctions initially projected outwards is not necessarily limited to modern societies:44 Thucydides equated the otherness of Barbarians with their backwardness.45 Nevertheless, notwithstanding the Nazi obsession with freeing their invented ‘Lebensraum’ from ‘UnderHumans’,46 the unilateral spatial delimitation as the basic feature of AC may be less powerful in modern societies than it was in Antiquity. In contrast to territoriality, the somewhat more abstract opposition between the self-assumed order and the other-ascribed chaos remains a staple of AC. As in the times of Plutarch and Pyrrhus, the contradistinction takes different shapes, giving rise to familiar images once in a while. Whereas Carl Linnaeus distinguishes the strict adherence of eighteenthcentury Europeans to the rule of law from the reliance on opinion, caprice and customs typical of their scattered counterparts (Monica Libell), Polish socialists of the early twentieth century decried the ‘anarchy’ bred by their unspecified ‘capitalist’ adversaries (Wiktor Marzec). Expectedly, the unilaterally proclaimed communicative incompetence of adversaries retains its principal role in the formation of their ‘disorderly’ image. While the inability to master Latin summarily singled out non-Europeans as beings of questionable humanness (Monica Libell), the overwhelming majority of Finns were, until the early nineteenth century, treated as speechless outsiders in their own land, because all administrative and scholarly activity in Finland was conducted in Swedish (Heli Rantala). The most peculiar example of this kind – the privative opposition ‘euskaldun’ vs ‘erdaldun’ – bore a close superficial resemblance

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to its antique prototype ‘Hellenes’ vs ‘Barbarians’: whereas the first term referred to the Self as the speakers of Basque, the Other was en masse defined as a  foreign language-speaking crowd (Iñaki Iriarte López). However, the linguistic heterogeneity of the Basque territories made the consistent application of the asymmetry impossible and the synecdoche ‘Basque language ~ Basque people’ has largely remained the stuff of ­nationalist utopias.

‘Asymmetrical Counter-Concepts’: Privative Oppositions Arranged into Conceptual Pairs? The Other devoid of space, reason and linguistic abilities looks like a perfect negative of the Self, with the most significant features of the original appearing dim and murky. This mirroring lends some credibility to Koselleck’s description of AC as privative oppositions A vs non-A, even if their contrary semantics has not really been proven by his own material (see above). Both linguistic theory and historical semantics offer some cautious support for this claim. The negative affixation, in practice, may harden from grammatically implied contradictoriness (‘A isn’t B’) to semantic contrariety (‘A is not-B’): unhuman does not just mean something different from human (as the prefix un- may suggest), but rather refers to a phenomenon that is vastly inferior and even potentially harmful to the  latter.47 This could be even more true for certain prefixes with a heightened propensity for contrariety (such as anti-), which could  then serve as anchors for familiar bundles of similarly construed privative oppositions based on negative affixation: thus, in the fifth-century Apocalypse of St. Andrews, Antichrist is presented as a man of lawlessness (ἀνoμία) and  disorder (ἀπoλεία).48 To be sure, none of Koselleck’s examples of  AC, except for ‘Inhumans’ (Unmensch) vs ‘Humans’ (Mensch), are based on negative affixation, but the strict coordination between morphological and lexical semantics in human language is optional at best and there is some evidence, or at least an opinion, that privative oppositions are the main means of making sense in human language at all levels, from phonology (nasal [ã] vs non-nasal [a] in French ‘sans’ vs ‘sa’) and graphemics (‘son’/‘sun’) to semantics (‘life’/‘death’).49 So if life vs death can be regarded as a privative semantic opposition, could the same be true, say, of ‘Christians’ vs ‘Pagans’ or at least ‘Inhumans’ vs ‘Humans’? The simplest answer to this question would probably sound like this: yes, AC may get bundled into privative oppositions from time to time, but that bundling would not say much about their semantics, let

Introduction

13

alone provide an explanation of their asymmetry. In their own ways, both the verbal pairs with negative affixation (‘kind’ vs ‘unkind’) and the common antonyms (‘good’ vs ‘bad’) offer good complementary analogies to AC. In the first case, there is a clear asymmetry between the ‘positive’ concept (‘kind’) and its unspecific negation (‘unkind’), which could neither be easily reversed nor constructed the other way around. Indeed, unlike in classical logic or mathematics, where double negation is synonymous with affirmation (A ≡ ~(~A)), in natural language there is only a vague affinity between the mildly positive ‘not unkind’ and the unquestionably positive ‘kind’.50 Besides, the inverse distribution of negative affixation is fairly uncommon: whereas the addition of the negative prefix ‘un-’ to positive adjectives recalls a smoothly working assembly line (‘happy’ → ‘unhappy’, ‘kind’ → ‘unkind’, ‘wise’ → ‘unwise’, ‘clean’ → ‘unclean’, etc.), the negation of pejorative concepts in the same way is noticeably less common (‘sad’ → *unsad, ‘cruel’ → *uncruel, ‘foolish’ → *unfoolish, ‘dirty’ → *undirty, etc.).51 All this appears to make perfect sense for AC, whose core semantics, according to Koselleck, is largely built around opposing the presence of certain positive – and positively stated – features (lawfulness, morality, biological fitness, religious correctness, linguistic ability) in the Self to their absence in the Other. The semantic asymmetry resulting from the semantic under-specification of the negative term also seems to obtain in AC: the meanings of the notions ‘Barbarians’, ‘Pagans’ and ‘Inhumans’ are generally confined to the lack of the aforementioned positive features of their reflexively construed counterparts, as manifested in the popular proverb ‘whoever is not Hellene is Barbarian’.52 To my knowledge, the opposite statement – *whoever is not Barbarian is Hellene – is nowhere to be found, despite the fact that attempts at a balanced interpretation of both opposites persisted from early Antiquity to late medieval scholasticism.53 In this interpretation, AC are contradictory privative oppositions consisting of definite self-ascriptions of truth and rightness and the vague other-ascriptions of their absence. In the second case, AC are not fastened to each other by means of negative prefixes but rather jumbled together according to ‘the rule of minimal contrast’:54 because of the human propensity for the bipolar mapping of the world, the most common associations for ‘good’, ‘boy’ and ‘life’ for an average language user would be ‘bad’, ‘girl’ and ‘death’.55 Admittedly, such oppositions offer greater equality to their counterparts than the pairs created by negative affixation and also reveal greater divergence, as well as the more rigorous semantic structure close to logical contrariety. In what may sound like a paradox, ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are generally perceived as being further apart from each other than ‘good’ and ‘not good’. At the same

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time, they generate less uncertainty in-between: the single distinctive feature (which could equally be called ‘goodness’ or ‘badness’) apparently exhausts the semantic difference between the two poles, without the dark intermediate space produced by a fuzzy negative semantics (as in the previous example).56 In this reading, AC are contrary equipollent oppositions dividing the semantic realm into two complementary parts with tertium non datur: Herodotus’ neat fantasy about the inversion of Hellenic gender roles among Barbarians sharpens the distinction between the two poles of the AC, but also relativizes their inequality by tying it to the symmetrical binary ‘men’ vs ‘women’.57 Taken together, these reconstructions of semantic interrelations within AC seem to favour Koselleck’s theory over his examples (Table 0.3.): conceptual asymmetries look like tightly knit minimal pairs, evenly split between contrary and contradictory privative oppositions, with less rigorous contradistinctions somewhat less frequent and individual unbounded terms nearly extinct. This interpretation, however, hinges on the presumption that the grip of Koselleck’s ‘semantic oppositional structures’ over AC is at least as firm as the rule of minimal contrast in language, which the scholar himself calls into question at least once and which also happens to be quite a stretch for a number of linguistic and historical reasons.58 The treatment of polar opposites as inseparable pairs has been popular in speculative scholarship since time immemorial: provocatively introduced by Heraclitus (‘good and evil are one’), it has deeply impacted Aquinian theology and Hegelian dialectics, culminating in Ludwig Wittgenstein’s insistence on mutual determination of positive and negative utterances.59 But in actual verbal communication, the power of minimal contrasts is not as strong as it seems. Suffice to say that positive terms, which appear in spoken and written language far more often than their negative correlates, are also often unmarked: ‘tall’ in ‘How tall is John now?’ is meant to be a generic reference to John’s height rather than the opposite of ‘short’.60 Notwithstanding this fact, there is nothing in the words ‘Hellenes’ and ‘Barbarians’ themselves that suggests that they are a minimal pair, or a pair at all: from the linguistic point of view, both terms are free-floating signifiers of some vague identities whose coupling is a matter of chance. Put differently, language as a sign system gives us little reason why ‘Barbarians’ should be opposed to, or even appear alongside, ‘Hellenes’. These theoretical considerations are largely confirmed by the figures provided in tables 0.5. and 0.6. Koselleck presents AC ‘Hellenes’ and ‘Barbarians’ as a binary opposition par excellence: in his article, both terms appear in the same passage in 59.2 per cent of all cases and nearly three-quarters (71.1 per cent) of those joint appearances are contrasts. The

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Table 0.5. Bundling of AC in Koselleck’s article and the collected works of Plato, Friedrich Nietzsche and Lothrop Stoddard. Single (X) Single (Y) ‘Barbarians’/‘barbarity’ ‘Hellenes’

Bundled (X+Y) ‘Hellenes and/or Barbarians’

22 (28.9%)

    9 (11.9%)

45 (59.2%)

Koselleck

40 (16.5%)

143 (58.8%)

60 (24.7%)

Plato

Single (A) ‘Under-Humans’ [‘Inhumans’]

Single (B) ‘Super-Humans’

Single (C) ‘Humans’ / ‘Humanity’

 3 (2%)

    7 (4.7%)

      113 (75.3%)

Koselleck

45 (0.4%)

183 (1.8%)

10,069 (97.5%)

Nietzsche

32 (12.3%)

     4 (1.6%)

      217 (84.1%)

Stoddard

Bundled (A+B) ‘UnderHumans’ [‘Inhumans’] + ‘SuperHumans’

Bundled (A+C) ‘UnderHumans’ [‘Inhumans’] + ‘Humans’

Bundled (B+C) ‘SuperHumans’ + ‘Humans’

Bundled (A+B+C) ‘Under-Humans’ [‘Inhumans’] + ‘Humans’ + ‘Super-Humans’

10 (6.7%)

5 (3.3%)

 8 (5.3%)

4 (2.7%)

Koselleck

 4 (0.04%)

0 (0%)

27 (2.6%)

1 (0.01%)

Nietzsche

 0 (0%)

4 (1.6%)

 1 (0.4%)

0 (0%)

Stoddard

Table 0.6. Differentiation and non-differentiation between AC in Koselleck’s article and the collected works of Plato. Differentiation ‘. . . contradistinction between Hellenes and barbarians . . .’

Non-differentiation ‘. . . the whole world of Hellenes and Barbarians . . .’

32 (71.1%)

13 (28.9%)

Koselleck

33 (55.0%)

27 (45.0%)

Plato

negative term bears the brunt of conceptual asymmetry – ‘Barbarians’ – in Koselleck’s text far more often than its opposite. This, however, is not corroborated by the data extracted from Plato’s dialogues: in full accordance with the linguistic information provided above, Plato most commonly employs the positive term ‘Hellenes’ as a standalone notion unrelated to any opposite (58.8 per cent of all appearances). Whenever the words ‘Hellenes’ and ‘Barbarians’ do appear together in his oeuvre, they do form

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a contradistinction in most cases (55 per cent), but the percentage of the conjunctive constructions ‘Hellenes’ and ‘Barbarians’ comes a close second (45 per cent). The limited potential of the ‘semantic oppositional structures’ is even more apparent in the triad ‘Under-Humans’ [‘Inhumans’] – ‘Humans’  – ‘Super-Humans’ (which could also be regarded as a combination of the privative ([‘Inhumans’] vs ‘Humans’) and the equipollent (‘Under-Humans’ vs ‘Super-Humans’) oppositions. Koselleck himself employs the word ‘Humans’ – mostly as a positive unmarked term – far more often than its three derivatives combined (75.3 per cent of all cases). The relative frequency of this lexeme is even higher in the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche and Lothrop Stoddard, where it almost becomes a linear function of the overall textual volume. Remarkably, whereas the bundled AC from this set in Koselleck’s text constitute almost a fifth (18 per cent) of their occurrences altogether, they are negligible in the works of the German radical philosopher Nietzsche and the American racist publicist Stoddard, each of whom are fixated on the respectively positive (Nietzsche) and negative (Stoddard) opposites to ‘Humans’. All in all, the data presented calls into question the very word combination ‘asymmetrical counter-concepts’. There is simply no evidence that the semantic asymmetries between self- and other-descriptions so vividly described and convincingly exemplified by Koselleck depend either on the pairing of concepts or on their specific opposition to each other in discourse. Simply speaking, the word ‘Barbarian’, as well as its derivatives, can be an asymmetrical concept on its own, either in contraposition to or in conjunction with other somehow comparable terms. The respective examples furnished by conceptual history are Friedrich Engels’s popular opposition of ‘socialism’ and ‘barbarity’, and Quintilian’s sequence ‘Barbarians, Romans, Greeks’.61 Under some circumstances, the concept in question may even cease being asymmetrical: the Roman poet Plautus had little trouble calling his own language ‘barbarian’.62 So, if conceptual asymmetry is not brought about by conceptual pairing or contrariety (and can even be lost at some cultural crossroads), where does it come from? The answer could be obtained by juxtaposing three different AC that were deployed under very different circumstances and yet share some essential properties: ●

the philosopher Edmund Burke rejoices ‘this happy day’ in a public speech on 3 November 1774 immediately following his election to the House of Commons;63

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17

the Count Pierre Bezukhov, one of the main protagonists of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace (1869), provokes a duel with his insulter, Fyodor Dolokhov, by calling the latter a ‘scoundrel’ (negodi͡ aï);64 Geert Wilders, the leader of the Dutch far-right Party for Freedom, calls Moroccan immigrants ‘scum’ (uitschot) during a walkabout in Spijkenisse, just south of Rotterdam, on 2 February 2017.65

In all the three cases, the speaker makes a biased reference to persons or events that are ratified by some (Burke’s electors, Dolokhov’s ill-wishers and Dutch xenophobes) and not by others (those who voted against Burke in Bristol, Dolokhov and his friends, Moroccan immigrants and Dutch liberals). While the verbal opposites of ‘happy’, ‘scoundrel’ and ‘scum’ do not appear in the texts discussed, the interactional contrast between the users of the contestable term and their interlocutors withholding its ratification is apparent. This state of affairs dispels the illusion of some special semantic relations within AC, laying bare the communicative foundations of conceptual asymmetries. In other words, AC do not unite or disunite concepts, but, apparently, pit the sender of the message ‘You are a Barbarian’ against some of its recipients who are unable to challenge this manifestly absurd and inconclusive deprivation of interactive identity. Far from being conceptual pairs observed from a single perspective, AC appear to be single utterances looked at from two different angles.66 At one point, Koselleck seems to be moving in this direction, disputing the semantic relation between the terms ‘Aryan’ and ‘non-Aryan’ and declaring the meaning of the latter to be dependent on the ‘power position’ of its utterer.67 Acknowledging the need to clarify relations between conceptual asymmetry and conceptual contrariety (Heli Rantala, Ana Isabel González Manso), the contributors in the volume carefully pick apart the linguistic, discursive, sociocultural and communicative foundations of AC. Whereas the negative prefix ‘anti-’ expectedly plays a significant role in the formation of contrary opposites to the Self, connoting aggression and danger (‘anti-popular’ vs ‘popular’), the marked reference to the extraterritorial unknown (‘zarubezhnyï’ – an adjective that literally means ‘beyond the border’) provides a milder, contradictory frame for the contradistinction between the ‘Soviet’ Self and the ‘bourgeois’ Other (Kirill Kozlovski). In the latter case, the neutral modality of asymmetry leaves some room for ideological fine-tuning depending on the political climate in the Soviet Union. Such under-specification of Otherness in AC seems to be pervasive, which highlights the value of contextual determination of the respective

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meanings. Typically, linguistic and cultural factors join hands in reducing the unavoidable fuzziness of the negative terms. For instance, the meaning of the negative affixation in such references to the Ottoman ‘barbarians’ as ‘infidel’ or ‘impious’ is raised from harmless deontic inferiority to existential threat (Alexandra Sfoini) by both compulsive intra-linguistic intensification of prefixal negation (see above) and the monopolistic tendencies of monotheism.68 The sociocultural production of AC out of random minimal pairs is even more apparent in the common racist instrumentalization of the visual difference between the presence and the absence of light.69 Designating the skin of European people as ‘white’ and drawing upon the colour’s associations with wisdom and purity, Carl Linnaeus contrasts this self-description to the image of Africans, whose apparent ‘blackness’ is automatically meant to signify foolishness and immorality (Monica Libell). Finally, the syntagmatic structures in discourse could amplify the asymmetries predetermined in the hypertext of the epoch. Although the cumulative conjunction ‘and’ in the phrase ‘formalism and realism, internationalism and cosmopolitism’ obscures contradistinctions between the first and the second terms in the respective pairs, the anaphoric amplification of the similarly built paired structures draws specific attention to the juxtapositions of the terms marked positively (‘realism’, ‘internationalism’) and negatively (‘formalism’, ‘cosmopolitism’) in the Soviet ideological discourse, turning adjacencies into contrasts (Kirill Kozlovski). Some of the studies collected in the volume subscribe to Koselleck’s idea of generative structures enabling the serial reproduction of AC (Wiktor Marzec; Nere Basabe and María Luisa Sánchez-Mejía). Such series do arise with some regularity when sociohistorical circumstances routinely reproduce analogous large-scale communicative asymmetries in related cultures: the label ‘Barbarians’ is employed by ancient Greeks and Romans in a rather similar way, notwithstanding the complete reversal of the actors in question.70 However, in many cases, the bonds keeping conceptual pairs together turn out to be loose, optional or arbitrary: outside of a specific sociocultural environment seen through the eyes of the privileged speaker – the ‘Hellene’ of sorts – it is not easy to see why ‘formalism’ is the opposite of ‘realism’, or what ‘infidel’ actually means. The relative insignificance of standard verbal semantics for the meanings of conceptual asymmetries becomes particularly noticeable in cases in which singular asymmetrical terms are employed by disjoint – if not incompatible – groups: although the major political actors in Holland after the Second World War held widely diverse political views, they readily, if tacitly, cooperated in stuffing the term ‘communism’ with as many diabolic connotations as possible (Wim de Jong). By the same token,

Introduction

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Sabino Arana makes up for the weak national identity of his people by equating ‘Basque’ with ‘anti-Spanish’ (Iñaki Iriarte López). In both cases, the ordinary topology of AC – a homogeneous ‘us’ pitted against a scattered ‘them’ – is turned on its head, which does not seem too strange: ‘Barbarians’, after all, were referred to as such by the future ‘Hellenes’ before the latter came up with the common name for themselves.71

‘Asymmetrical Counter-Concepts’: Identity Tags – Nouns with Pejorative Meanings? In addition to exposing the interactional background of conceptual asymmetries, the example from Edmund Burke’s speech challenges a couple of implicit assumptions regarding their nature. Whereas the quotations in Koselleck’s article overwhelmingly present AC as nouns that disparagingly identify the Other (see table 0.4), the word ‘happy’ is an adjective that signifies not the alien negative identity but the speaker’s own feelings. Of course, a single quotation has negligible representativeness, but the impression it conveys chimes with other examples and theoretical considerations (including those presented above). Thus, the shock experienced by Pyrrhus in front of the orderly Roman armies found its expression in the differentiation between the eminently present ‘Barbarians’ and the conspicuous lack of ‘barbarous’ behaviour in their highly disciplined actions (see above). Placed in the limelight by Michel de Montaigne (who was clearly impressed by Plutarch’s account of the episode), the distinction has, in practice, always been strong enough to allow for the independent use of the respective behavioural and other references to all things barbarian expressed by nouns (‘Barbarei’), verbs (‘βαρβαρίζω’) and adjectives (‘barbare’).72 In all probability, Koselleck’s restrictive application of the term ‘asymmetrical concepts’ to the nouns with the identity semantics was first and foremost motivated by his special interest in this specific variant and not the internal properties of AC. The same could be said about the allegedly preferred modality of the AC. Koselleck’s de facto insistence on their pejorative semantics stems, at least in part, from the other set of his self-imposed limitations discussed in the previous paragraph: if conceptual asymmetries were equated to the unratified identity ascriptions, then it would be quite likely that the bulk of such non-consensual summary identifications would fall into the outside realm populated by unknown, dangerous and hostile beings. However, the case of ‘Super-Humans’ counters this assumption: not only is it an AC – and an identity tag at that – with a positive modality, but, in relation to its counter-pole ‘Under-Humans’/‘Inhumans’, it shows up

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Kirill Postoutenko

somewhat more often in Koselleck’s texts and significantly more often in Nietzsche’s texts (see table 0.4.). As has been mentioned before, the topical preferences of the narratives in which AC pop up are certainly capable of exercising an influence upon their dominant modality: unlike the paranoid conservative Stoddard, obsessed with the threat posed by the inferior race to the existing culture (placed squarely in the domain of his ‘Self’), the hysterical revolutionary Nietzsche was pinning his faith to the arrival of superior human beings (with which, in turn, he was hoping to be associated). So there is also apparently a correlation between the modality of AC (‘positive’ vs ‘negative’) and the teleology of the narrative (‘progress’ vs ‘downfall’) in which they are embedded. Furthermore, the available statistical data on the political speeches of Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Franklin D. Roosevelt highlights the relative parity between the numbers of positive and negative AC, confirming the results of the most recent cross-linguistic investigation of modal bipolarity.73 It also establishes correspondences between their modalities and the surrounding political systems: while the siege mentality of Nazism and Bolshevism favours the construction of composite external threats (such as ‘international Jew’ or the ‘capitalist surroundings’), the reflexive messianism of the United States hinges on unratified messianic claims that are projected inwards (‘fine and successful future’).74 All things considered, the interactional grounding of AC ensures their remarkable lexical and semantic openness, allowing for micro- and macro-contextual variations in their grammar, modality and referential modes.75 In this sense, the nouns that disapprovingly refer to the imaginary group identities of the outsiders are no more than one particular variation of AC among many others. Without doubt, AC as identity tags do feature prominently in this volume, although, in some cases, their identifying potential is rather underwhelming: the contradistinction between ‘Christians’ and ‘Heathens’ in the The Song of Roland, an eleventh-century French epic poem, does not play much of a role in distinguishing heroes from villains (Paul Paradies). However, the difference between identities (expressed by nouns) and properties (articulated by adjectives), stressed by Pyrrhus, draws attention to the flexible and productive variety of AC, which, so far, has not attracted much scholarly attention. Predictably, the shift from ‘Barbarians’, ‘infidels’, and ‘enemies of the people’ to ‘barbaric’, ‘infidel’ and ‘anti-popular’ undermines the clear-cut division between the omnipotent identifier and the passive identified: the traits associated with Other could pop up in the vicinity of Self, triggering, depending on the ­circumstances, repression or reflection (Kirill Kozlovski; Nere Basabe

Introduction

21

and María Luisa Sánchez-Mejía). As for the reduction of AC to terms with pejorative semantics, some interesting evidence to the contrary is provided by the novel identity markers ‘Euskaria’/‘euscaros’, invented by Basque ­nationalists from scratch and generally unfamiliar not only to the Spanish Other (disputing the existence of such an identity in the first place) but also to the Basque Self (Iñaki Iriarte López). In this example of radical social constructionism, the basic communicative asymmetry between ‘us’ producing AC and ‘them’ forced to accept them was complicated by social stratification that relegated much of the Basque population to the state of silent otherness as far as their group identity was concerned.

Conclusion In this Introduction, Reinhart’s Koselleck’s notion of ‘asymmetrical counter-concepts’ was subjected to some preliminary elucidation and scrutiny, aimed at making his theory fit for a large-scale application in the subsequent chapters. Some of his intuitions about AC – for example, their deictic roots – turned out to have even broader implications than the original theoretical blueprint suggested. Yet others – such as logical rigidity, grammatical regularity and obligatory coupling – appear upon close inspection to be unnecessarily restrictive. Overall, the communicative construction of interactional settings, real or imagined, was found to be of greater importance than the specific wording of AC or their coupling with semantic opposites. Perhaps most importantly, the influence of such factors as narrative frame or sociopolitical context has been tentatively established. It is up to the authors of this book to develop, qualify and dispute these ideas, weaving together the tangled web of asymmetrical counter-concepts in European discourse. Kirill Postoutenko is Senior Researcher in the Special Research Area 1288 (Practices of Comparison) at Bielefeld University, Germany, and Adjunct Associate Professor (Docent) of Russian Literature and Culture at the University of Helsinki, Finland. He has held research and teaching appointments at the universities of Munich and Constance (Germany), Columbia University and the University of Southern California (United States), IEA and ENS/Rue d’Ulm (France), Queen Mary, University of London (United Kingdom), the University of the Basque Country (Spain), the University of Helsinki (Finland) and the Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies (Denmark). He is the author and editor of eight books and ninety articles devoted to the history of Russian poetry and

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literary criticism, the history of media and communication in the Soviet Union  and Nazi  Germany, conceptual history and the social history of identity.

Notes  1. See Reinhart Koselleck, ‘Zur historisch-politischen Semantik asymmetrischer Gegenbegriffe’ (1975), in Reinhart Koselleck, Vergangene Zukunft. Zur Semantik geschichtlicher Zeiten (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1989), 211–59.   2. On 2 March 1993, the German Academy of Language and Poetry (Göttingen, Germany) invited Reinhart Koselleck to take part in its public meeting scheduled for 15 and 16 October of the same year and devoted to the ‘images of enemy’ (Feindbilder). While preparing for the meeting, Koselleck wrote on the margins of the invitation, ‘Language’, and then, on a separate piece of paper, ‘What is the role of language? Not the language but the spoken word’ (German Literary Archive (DLA), Marbach, Germany, Reinhart Koselleck Papers). The same progression from the abstract notion of language to its specific deployment in communication is manifest in Koselleck’s work on the article based on his talk at the meeting: ‘the concepts of enemy (Feindbegriffe) are contained in both – in language and in word, in the spoken and the written speech’ (Reinhart Koselleck, ‘Feindbegriffe’ (1993), in Reinhart Koselleck, Begriffsgeschichten (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2010), 276). The last seven words of the sentence (in der gesprochenen und geschriebenen Rede) were added to the typescript of the article just before it went into production (German Literary Archive (DLA), Marbach, Germany, Reinhart Koselleck Papers).  3. See the popular exposition of the latter view in Algirdas J. Greimas, Sémantique structurale: recherche de méthode (Paris: PUF, 1986), 262 and Claude Lévi-Strauss, ‘The Structural Study of Myth’, The Journal of American Folklore 68, no. 270 (1955), 443, and its thoughtful criticism in Claude Bremond, Logique du récit (Paris: Seuil, 1973), 92–93, and Frederic Jameson, The Ideologies of Theory, Vol. 2 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989), 22–23.  4. See Koselleck’s letter to Helene Ritzerfeld from 6 April 1983 (German Literary Archive (DLA), Marbach, Germany, Reinhart Koselleck Papers).  5. Andreas Poltermann, Darstellung und historische Reflexion (Göttingen: Verein zur Förderung Gesellschaftstheoretischer Studien, 1985), 36, 47; Roberto Ventura, ‘“Unsere Vendée”. Der Mythos von der Französischen Revolution und die Konstitution nationalkultureller Identität in Brasilien (1897–1902)’, in Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht and Ursula Link-Heer (eds), Epochenschwellen und Epochenstrukturen im Diskurs der Literatur- und Sprachhistorie (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1985), 454; Gesa SiebertOtt, ‚Sprachliche Homogenität und kollektive Identität’, in Frank Liedtke, Martin Wengeler and Karin Böke (eds), Begriffe besetzen. Strategien des Sprachgebrauchs in der Politik (Hamburg: Springer, 1991), 368; Klaus Lichtblau, Das Zeitalter der Entzweiung: Studien zur politischen Ideengeschichte des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts (Berlin: Philo, 1999), 51; Jussi A. Kurunmäki, Representation, Nation and Time: The Political Rhetoric of the 1866 Parliamentary Reform in Sweden (Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä, 2000), 65–66; João Feres Jr, ‘Contribuição a uma tipologia das formas de desrespeito: para além do modelo hegeliano-republicano’, Dados 45, no. 4 (2002), 555–66; Hubert Treiber,

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‘Anmerkungen zu Alfred von Martins (1882–1979) typisierender Betrachtungsweise’, Saeculum 57, no. 1 (2006), 150; Mikkel Thorup, Fornuftens perversion: modoplysning og 200 ars krig mod fornuftens herredomme (Aarhus: Aarhus Universitetsvorlag, 2008), 21–22; Marçal de Menezes Paredes, ‘A Ibéria como mal-de-origem’, Revista de História das Ideias 31 (2010), 338; Stephanie Seidl and Julia Zimmermann, ‘Jenseits des Kategorischen. Konzeptionen des “Heidnischen” in volkssprachigen literarischen und chronikalischen Texten des 13. Jahrhunderts’, in Michael Borgolte, Julia Dücker and Marcel Müllerburg (eds), Integration und Desintegration der Kulturen im europäischen Mittelalter (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011), 326–81; Kay Junge and Kirill Postoutenko (eds), Asymmetrical Concepts after Reinhart Koselleck (Bielefeld: transcript, 2011); David Armitage, ‘What‘s the Big Idea? Intellectual History and the Longue Durée’, History of European Ideas 38, no. 4 (2012), 506; Peter Strohschneider, ‘Fremde in der Vormoderne. Über Negierbarkeitsverluste und Unbekanntheitsgewinne’, in Anja Becker (ed.), Alterität als Leitkonzept für historisches Interpretieren (Berlin: AkademieVerlag, 2012), 387–416; Niklas Olsen, History in the Plural. An Introduction to the Work of Reinhart Koselleck (New York: Berghahn Books, 2012), 189–90; Philipp Altmann, ‘Studying Discourse Innovations: The Case of the Indigenous Movement in Ecuador’, Historical Social Research 40, no. 3 (2015), 161–84; Elias José Palti, ‘Temporalidade e refutabilidade dos conceitos políticos’, Revista da Faculdade de Direito da UFRGS, Porto Alegre 35 (2016), 12; Ernst Müller and Falko Schmieder, Begriffsgeschichte und historische Semantik (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2016), 316–18; Diana Mishkova and Balázs Trencsényi, ‘Introduction’, European Regions and Boundaries: A Conceptual History (New York: Berghahn Books, 2017), 10; Étienne Balibar, Passions du concept (Paris: Découverte, 2020), 243–64; Rikke Alberg Peters, ‘Kampen om sammenhængskraften – En analyse af begrebet sammenhængskraft i den offentlige debat fra 1994 til 2010’, Slagmark – Tidsskrift for idéhistorie 70 (2018), 129–56; Pablo Sánchez León, Popular Political Participation and the Democratic Imagination in Spain: From Crowd to People, 1766–1868 (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020); Christof Dipper, ‘Der Gelehrte als Schüler. Der Briefwechsel Reinhart Kosellecks mit Carl Schmitt’, in Manfred Hettling and Wolfgang Schieder (eds), Reinhart Koselleck als Historiker (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2021), 87–111. Here, as in subsequent footnotes, I have only referred to examples of substantial engagement with AC and have also allowed myself to select only one text by each author.  6. Kjell Olsen, ‘The Touristic Construction of the “Emblematic” Sámi’, in Anna-Leena Siikala, Barbro Klein and Stein R. Mathisen (eds), Creating Diversities Folklore, Religion and the Politics of Heritage (Helsinki: SKS, 2005), 292–305; Bernhard Struck, ‘Terra Incognita, European Civilisation and Colonised Land: Poland in Mid-eighteenth Century to Mid-nineteenth Century German Travel Accounts’, in Hagen SchulzForberg (ed.), Unravelling Civilisation: European Travel and Travel Writing (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2005), 155–79; Christoph Marx, ‘Gedenken, Geschichte und Versöhnung in Südafrika und Zimbabwe’, Africa Spectrum 41, no. 2 (2006), 161; Leander Schneider, ‘The Maasai’s New Clothes: A Developmentalist Modernity and Its Exclusions’, Africa Today 53, no. 1 (2006), 116.   7. Roberto dos Santos Bártholo, Homo industrialis eine Untersuchung über die wirtschaftsethischen Grundlagen der industriellen Weltzivilisation (Munich: Fink, 1982), 84; Michael Harbsmeier, ‘Reisebeschreibungen als mentalitatsgeschichtliche Quellen: Überlegungen zu einer historisch-anthropologischen Untersuchung frühneuzeitlicher deutscher Reisebeschreibungen’, in Hans Jürgen Teuteberg (ed.), Reiseberichte als Quellen europäischer Kulturgeschichte (Wolfenbüttel: Herzog August Bibliothek, 1982), 3–4, 20; Peter J. Brenner, ‘Interkulturelle Hermeneutik. Probleme einer Theorie kulturellen Fremdverstehens’, in Peter Zimmermann (ed.), Interkulturelle Germanistik. Dialog der Kulturen auf Deutsch? (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1989),

24

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39, 50; Arno Borst, Barbaren, Ketzer und Artisten. Welten des Mittelalters (Munich: Piper, 1990), 12; Thorsten Sadowsky, ‘Reiseerfahrung und bürgerliche Mentalität: Das Bild vom josephinischen Wien in den Berichten deutscher Reisender in den Jahren 1780–1790’, Jahrbuch des Vereins für Geschichte der Stadt Wien 47/48 (1992), 229–62; Hubert Orlowski, ‘Die Ideologie des West-Ost-Gefalles und das Fremdheitssyndrom’, in Alois Wierlacher (ed.), Kulturthema Fremdheit. Leitbegriffe und Problemfelder kulturwissenschaftlicher Fremdheitsforschung (Munich: Iudicum, 1993), 463–70; Angela Enders, ‘Stereotyp und Vorurteil. Das Türkenbild westeuropäischer Reisender des 16. Jahrhunderts’, Mitteilungen des Deutschen Germanistenverbandes 42, no. 1 (1995), 37–44; Michael Jeismann, La patrie de l’ennemi. La notion d’ennemi national et la représentation de la nation en Allemagne et en France de 1792 à 1918 (Paris: CNRS, 1997); Herfried Münkler and Bernd Ladwig, ‘Dimensionen der Fremdheit’, in Herfried Münkler and Bernd Ladwig (eds), Furcht und Faszination. Facetten der Fremdheit (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1997), 101; Almut Höfert, ‘The Order of Things and the Discourse of the Turkish Threat’, in Almut Höfert and Armando Salvatore (eds), Between Europe and Islam: Shaping Modernity in a Transcultural Space (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2000), 39–70; Marina Münkler, Erfahrung des Fremden. Die Beschreibung Ostasiens in den Augenzeugenberichten des 13. und 14. Jahrhunderts (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 2000), 147–221; Shingo Shimada, ‘Überlegungen zum Konzept “Asien”’, in Sefik Alp Bahadir (ed.), Kultur und Region im Zeichen der Globalisierung: wohin treiben die Regionalkulturen? (Neustadt an der Aisch: Degener, 2000, 156–57; Volker Scior, Das Eigene und das Fremde: Identität und Fremdheit in den Chroniken Adams von Bremen, Helmolds von Bosau und Arnolds von Lübeck (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2002); Noyan Dinçkal, Istanbul und das Wasser. Zur Geschichte der Wasserversorgung und Abwasserentsorgung von der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts bis 1966 (Munich; R. Oldenbourg, 2004), 101; Gregor Schiemann, ‘Natur – Kultur und ihr Anderes’, in Friedrich Jaeger and Jürgen Straub (eds), Handbuch der Kulturwissenschaften 2 (Stuttgart: Metzler, 2004), 60; David Fraesdorff, Der barbarische Norden: Vorstellungen und Fremdheitskategorien bei Rimbert, Thietmar von Merseburg, Adam von Bremen und Helmold von Bosau (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2005); Sarvepalli Gopal, Living Together Separately: Cultural India in History and Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 147; William O’Reilly, ‘Das Bayernbild Irlands, 1798–1898’, in Konrad Amann (ed.), Bayern und Europa: Festschrift für Peter Claus Hartmann zum 65. Geburtstag (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2005), 197; Jürgen Osterhammel, Europe, the “West” and the Civilizing Mission (London: German Historical Institute, 2006), 7; Arno Herzig, ‘Das Bild vom Juden in der deutschen Historiographie und Staatstheorie von der Reformationszeit bis zum ausgehenden 19. Jarhundert’, in Burghart Schmidt (ed.), Menschenrechte und Menschenbilder von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart (Hamburg: DOBU 2006), 94–110; Tobias Jentsch, Da/zwischen. Eine Typologie radikaler Fremdheit (Heidelberg: Winter, 2006), 21; Arno Strohmeyer, ‘Wahrnehmungen des Fremden’, in Michael Rohrschneider and Arno Strohmeyer (eds), Wahrnehmungen des Fremden Differenzerfahrungen von Diplomaten im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert (Münster: Aschendorff, 2007), 10; Melanie Urban, Kulturkontakt im Zeichen der Minne die Arabel Ulrichs von dem Türlin (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2007), 24; Riccardo Pozzo and Marco Sgarbi, Eine Typologie der Formen der Begriffsgeschichte (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 2010), 104; Noé Cornago, Plural Diplomacies: Normative Predicaments and Functional Imperatives (Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff, 2013); Emmanuel Jousse, ‘Le socialisme sans frontière. Les internationalismes ouvriers de 1864 à 1914’, in Éric Anceau, Raymond Boudon and Olivier Dard (eds), Histoire des internationales (Paris: Nouveau Monde, 2017), 69–98; Markus Winkler, Barbarian: Explorations of a Western Concept in Theory, Literature, and the Arts, vol. I (Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler, 2018), 24–29.   8. John Borneman, ‘American Anthropology as Foreign Policy’, American Anthropologist 97, no. 4 (1995), 663–72; Regina Bendix and Herman Roodenburg, Managing Ethnicity:

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25

Perspectives from Folklore Studies, History and Anthropology (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2000), 162; Nilüfer Göle and Ludwig Ammann, Islam in Public: Turkey, Iran and Europe (Istanbul: Bilgi University Press, 2006), 55–59.   9. Wolfgang Bach, Geschichte als politisches Argument (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1977), 81; Harald Weinrich, Wege der Sprachkultur (Munich: DVA, 1985), 202–3; Ernst-Richard Schwinge, Goethe und die Poesie der Griechen (Mainz: Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, 1986), 20; Stephan Maksymiuk, The Court Magician in Medieval German Romance (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1996), 36; Robert S. Leventhal, ‘The Critique of the Concept: Lessing, Herder, and the Semiology of Historical Semantics’, in Wilfried Malsch, Hans Adler and Wulf Koepke (eds), Herder Yearbook/Herder Jahrbuch 1996 (Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler, 1997), 93, 101; Christoph Sauer, Der ­aufdringliche Text. Sprachpolitik und NS-Ideologie in der ‘Deutschen Zeitung in den Niederlanden’ (Wiesbaden: DUV, 1998), 218; Ulfried Reichardt, Alterität und Geschichte: Funktionen der Sklavereidarstellung im amerikanischen Roman (Heidelberg: Winter, 2001), 39, 47, 60; Zoltán Kenyeres, ‘Ästhetizismus und Ethizismus’, in Maria Erb, Magdolna Orosz und László Tarnói (eds), “Und Thut ein Gnügen Seinem Ambt”: Festschrift für Karl Manherz zum 60. Geburtstag (Budapest: ELTE germanistisches Institut, 2002), 315–22; Karin Liebhart, Elisabeth Menasse and Heinz Steinert, ‘Fremdbilder – Feindbilder  – Zerrbilder. Zur Wahrnehmung und diskursiven Konstruktion des Fremden’, in Karin Liebhart, Elisabeth Menasse and Heinz Steinert (eds), Fremdbilder – Feindbilder – Zerrbilder. Zur Wahrnehmung und diskursiven Konstruktion des Fremden (Klagenfurt: Drava 2002), 10; Christina Parnell, ‘Einleitung’, in Christina Parnell (ed.), Ich und der/ die Andere in der russischen Literatur (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2002), 20; Barbara Sabel, Toleranzdenken in mittelhochdeutscher Literatur (Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert, 2003); Stefan Höppner, Zwischen Utopia und Neuer Welt. Die USA als Imaginationsraum in Arno Schmidts Erzählwerk (Würzburg: Ergon, 2005), 57–58; Walter Schmitz and Мichael Neumann, ‘Schlesische Grenzkämpfe: Zur literarischen Semiotik eines geteilten Landes in den 1920er Jahren’, in Walter Schmitz and Clemens Vollnhals (eds), Völkische Bewegung – Konservative Revolution – Nationalsozialismus – Aspekte einer politisierten Kultur. Kultur und antidemokratische Politik in Deutschland (Dresden: Thelem, 2005), 91–114; Marcel Sturm, Goethes Weg nach Weimar. Zur Kontinuität und Diskontinuität des Sturm und Drang in den Jahren 1770–1790 (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2007), 25; Ruth Florack, Bekannte Fremde: zu Herkunft und Funktion nationaler Stereotype in der Literatur (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2008), 56; Izabela Surynt, ‘“Gottes Freunde”, “Aller Welt Feinde” und Märtyrer der Nation. Zur Figur des Freikorpskämpfers bei Ernst von Salomon’, in Hans Feger et al. (eds), Terror und Erlösung. Robert Musil und der Gewaltdiskurs der Zwischenkriegszeit (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 172; Matheus Torreão Farias, ‘O Jornalismo Mestiço de Gabriel García Márquez’, Estudios de Jornalismo 4 (2015), 120. 10. Stephan Muschick, Für Schweden in Europa. Die diskursive Konstruktion europäischer Gemeinschaft im “Zeitalter des Nationalismus” (1890–1918) (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2001), 76–77; Niels Åkerstrøm Andersen, Discursive Analytical Strategies: Understanding Foucault, Koselleck, Laclau, Luhmann (Bristol: Policy Press, 2003), 48–58; Nathalie Karagiannis, Avoiding Responsibility: The Politics and Discourse of European Development (London: Pluto Press, 2004), 153, 160; Iwona Jakubowska-Branicka, ‘Language as a Tool Creating and Dividing Communities. [The] Dangerous Use of Asymmetric Counterconcepts’, Psychology of Language and Communication 18, no. 1 (2014), 22–40; Ina Shakhrai, ‘The Legitimization of Authoritarian Rule through Constructed External Threats: Russian Propaganda during the Ukrainian Crisis’, East European Quarterly 43, no. 1 (2015), 34–35. 11. Christina Lutter, Politische Kommunikation an der Wende vom Mittelalter zur Neuzeit (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1989), 72–73; Martin Forstner, ‘Das Fremde als Problem

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12.

13.

14.

15.

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der intra- und interkulturellen Kommunikation im Zeitalter der Globalisierung – ­insbesondere der arabisch-islamischen Welt’, in Peter Rusterholz and Rupert Moser (eds), Wie verstehen wir Fremdes? (Bern: Peter Lang, 2005), 11–108. Niklas Luhmann, Soziologische Aufklärung 4 (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1987), 20–21; Diana Wong, ‘Fremdheitsfiguren im gesellschaftlichen Diskurs. Am Beispiel der Asylzuwanderung nach Deutschland’, in Joachim Matthes (ed.), Zwischen den Kulturen?: die Sozialwissenschaften vor dem Problem des Kulturvergleichs (Göttingen: Schwartz, 1992), 405–19; Horst Walter Blanke, Politische Herrschaft und soziale Ungleichheit im Spiegel des Anderen (Kamen: Spenner Verlag, 1997), 34; Maurizio Ricciardi, Ferdinand Tönnies, sociologo hobbesiano. Concetti politici e scienza sociale in Germania tra Otto e Novecento (Bologna: Società editrice il Mulino, 1997), 56; Jurgen Rudolph, Reconstructing Identities: A Social History of the Babas in Singapore (Farnham: Ashgate, 1998), 52–55; Marcel Linden, ‘Heimatliebe, Patriotismus, Internationalismus’, in Wilfried Belschner et al. (eds), Wem gehört die Heimat? (Hamburg: Springer, 1999), 201–7; Elena Esposito, La memoria sociale. Mezzi per comunicare e modi di dimenticare (Bari: Laterza, 2001), 53; Ulrich Beck, Der kosmopolitische Blick, oder, Krieg ist Frieden (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2004), 83, 102; Michael Hinz, Der Zivilisationsprozess: Mythos oder Realität? (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2002), 160–61; Peter von Moos, Öffentliches und Privates, Gemeinsames und Eigenes (Münster: Lit-Verlag, 2005); Harald Müller, ‘“Specimen eruditionis”. Zum Habitus der RenaissanceHumanisten und seiner sozialen Bedeutung’, Beiträge zur Kulturgeschichte der Gelehrten im späten Mittelalter 73 (2010), 137; Nicolò Addario, ‘Il conflitto, dalla lotta di classe ai nuovi movimenti: e poi?’, Riflessioni Sistemiche 4 (2011), 8. Ulrich K. Preuß, Revolution, Fortschritt und Verfassung: Zu einem neuen Verfassungsverständnis (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1994), 100; Gangolf Hübinger, ‘Individuum und Gemeinschaft in der intellektuellen Streitkultur der 1920er Jahre’, in Roman Köster et al. (eds), Das Ideal des schönen Lebens und die Wirklichkeit der Weimarer Republik (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2009), 4; Cornel Zwierlein and Annette Meyer, ‘Einleitung’, in Cornel Zwierlein and Annette Meyer (eds), Machiavellismus in Deutschland (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010), 15; Zoran Oklopcic, ‘Comparing as (Re-) Imagining: Southern Perspective and the World of Constitutions’, in Maxim Bönnemann, Michael Riegner and Philipp Dann (eds), The Global South and Comparative Constitutional Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), 86–109; Elisa Olivito, ‘(Dis)Eguaglianza, città e periferie sociali: la prospettiva costituzionale’, Rivista AIC 1 (2020), 3. Wolfgang Stegemann, ‘Antisemitische und rassistische Vorurteile in Titus 1,10–16’, Kirche und Israel 11, no. 1 (1996), 46–61; Hubert Frankemölle, Jüdische Wurzeln christlicher Theologie (Berlin: Philo, 1998), 27, 325–26; Hansjörg Schmid, Gegner im 1. Johannesbrief? Zu Konstruktion und Selbstreferenz im johanneischen Sinnsystem (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2002), 107; Siegfried Wiedenhofer, ‘Identitätssicherung und Dialogfähigkeit im religiosen Gedächtnis’, in Markus Witte (ed.), ‘Der’ eine Gott und die Welt der Religionen (Würzburg: Religion & Kultur-Verlag, 2003), 318; Anton Cuffari, Judenfeindschaft in Antike und Altem Testament (Berlin: Philos, 2007), 75–77; Matthias Koenig, ‘Religiose Pluralitat und Demokratie in Europa’, in Lidwina Meyer (ed.), Recht, Religion, Politik. Auf dem Weg zu einer Anerkennung des Islam in Deutschland (Loccum: Evangelische Akademie Loccum, 2007), 168; Christoph Schaefer, ‘Judentum und Gnosis? Die Gegnerpolemik im Titusbrief als Element literarischer Konstruktion’, in Hans-Ulrich Weidemann and Wilfried Eisele (eds), Ein Meisterschüler: Titus und sein Brief. Michael Theobald zum 60. Geburtstag (Stuttgart: Verlag Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2008), 67. Hans-Werner Boresch, ‘“Zersetzender Intellektualismus” und “apodiktischer Glaube”. Die Nationalsozialisten in der Tradition des Antirationalismus’, in Brunhilde Sonntag

Introduction

16.

17.

18. 19. 20. 21.

22.

23. 24. 25.

26. 27. 28.

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(ed.), Die dunkle Last. Musik und Nationalsozialismus (Cologne: Bela, 1999), 84–85; Jens Loenhoff, ‘Implizites Wissen und epistemische Praxis’, in Anna Langenbruch et al. (eds), Wissenskulturen der Musikwissenschaft (Bielefeld: transcript, 2016), 120. Dietmar Schirmer, ‘Die Kategorie Geschlecht als kultureller Code. Über Exklusion, Inklusion und Demokratisierung’, in Eva Kreisky and Birgit Sauer (eds), Geschlechterverhältnisse im Kontext politischer Transformation (Hamburg: Springer, 1998), 210; Ina Lelke, ‘Die Berliner Akademie der Wissenschaften und die ‘arbeitende Geselligkeit’, in Theresa Wobbe (ed.), Frauen in Akademie und Wissenschaft: Arbeitsorte und Forschungspraktiken 1700–2000 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2002), 83; Simon Möller, ‘Erst “Emanze” – heute “politisch korrekt”. Mediale Modernisierungsstrategien misogyner Rede’, in Andrea Geier and Ursula Kocher (eds), Wider die Frau: zu Geschichte und Funktion misogyner Rede (Cologne: Böhlau, 2008), 183–206. See Luhmann, Soziologische Aufklärung; Feres Jr, ‘Contribuição a uma tipologia das formas de desrespeito’; Postoutenko and Junge, Asymmetrical Concepts after Reinhart Koselleck; Strohschneider, ‘Fremde in der Vormoderne’; Müller and Schmieder, Begriffsgeschichte und historische Semantik, and the contributions in this volume. See Robert M.W. Dixon, Where Have All the Adjectives Gone? And Other Essays in Semantics and Syntax (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2010), 67. Koselleck, ‘Zur historisch-politischen Semantik asymmetrischer Gegenbegriffe’, 214–15. Koselleck, ‘Zur historisch-politischen Semantik asymmetrischer Gegenbegriffe’, 259. See Koselleck, ‘Zur historisch-politischen Semantik asymmetrischer Gegenbegriffe’, 214–15; Koselleck, ‘Feindbegriffe’, 280–81. It might be of interest that the note on the intimate relations between AC and spatial deixis (‘Ihnen-Außen Abgrenzungen’) was added to the latter text just before it went to print (see the proofs preserved at German Literary Archive (DLA), Marbach, Germany, Reinhart Koselleck Papers). See Jean L. Cohen and Andrew A. Arato, Civil Society and Political Theory (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1994), 201–56; Jan-Friedrich Missfelder, ‘Die Gegenkraft und ihre Geschichte: Carl Schmitt, Reinhart Koselleck und der Bürgerkrieg’, Zeitschrift für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte 58, no. 4 (2006), 310–36; Timo Pankakoski, ‘Conflict, Context, Concreteness: Koselleck and Schmitt on Concepts’, Political Theory 38, no. 6 (2010), 749–79; Niklas Olsen, ‘Carl Schmitt, Reinhart Koselleck and the Foundations of History and Politics’, History of European Ideas 37, no. 2 (2011), 197–208; Niklas Olsen, ‘“Af alle mine lærere har Schmitt været den vigtigste”. Reinhart Kosellecks intellektuelle og personlige relationer til Carl Schmitt’, Historisk Tidsskrift 104, no. 1 (2012), 30–60. John Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy (London: A & C Black, 1920), 137. Baruch Spinoza, Ethica, ordine geometrico demonstrata/Ethik in geometrischer Ordnung dargestellt (Hamburg: Meyner, 1677/2010), 238. See respectively Dimitrij Tschižewskij, ‘Typen der Hegelschen Negation’, in Harald Weinrich (ed.), Positionen der Negativität (Munich: Fink, 1975), 476; Gregory Bateson, ‘Comments’, in Harvey B. Sarles (ed.), Language and Human Nature (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985), 70–71, and Jacques Derrida, Positions (Paris: Minuit, 1972), 56–57, 60. See the discussion Kirill Postoutenko and Olga Sabelfeld, ‘Temporal Comparisons in Parliamentary Interaction: Studying Time References in a Deliberative Environment’, Time and Society 30, no. 4 (2021), 598–618. See Charles E. Frye, ‘Carl Schmitt’s Concept of the Political’, The Journal of Politics 28, no. 4 (1966), 821; Hans Blumenberg, Vollzähligkeit der Sterne (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1997), 346, 348. See, for instance, Suzanne Saïd, ‘Greeks and Barbarians in Euripides’ Tragedies: The End of Differences?’, in Thomas Harrison (ed.), Greeks and Barbarians (Edinburgh:

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29. 30. 31. 32. 33.

34. 35.

36. 37.

38.

39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47.

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Edinburgh University Press, 2002), 99–100; Bernd Neumann, ‘Über die Angst des Vorkriegs’, in Bernd Neumann and Gernot Wimmer (eds), Der Erste Weltkrieg auf dem deutsch-europäischen Literaturfeld (Vienna: Böhlau, 2017), 27. See, for instance, Humberto Maturana and Francesco J. Varela, Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living (Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1980), 79–80. See Ludwig von Bertalanffy, General System Theory (New York: George Braziller Inc., 1969), 41. See, for instance, Leon Chernyak and Alfred I. Tauber, ‘The Dialectical Self: Immunology’s Contribution’, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 129 (1991), 148. See Norbert Elias and John L. Scotson, The Established and the Outsiders (London: Frank Cass & Co., 1965), pp. 144–45. See Robert Hertz, ‘The Pre-eminence of the Right Hand: A Study in Religious Polarity’, in Rodney Needham (ed.), Right and Left: Essays on Dual Symbolic Classification (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973), 13; Kirill Postoutenko, ‘From Asymmetries to Concepts’, in Junge and Postoutenko (eds), Asymmetrical Concepts after Reinhart Koselleck, 220–21. See, for instance, Martin Buber, Das dialogische Prinzip (Gerlingen: Lambert Schneider, 1954/1997), 68. See Ludwig Wittgenstein, ‘Bemerkungen über die Farben’, in Ludwig Wittgenstein, Werkausgabe 8 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 1951/1989), 30; Ernst Tugendhat, Selbstbewusstsein und Selbstbestimmung: Sprachanalytische Interpretationen (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1979), 87; Donald Davidson, Intersubjective, Subjective, Objective (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 38. See Paul Chilton, Analyzing Political Discourse: Theory and Practice (London: Routledge, 2004), 59. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discours sur l’origine et les fondements de l’inégalité parmi les hommes (Paris: Gallimard, 1755/1985), 94. For the modern summary, see Matt Davies, Advances in Stylistics: Oppositions and Ideology in News Discourse (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2014), 93. See George A. Akerlof, ‘The Market for Lemons: Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism’, Quarterly Journal of Economics 84, no. 3 (1970), 489; Postoutenko, Kirill, ‘Asymmetrical Concepts and Political Asymmetries: A Comparative Glance at 20th Century Democracies and Totalitarianisms from a Discursive Standpoint’, in Junge and Postoutenko, Asymmetrical Concepts after Reinhart Koselleck, 94–95. See Ilona Opelt and Wolfgang Speyer, ‘Barbar’, Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum 10 (1967), 257. (Plat. Rep. 5.470); Carl Schmitt, Der Begriff des Politischen (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1963), 29. (Plut. Pyrrh. 16.5). See Ana Kotarcic, Aristotle on Language and Style: The Concept of Lexis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 75. See Koselleck, ‘Feindbegriffe’, 277–78. See Harold Garfinkel, Seeing Sociologically: The Routine Grounds of Social Action (Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2006), 187. See Koselleck, ‘Zur historisch-politischen Semantik asymmetrischer Gegenbegriffe’, 222–23; Virginia J. Hunter, Past and Process in Herodotus and Thucydides (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982), 268. See Mechtild Rössler, ‘Wissenschaft und Lebensraum’. Geographische Ostforschung im Nationalsozialismus (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, 1990), 86. See Laurence R. Horn, A Natural History of Negation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 273.

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48. See Paul J. Alexander, The Byzantine Apocalyptic Tradition (Berkeley, CA: California University Press, 1985), 194; Kirill Postoutenko, ‘Der Antichrist und seine Widersacher’, in Kay Junge et al. (eds), Kippfiguren. Ambivalenz in Bewegung (Weilerswist: Velbrück, 2013), 144–45. 49. See Nikolai S. Trubetskoy, Grundzüge der Phonologie (Prague: Cercle linguistique de Prague, 1939), 63; Roman Jakobson, ‘Verbal Communication’, Scientific American 227 (1972), 78–80. 50. See Horn, A Natural History of Negation, 22. 51. See Jerry Boucher and Charles E. Osgood, ‘The Pollyanna Hypothesis’, Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 8, no. 1 (1969), 1–8; Michael Israel, ‘The Pragmatics of Polarity’, in Laurence Horn and Gregory Ward (eds), Handbook of Pragmatics (New York: Blackwell, 2004), 711. 52. See Juan Luis García-Alonso, ‘“Whoever Is Not Greek Is a Barbarian”’, in Ana Paula Arnaut (ed.), Identity(ies): A Multicultural and Multidisciplinary Approach (Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra, 2017), 9–26. 53. Wilfried Nippel, Griechen, Barbaren und Wilde (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1990), 42. 54. Herbert H. Clark, ‘Word Associations and Linguistic Theory’, in John Lyons (ed.), New Horizons in Linguistics (Baltimore, MD: Penguin, 1970), 275; Joost van de Weijer et al., ‘Antonym Canonicity: Temporal and Contextual Manipulations’, Brain and Language 128, no. 1 (2014), 1–2. 55. See Niklas Luhmann and Peter Fuchs, Reden und Schweigen (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1989), 71; Christiane Fellbaum, ‘Co-occurrence and Antonymy’, International Journal of Lexicography 8, no. 4 (1995), 287; Sebastian J. Crutch et al., ‘The Role of Polarity in Antonym and Synonym Conceptual Knowledge: Evidence from Stroke Aphasia and Multidimensional Ratings of Abstract Words’, Neuropsychologia 50, no. 11 (2012), 2641. 56. See Charles E. Osgood, Lectures on Language Performance (New York: Springer, 1980), 140; Hanna Marczewska, Michal Zagrodzki and Ida Kurcz, ‘Asymmetry of Dimensions in Language Knowledge’, Advances in Psychology 39 (1986), 83; Davies, ‘Advances in Stylistics’, 94. 57. See Nippel, Griechen, Barbaren und Wilde, 27. 58. See Koselleck, ‘Feindbegriffe’, 314. 59. See respectively Bruno Snell (ed.), Heraklit. Fragmente (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1965), 20; Reinhold Rieger, Contradictio. Theorien und Bewertungen des Widerspruchs in der Theologie des Mittelalters (Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 443–44; Herbert Marcuse, Reason and Revolution: Hegel and the Rise of Social Theory (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1960), 10; Ludwig Wittgenstein, ‘Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus’, in Ludwig Wittgenstein, Werkausgabe 1 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 1921/1995), 7–85. 60. See, for instance, Linda R. Waugh, ‘Marked and Unmarked: A Choice between Unequals in Semiotic Structure’, Semiotica 38, no. 3–4 (1982), 305; Edwin L. Batistella, The Logic of Markedness (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 17. 61. See respectively Junius [Rosa Luxemburg], Die Krise der Sozialdemokratie (Zürich: Verlagsdruckerei Union, 1916), 11, and Opelt and Speyer, ‘Barbar’, 263. 62. See: Allan A. Lund, Zum Germanenbild der Römer: eine Einführung in die antike Ethnographie (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1990), 12. 63. Edmund Burke, Political Tracts and Speeches (Dublin: Wm. Wilson, 1777), 354. 64. Leo Tolstoy, Sobranie sochneniï 5 (Моscow: Khudozhestvenna͡ia literatura, 1980), 27. 65. Robin McKie, ‘Far-Right Leader Geert Wilders Calls Moroccan Migrants “Scum”’, The Observer, 18 February 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/18/ geert-wilders-netherlands-describes-immigrants-scum-holland.

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66. See Kirill Postoutenko, ‘Asymmetrical Concepts and Political Asymmetries: A Comparative Glance at 20th Century Democracies and Totalitarianisms from a Discursive Standpoint’, in Junge and Postoutenko, Asymmetrical Concepts after Reinhart Koselleck, 84–85. 67. Koselleck, ‘Zur historisch-politischen Semantik asymmetrischer Gegenbegriffe’, 218. 68. See Jan Assmann, Die Mosaische Unterscheidung oder der Preis des Monotheismus (Munich: Fink, 2003), 47. 69. See Waugh, ‘Marked and Unmarked’, 309–10; Horn, A Natural History of Negation, 36; Edna Andrews, Markedness Theory: The Union of Asymmetry and Semiosis in Language (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1990), 158–59; Israel, ‘The Pragmatics of Polarity’, 708; M. Lynne Murphy and Roberta Piazza, ‘Linguistic Semantics and Historical Semantics’, in Junge and Postoutenko, Asymmetrical Concepts after Reinhart Koselleck, 60–61; Postoutenko, ‘Der Antichrist und seine Widersacher’, 152. 70. See Koselleck, ‘Feindbegriffe’, 276. 71. See Koselleck, ‘Zur historisch-politischen Semantik asymmetrischer Gegenbegriffe’, 218. 72. See Michel de Montaigne, Essais (Paris: PUF, 1595/1965), 83; Strohschneider, ‘Fremde in der Vormoderne’, 404–5. 73. See Winfried Nöth, ‘Symmetries and Asymmetries Between Positive and Negative Emotion Words’, in Wilhelm G. Busse (ed.), Anglistentag 1991 (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1992), 75. 74. See Postoutenko, ‘Asymmetrical Concepts and Political Asymmetries’, 103–5. 75. See Murphy and Piazza, ‘Linguistic Semantics and Historical Semantics’, 55.

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Concepts after Reinhart Koselleck: Historical Semantics and Beyond (Bielefeld: transcript, 2011), 81–114. –––, ‘Der Antichrist und seine Widersacher’, in Kay Junge et al. (eds), Kippfiguren. Ambivalenz in Bewegung (Weilerswist: Velbrück, 2013), 143–53. –––, ‘From Asymmetries to Concepts’, in Kay Junge and Kirill Postoutenko (eds), Asymmetrical Concepts after Reinhart Koselleck: Historical Semantics and Beyond (Bielefeld: transcript, 2011), 195–250. Postoutenko, Kirill, and Olga Sabelfeld, ‘Temporal Comparisons in Parliamentary Interaction: Studying Time References in a Deliberative Environment’, Time and Society 30, no. 4 (2021), forthcoming. Pozzo, Ricardo, and Marco Sgarbi, Eine Typologie der Formen der Begriffsgeschichte (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 2010). Preuß, Ulrich K., Revolution, Fortschritt und Verfassung: Zu einem neuen Verfassungsverständnis (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1994). Reichardt, Ulfried, Alterität und Geschichte: Funktionen der Sklavereidarstellung im amerikanischen Roman (Heidelberg: Winter, 2001). Ricciardi, Maurizio, Ferdinand Tönnies, sociologo hobbesiano. Concetti politici e scienza sociale in Germania tra Otto e Novecento (Bologna: Società editrice il Mulino, 1997). Rieger, Reinhold, Contradictio. Theorien und Bewertungen des Widerspruchs in der Theologie des Mittelalters (Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2005). Rössler, Mechtild, ‘Wissenschaft und Lebensraum.’ Geographische Ostforschung im Nationalsozialismus (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, 1990). Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, Discours sur l’origine et les fondements de l’inégalité parmi les hommes (Paris: Gallimard, 1755/1985). Rudolph, Jurgen, Reconstructing Identities: A Social History of the Babas in Singapore (Farnham: Ashgate, 1998). Sabel, Barbara, Toleranzdenken in mittelhochdeutscher Literatur (Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert, 2003). Sadowsky, Thorsten, ‘Reiseerfahrung und bürgerliche Mentalität: Das Bild vom josephinischen Wien in den Berichten deutscher Reisender in den Jahren 1780–1790’, Jahrbuch des Vereins für Geschichte der Stadt Wien 47/48 (1992), 229–62. Saïd, Suzanne, ’Greeks and Barbarians in Euripides’ Tragedies: The End of Differences?’ in Thomas Harrison (ed.), Greeks and Barbarians (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2002), 62–100. Sánchez León, Pablo, Popular Political Participation and the Democratic Imagination in Spain: From Crowd to People, 1766–1868 (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). Sauer, Christoph, Der aufdringliche Text. Sprachpolitik und NS-Ideologie in der ‘Deutschen Zeitung in den Niederlanden’ (Wiesbaden: DUV, 1998). Schaefer, Christoph, ‘Judentum und Gnosis? Die Gegnerpolemik im Titusbrief als Element literarischer Konstruktion’, in Hans-Ulrich Weidemann and Wilfried Eisele (eds), Ein Meisterschüler: Titus und sein Brief. Michael Theobald zum 60. Geburtstag (Stuttgart: Verlag Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2008), 55–80. Schiemann, Gregor, ‘Natur – Kultur und ihr Anderes’, in Friedrich Jaeger and Jürgen Straub (eds), Handbuch der Kulturwissenschaften 2 (Stuttgart: Metzler, 2004), 60–75.

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Schirmer, Dietmar, ‘Die Kategorie Geschlecht als kultureller Code. Über Exklusion, Inklusion und Demokratisierung’, in Eva Kreisky and Birgit Sauer (eds), Geschlechterverhältnisse im Kontext politischer Transformation (Hamburg: Springer, 1998), 194–219. Schmid, Hansjörg, Gegner im 1. Johannesbrief? Zu Konstruktion und Selbstreferenz im johanneischen Sinnsystem (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2002), 107. Schmitt, Carl, Der Begriff des Politischen (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1963). Schmitz, Walter, and Мichael Neumann, ‘Schlesische Grenzkämpfe: Zur literarischen Semiotik eines geteilten Landes in den 1920er Jahren’, in Walter Schmitz and Clemens Vollnhals (eds), Völkische Bewegung – Konservative Revolution – Nationalsozialismus – Aspekte einer politisierten Kultur. Kultur und antidemokratische Politik in Deutschland (Dresden: Thelem, 2005), 91–114. Schneider, Leander, ‘The Maasai’s New Clothes: A Developmentalist Modernity and Its Exclusions’, Africa Today 53, no. 1 (2006), 101–31. Schwinge, Ernst-Richard, Goethe und die Poesie der Griechen (Mainz: Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, 1986). Scior, Volker, Das Eigene und das Fremde: Identität und Fremdheit in den Chroniken Adams von Bremen, Helmolds von Bosau und Arnolds von Lübeck (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2002). Seidl, Stephanie, and Julia Zimmermann, ‘Jenseits des Kategorischen. Konzeptionen des “Heidnischen” in volkssprachigen literarischen und chronikalischen Texten des 13. Jahrhunderts’, in Michael Borgolte, Julia Dücker and Marcel Müllerburg (eds), Integration und Desintegration der Kulturen im europäischen Mittelalter (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011), 326–81. Shakhrai, Ina, ‘The Legitimization of Authoritarian Rule through Constructed External Threats: Russian Propaganda during the Ukrainian Crisis’, East European Quarterly 43, no. 1 (2015), 29–54. Shimada, Shingo, ‘Überlegungen zum Konzept “Asien”’, in Sefik Alp Bahadir (ed.), Kultur und Region im Zeichen der Globalisierung: wohin treiben die Regionalkulturen? (Neustadt an der Aisch: Degener, 2000), 155–68. Siebert-Ott, Gesa, ‘Sprachliche Homogenität und Kollektive Identität’, in Frank Liedtke, Martin Wengeler and Karin Böke (eds), Begriffe besetzen. Strategien des Sprachgebrauchs in der Politik (Hamburg: Springer, 1991), 355–73. Snell, Bruno (ed.), Heraklit. Fragmente (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1965). Spinoza, Baruch, Ethica, ordine geometrico demonstrata/Ethik in geometrischer Ordnung dargestellt (Hamburg: Meyner, 1677/2010). Stegemann, Wolfgang, ‘Antisemitische und rassistische Vorurteile in Titus 1,­ 10–16’, Kirche und Israel 11, no. 1 (1996), 46–61. Stoddard, Lothrop, The Revolt against Civilization – The Menace of the Underman (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1922). Strohmeyer, Arno, ‘Wahrnehmungen des Fremden’, in Michael Rohrschneider and Arno Strohmeyer (eds), Wahrnehmungen des Fremden Differenzerfahrungen von Diplomaten im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert (Münster: Aschendorff, 2007). Strohschneider, Peter, ‘Fremde in der Vormoderne. Über Negierbarkeitsverluste und Unbekanntheitsgewinne’, in Anja Becker (ed.), Alterität als Leitkonzept für historisches Interpretieren (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 2012), 387–416.

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Struck, Bernhard, ‘Terra Incognita, European Civilization and Colonised Land: Poland in Mid-eighteenth Century to Mid-nineteenth Century German Travel Accounts’, in Hagen Schulz-Forberg (ed.), Unravelling Civilization: European Travel and Travel Writing (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2005), 155–79. Sturm, Marcel, Goethes Weg nach Weimar. Zur Kontinuität und Diskontinuität des Sturm und Drang in den Jahren 1770–1790 (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2007). Surynt, Izabela, ‘“Gottes Freunde”, “Aller Welt Feinde” und Märtyrer der Nation. Zur Figur des Freikorpskämpfers bei Ernst von Salomon’, in Hans Feger et al. (eds), Terror und Erlösung. Robert Musil und der Gewaltdiskurs der Zwischenkriegszeit (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 169–82. Thorup, Mikkel, Fornuftens perversion: modoplysning og 200 ars krig mod fornuftens herredomme (Aarhus: Aarhus Universitetsvorlag, 2008). Tolstoy, Lev, Sobranie sochneniï 5 (Моscow: Khudozhestvenna͡ia literatura, 1980). Torreão Farias, Matheus, ‘O Jornalismo Mestiço de Gabriel García Márquez’, Estudios de Jornalismo 4 (2015), 120–35. Treiber, Hubert, ‘Anmerkungen zu Alfred von Martins (1882–1979) typisierender Betrachtungsweise’, Saeculum 57, no. 1 (2006), 131–60. Trubetskoy, Nikolai S., Grundzüge der Phonologie (Prague: Cercle linguistique de Prague, 1939). Tschižewskij, Dimitrij, ‘Typen der Hegelschen Negation’, in Harald Weinrich (ed.), Positionen der Negativität (Munich: Fink, 1975), 475–76. Tugendhat, Ernst, Selbstbewusstsein und Selbstbestimmung: Sprachanalytische Interpretationen (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1979). Urban, Melanie, Kulturkontakt im Zeichen der Minne die Arabel Ulrichs von dem Türlin (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2007). van de Weijer, Joost, et al., ‘Antonym Canonicity: Temporal and Contextual Manipulations’, Brain and Language 128, no. 1 (2014), 1–8. Ventura, Roberto, ‘“Unsere Vendée.” Der Mythos von der Französischen Revolution und die Konstitution nationalkultureller Identität in Brasilien­ (1897–1902)’, in Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht and Ursula Link-Heer (eds), Epochenschwellen und Epochenstrukturen im Diskurs der Literatur- und Sprachhistorie (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1985), 441–66. von Bertalanffy, Ludwig, General System Theory (New York: George Braziller Inc., 1969). von Moos, Peter, Öffentliches und Privates, Gemeinsames und Eigenes (Münster: LitVerlag, 2005). Waugh, Linda R., ‘Marked and Unmarked: A Choice between Unequals in Semiotic Structure’, Semiotica 38, no. 3–4 (1982), 299–318. Weinrich, Harald, Wege der Sprachkultur (Munich: DVA, 1985). Wiedenhofer, Siegfried, ‘Identitätssicherung und Dialogfähigkeit im religiosen Gedächtnis’, in Markus Witte (ed.), ‘Der’ eine Gott und die Welt der Religionen (Würzburg: Religion & Kultur-Verlag, 2003), 315–30. Winkler, Markus, Barbarian: Explorations of a Western Concept in Theory, Literature, and the Arts, vol. I (Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler, 2018). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, ‘Bemerkungen über die Farben’, in Ludwig Wittgenstein, Werkausgabe 8 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1951/1989), 7–112.

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Wong, Diana, ‘Fremdheitsfiguren im gesellschaftlichen Diskurs. Am Beispiel der Asylzuwanderung nach Deutschland’, in Joachim Matthes (ed.), Zwischen den Kulturen?: die Sozialwissenschaften vor dem Problem des Kulturvergleichs (Göttingen: Schwartz, 1992), 405–19. Zwierlein, Cornel, and Annette Meyer, ‘Einleitung’, in Cornel Zwierlein and Annette Meyer (eds), Machiavellismus in Deutschland (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010), 1–23.

Chapter 1

Treason as Touchstone

Asymmetrical Relations between ‘Heathens’ and ‘Christians’ in Middle High German Epic Literature Paul Paradies

T

he inseparable questions ‘Who are we?’ and ‘Who are we not?’ have been posed for at least as long as there has been writing and they will probably accompany humanity until its full integration or extinction, whichever comes first. To look at how such queries are made and answered from the standpoint of conceptual history, Reinhart Koselleck proposed a notion of ‘asymmetrical counter-concepts’ whereby some terms applied by their utterers to themselves and shared by others – Hellenes, Christians or Humans/Super-Humans – are linked to the terms applied to others without their consent (respectively barbarians, heathens and under-humans/non-humans).1 In many ways, Koselleck’s cursory and somewhat hurried glance at the subject inevitably passes over certain small but important details. Thus, despite the obvious and documented reliance of Koselleck’s scheme on Carl Schmitt’s dichotomy ‘friends vs foes’, he fails to mention that this is reversible by default (I call you ‘foe’ ≈ you call me ‘foe’), whereas its ostensive derivative Hellenes vs barbarians is not. The fact that some oppositions engendered by conceptual pairs are gradable also eluded Koselleck. So it comes as little surprise that many areas of public discourse have not made it into his short essay. This ­chapter is aimed at filling one such gap, testing Koselleck’s methodology on three medieval German epics – Nibelungenlied (Song of Nibelungs, c. 1200), Rolandslied (Song of Roland, c. 1170) and Alexanderlied (Song of Alexander, c. 1140–50). Since these works were written at a time when religion was of great significance, the most relevant asymmetrical counter-concept among the examples given by Koselleck is Christians vs heathens. Relying upon the portrayals of the main characters (with

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a particular emphasis on descriptive collocations), this chapter seeks to find out whether these terms are used in the three epic texts as asymmetrical counter-concepts. If we are to believe Koselleck’s account of a continuous history of this conceptual asymmetry across the ages, then surely it should feature prominently in the texts under investigation: otherwise, his sweeping generalizations should be qualified. The logical next step would be to summarize those findings of Koselleck’s that are relevant to the present study and touch upon their reception in modern scholarship, paying particular attention to studies of medieval German epics from the perspective of conceptual history. According to Koselleck, for the ancient Greeks, the term ‘Hellene’ stood for culture, learning and civilization, while ‘barbarian’ served as the antithesis of all that and was identified with savagery, violence, and destruction. In the Greco-Persian Wars, both sides were comparable empires, but when they are described from a Greek, Roman or neoclassical perspective, the asymmetry of counter-concepts becomes obvious. Having evolved over time, influenced by sociopolitical developments and variously shaped in spoken and written discourse, the opposition was supplanted by the contradistinction between Christians and heathens sometime after the founding of the Roman Empire. The transition was gradual, though: at first, the self-position, directed against ‘Romans’/‘Greeks’/‘barbarians’, was that of the undifferentiated ‘Judeo-Christianity’, but later its two parts separated. After the adoption of the Christian faith as the Roman religion, the counter-concepts were defined geographically: Christianity became an attribute of Rome and heathendom reigned outside of empire. Later on, the incursions of the Goths, Vandals and other tribes robbed Romans of their dominant position in the Mediterranean, the Middle East and Europe, and the area covered by the Christian self-reference shrank accordingly. As for the opposite pole of the conceptual asymmetry, the reference of ‘heathens’ shifted to Muslims in the Middle Ages, due in no small part to the influence of the Crusades. The authors of the collective volume Asymmetrical Concepts after Reinhart Koselleck, which covers linguistics, cultural sociology, international relations and communication studies, seem to agree that studies of asymmetrical counter-concepts have not been widespread, to say the least, in any of the mentioned fields.2 The history of medieval epics is no exception, with just a couple of texts to rely upon. Stephanie Seidl applies the theory of counter-concepts to the narratives of the Chanson de Roland and Rolandslied in an attempt to find out how specific counter-concepts could be interpreted in the light of the story as a whole and whether the conceptual binary Christians/heathens highlighted by Koselleck in relation

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43

to the whole of European cultural history features in the two specific narratives as prominently as the ternary opposition she herself came up with, which is ‘hero’ vs ‘saint’ vs ‘martyr’.3 (Brief summaries of the plots of Rolandslied and Chanson de Roland can be found below in the section about Rolandslied.) Roland, the protagonist of the story, and (to a lesser degree) Charlemagne both possess Christian heroic and saintly properties, a conflation that comes as no surprise, since the alternative combination of concepts – a heavenly saint – had never been contemplated in medieval literature or Christian theology. In fact, Seidl limits herself to just two sections of each text, concerning, respectively, the structure and equipment of ‘Christian’ and ‘heathen’ armies, and Roland’s refusal to blow his horn to signal to the main regiment of his army to save him. The comparison presents the French version as more appreciative of the heathen characters and less prone to flaunting the religious virtues of its protagonists: for instance, Roland’s aforementioned readiness to die at the hands of his enemies is described in the French version with a reference to his knightly honour, whereas in the German version he is depicted as martyring himself for his faith. For these reasons, Seidl concludes, the asymmetry Christians vs heathens is more pronounced in Rolandslied than in Chanson de Roland. In 2011, she continued (together with Julia Zimmermann) her study of the same counter-concepts in medieval texts, taking a close look at Rudolf von Ems’s Alexanderroman (1254) and Jans Enikel’s Weltchronik (c. 1276).4 The conclusions of the study highlighted the impossibility of subsuming the references to Christians and heathens in the texts under the auspices of a counter-conceptual pair in Koselleck’s sense; moreover, the authors doubted the very existence of holistic notions underpinning both terms in medieval vernacular epics. Given the limited scale of the two studies, it seemed necessary to verify and develop their findings in a larger context, using a linguistically sound and technologically up-todate quantitative methodology. In addition to Rolandslied, which has already been analysed, albeit partially, by Seidl, the corpus of the present study also includes the full texts of Nibelungenlied and Alexanderlied: all three epic texts were written in the same time frame and could be said to be representative of the period and genre. With the help of the TextSTAT search engine, the collocations of the main characters, allowing for their assignment to the ‘Christian’ or ‘heathen’ semantic fields, were isolated, counted and compared within and between the three texts. (To assure the reliability of the automatic keyword analysis in a context characterized by frequent spelling variations, selected passages were analysed both manually and digitally; the subsequent comparison yielded no detectable differences.) The results are summarized in tables 1.1–1.3, with columns

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presenting the poems’ main protagonists and lines listing standardized features of Christianity and heathenism attributed to them. Since few collocations  had unambiguous  ‘Christian’ or ‘heathen’ semantics, the alternative hypothesis, assigning them to the feudal roles prevalent in the Middle  Ages, was brought  into play to assess the strength of the asymmetrical concepts  stressed by Koselleck in relation to other nonbinary and non-asymmetrical conceptual oppositions embedded in all three narratives. Before discussing the findings arising from the Song of Roland, it is worth recalling its plot. Charlemagne’s army is fighting in Spain against the ­heathen king Marsilie, who deceptively offers his mighty opponent peace  and a promise to convert to Christianity. Genelun, a vassal of Charlemagne and the stepfather of Roland (who suggested him for the job), is sent as an ambassador to Marsilie. Fearing sedition from Roland, he himself betrays the Christian army to Marsilie, empowering the latter to ambush the troops under Roland’s command. Roland, as has been mentioned before, can blow his horn to request help from the main regiment but chooses to do so only after being mortally wounded. Charlemagne, with the bulk of Christian forces, arrives and defeats the heathen kings Marsilie and Paligan. Genelun is found guilty of treason and executed. Upon reading Rolandslied, it becomes immediately apparent that it is highly religious in nature: compared to the two other epic texts analysed, it abounds with words like ‘haiden’ (heathen), ‘got’ (god) and ‘christen’ (Christian), which occur in the text 231, 154 and 159 times respectively. The allocation of these epithets and their paronyms to Roland, Charlemagne (Karl) and Olivier (fighting on the Christian side) and Marsilie, Paligan and Genelun (representing the Muslim combatants) is presented in table 1.1. As is apparent in the table, Roland, the epic’s namesake, unsur­ prisingly garners most of the descriptive attention as far as relevant ­collocations are concerned. In contrast, Charlemagne’s collocational record is quite short. Even more surprisingly, the most frequent epithet applied to him, ‘riche’, meaning lordly, rich or bountiful, clearly defines him as a feudal lord rather than a spiritual leader. The literal meaning plays a secondary role here: as nobles in their own right, Roland and Oliver are not poor, but, similar to Charlemagne, they can only be called ‘riche’ in the context of their subordinates. Furthermore, Charlemagne’s collocations are evidently confined to his supreme social status (eleven relevant collocations altogether), whereas collocational references to his leadership of the crusade are conspicuously

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Table 1.1. Characters’ collocations in the Song of Roland. Collocation

Olivier

der Snelle

2

der Helt

9

der König der Wigant

Karl

Roland

Genelun Marsilie

23

2

2 2

Paligan

24

15

8

5

2

Her(e)

6

2

Christ

1

1

der Mare

1

der Milte

1

der Degen

2

der riche

5

der Kaiser

3

der Heiden

1

wise

1

chuone

1

absent. Even more puzzlingly, these results liken the Christian king to his heathen ­antagonists Marsilie and Paligan: only Marsilie is ­explicitly branded as heathen – and that only once. Judging from the quantitative data presented above, both Charlemagne and his adver­ saries are predominantly characterized as non-fighting kings – lords largely free from combative or religious zeal. (To complete the symmetry along royal lines and across the religious divide, Marsilie and Paligan, too, should have been collocated with ‘riche’ – but they are not.) A further stunning result is the extreme scarcity of Christian collocations in this story that revolves around martyrdom and the ­depiction of bloody battles with heathen armies: both Charlemagne and Roland are collocated as ‘Christians’ once and that is all. At this point, one is torn between two possible conclusions: either the protagonists’ Christianity and lack thereof are expressed in Rolandslied using means other than collocation (for example, descriptions of prayers and dialogues) or the opposition ‘Christians’ vs ‘heathens’ is not as important for the storyline as the less specific (and more context-bound) distinction between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ guys. Most likely, there is some truth in both hypotheses, which puts a sizable question mark over the ‘claims to universality’ attributed by Koselleck to his favourite ­conceptual asymmetries.

Paul Paradies

46

Perhaps some light can be shed on this matter by a close examination of the in-between character of Genelun. In his work on representations of feudal relations in medieval literature, Michael Heintze devoted a full chapter to traitors; this was mainly based on the depictions of Genelun in Rolandslied and Chanson de Roland.5 In Heintze’s words, ‘a characteristic of the traitors in the earlier chansons de geste is their willingness to cooperate with the archenemies of Christianity’. Other less tautological characterizations of the traitors’ images mentioned in the study are their individualism and artistic blandness: however, Genelun is treated as an exception because of his centrality to the plot. The combination of this significance with a unique position occupied by Genelun in relation to the dogmas of Christian goodness and heathen badness so prominent at the song’s outset turns him into an extremely valuable asset for collocational analysis. However, this narrative centrality has little bearing upon the collocational record of the traitor, which, as can be seen in table 1.1, is extremely scant compared to the other main personages of Rolandslied. Moreover, those few fixed collocations that do appear in conjunction with Genelun unanimously portray him in favourable light: called wise (wise) and brave (chuone) and twice hailed as a hero (helt), Genelun’s name is never compromised by any pejorative collocations. To be sure, in Rolandslied, there are three intimations about Genelun being possessed by the devil (2853–58, 8729–34) and three allusions to his betrayal (5243, 6080, 8828), but none of these characterizations takes the form of fixed formulas. The same can be said of the affinity between Ganelun and heathens, which becomes apparent if one juxtaposes Seidl’s example of a general anti-heathen diatribe in Rolandslied (1) and the rather similar portrayal of Genelun (2):6 (1) baidiu golt unt gestaine Both gold and gemstones scain uon den Haiden shone from the heathens sam di sternen unter den wolchen . . . like the stars through the clouds . . . si furten groz uber muot: Their bearing was full of pride du nist nimenne guot which becomes no-one si geliget ie nidere; they (the proud) will always be  struck down der richtare da ze himele (by) the judge in the heavens.  (3353–55, 3361–63) (2) Genelun was michel unde lussam muse sine nature began. michel boumes schone machet dicke hoene er dunchet uzzen gruone

Genelun was strong and beautiful he must follow his nature. Many tree’s beauty is very deceptive if it appears to be green on the outside

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so ist er innen duorre; the inside will be dessicated. so man in nieder meizzet, If it is cut down, so ist er wuormbeizech, the worms (vermin) inside will  show, er ist innen uuol und uoble getan. it is rotten inside. daz bezeichenet den man. In this way the man (Genelun) is  described der uzen wole redet who speaks fair words unde ualvsches in deme herzen and carries falsehood in his heart.  phleget. er dunchet uzen uol, From the outside he appears to be  good, sin muot ist innen hol: his conscience however is  hollow: den hat de wurm gehechet (1960–75) he has been bitten by the worm  (devil).

Various kinds of quantitative and qualitative evidence, presented above, seem to disprove the hypothesis that Rolandslied is a carrier of the asymmetrical counter-concepts ‘Christians’ and ‘heathens’, whose pervasiveness in European culture has been suggested by Koselleck. The asymmetry does not seem to hold because the identities unilaterally ascribed by the narrator to his ostensible adversaries fail to exhibit any negative consistency whatsoever. The heathen kings are not associated with evil, cruelty or other negative traits in a way that sets them apart from their Christian counterparts: they are portrayed as enemies because that is what aliens are in the war and this compulsive adversity does not appear to be corroborated by any personal or group traits. The borderline figure of Genelun is placed on the crossroads between positive fixed collocations consistent with his Christian origins and negative characterizations circumstantially (with the devil’s help) linking him to heathens, but this contradiction is neither resolved nor even seriously reflected upon. In contrast, the collocations affirming the might of Christian and heathen kings exhibit abundance and consistency across the religious and military divide. In short, collocation analysis of the concepts ‘Christian’ and ‘heathen’ (together with their derivatives) fails to uncover in Rolandslied the antithetical and asymmetrical structure ascribed to this conceptual pair by Koselleck. This casts doubt on the scholarly validity of collocational comparisons for conceptual history and, more importantly, subjects the ‘claims to universality’ detected by Koselleck in the uses of asymmetrical counter-concepts to serious qualifications. According to Jan-Dirk Müller, Nibelungenlied was first published around the end of the twelfth century – at the same time and within the same

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Christian culture as Rolands- and Alexanderlied. Compared to most other medieval epic texts, this long poem (23,764 verses) is almost modern in its complexity.7 The story, whose origins go back to the oral versions of the Icelandic Edda, takes place in the late fourth to early fifth centuries. Having previously slain the dragon and conquered Nibelungs, Siegfried sets out to marry Kriemhild, a princess of the Burgunds (an ancient tribe that should not be confused with the inhabitants of modern-day Burgundy in France). Upon arrival at the Burgundian court, he first has to help the king Gunther in his quest to secure the hand of Prunhild, the Queen of Iceland. On the way to this marriage, Siegfried, Gunther, Kriemhild and Prunhild become entangled in a web of conflicting interests, resulting in envy, the murder of Siegfried, revenge and ultimately the decimation of the Burgundian army at the hands of the Hun king Etzel (Atilla ‘the Hun’). In the context of the study of the asymmetrical counter-concepts in question, Nibelungenlied represents particularly fertile ground as it features all kinds of conflicts and alliances between the main protagonists, portraying nearly every imaginable combination of conflicts and alliances related to the plot, social hierarchy and religion. As in the analysis of the Alexanderlied, we project collocations of the references to the main characters onto the global counter-conceptual asymmetry between Christians and heathens, its more context-based (but less clear-cut) variation ‘saints’ vs ‘heroes’, suggested by Seidl,8 and the added socio-narrative opposition between ‘kings’ and ‘fighters’. The material for analysis is drawn from the so-called B version of Nibelungenlied from the Sankt-Gallen manuscript, which is the most complete account of the song that has survived. Table 1.2 presents the collocations of male characters in the song. Like the results obtained for Rolandslied, the table confirms the validity of feudal hierarchies in medieval epics. In particular, the categories of ‘king’ and ‘hero’ suggested by Seidl feature prominently in Nibelungslied: both Gunther and Etzel are described as bountiful (milt(e)) and kings (chvnech); the former adjective is a part of the feudal tradition whereby a lord, in exchange for his vassals’ support, would donate or redistribute wealth between them, the typical currency being horses, clothes and money, or food and drink if he were hosting a banquet.9 Siegfried is described as ‘milte’ only once – perhaps because he is a lower kind of king than Gunther, never portrayed as receiving foreign dignitaries; he is only to be found at Gunther’s court, where he is a guest. His parents Siegmund and Sieghilde, upon receiving Burgundian ambassadors, do provide them with cloth and riches, so logically Siegfried should be considered as much of a king as they are king and queen. It is interesting, though, that the kingly descriptor ‘chvnech’ is completely lacking. However, Siegfried is

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Table 1.2. Male characters’ collocations in the Song of Nibelungs. Collocation Chûne chvnech

Gunther 2

Hagen

Siegfried

13

23 7

46

1 31

Degen

6

10

grimme

1

10

Heide

3

Helt her(re)

1

Milt

1

Recke

4

Riche

35

Riter

2

3

2

2

41 1

5

8 1

20

1

1

3

starche

5

21

ûbermûte

6

2

3

2

4

Snelle

minneclîch

Etzel

6

Note: The bishop Turpin has not been included in the table of collocations, as he is mainly characterized as ‘bishop’ and only once as ‘hero’, which does not add much to the analysis.

often described as ‘her(re)’ (lord, or high person), whereas Gunther earns this distinction in Nibelungslied only once and Etzel is not identified as such at all. Still, all three kings, especially Gunther and Etzel, are described as rich/powerful (riche). While this intricate hierarchy is an interesting topic in itself, its significance for this study lies in the absence of any correlation with the religious affiliation of the protagonists in question: rather, it is Hagen, the Marshal of the Burgunds, who is distinguished from the crowd of Christian and Heathen rulers with his own epitheton ornans ‘der grimme’ (a hardy/cruel fighter). As in Rolandslied, the storyline plays significant role in determining collocational choices: for instance, Etzel is never physically present at anybody’s court or on the battlefield and so it comes as little surprise that only his regal aspects are emphasized. Inversely, Hagen, as a fighter, is not kingly but strong (starch) and a hero (helt), and Siegfried seems to combine royal and military merits. In their turn, Gunther and Siegfried, as the only romantically involved male protagonists, are described as loveable (minneclîch), unlike the other three men in Nibelungslied. Again, the only conceptual distinction that

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is conspicuous by its almost complete absence is the ostensibly ubiquitous difference between Christians and heathens: the latter term (Heide) shows up once in the description of Etzel, but nothing in this matterof-fact reference suggests any negativity; after all, Princess Kriemhild takes Etzel for a husband, which implies their positive equality (hardly possible in real life). Contrariwise, neither Siegfried not the Burgunds are described as being particularly devout, or even Christian at all: from time to time, they do attend weddings in churches, but otherwise neither the plot of the poem nor the respective collocations reveal any attachment to Christianity. Given the deeply religious atmosphere of the period in which Nibelungenlied was written, the absence of the concept of Christianity in thousands of the poem’s verses attests to its unimportance for the given text. Presenting the collocations of female characters in Nibelungenlied, table 1.3 attests to the unusually powerful (for the twelfth century) presence of women in the poem: Prunhild even dons armour and takes part in martial games. Kriemhild is not as masculine, but she makes up for that by instigating a war between two peoples in order to avenge her husband’s murder. Like the male protagonists, both women in Nibelungenlied meet the requirements for royalty, each being called a lady (frou), a queen  (chvnechinne) and bountiful (milt). Another significant collocation is the description of Prunhild as strong (starch) and hybristic (ûbermûte), made in the context of the trial faced by prospective husbands – a

Table 1.3. Female characters’ collocations in the Song of Nibelungs. Collocation

Brunhild

Kriemhild

schone

11

14

rîche

5

8

frou

22

37

2

2

chvnechinne meit

9

12

edel

1

5

starch

2

ûbermûte

1

minneclich

7

starch

2

milt

1

8 2

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series of physical tests in which they had to beat her or die. Having displayed impeccable princely and combat credentials, neither Prunhild nor Kriemhild are described as devout or even observant. In fact, when the Christian Kriemhild marries the heathen Etzel, neither party undergoes religious conversion: the expectations of a conflict or at least a debatable issue are eclipsed by utter irrelevance of religious notions. Having reviewed both male and female protagonists in Nibelungenlied, one is forced to admit that, unlike distinctions proposed by Seidl, the opposition between Christianity and heathenism is neither present on a conceptual level nor otherwise discernible.10 This confirms the suspicion that the conceptual asymmetry ‘Christian’ vs ‘heathen’, to which Koselleck11 attributed such universal significance, may be completely absent even in texts featuring antagonistic relations between representatives of the two religions. In the case of the Song of Nibelungs, this is even more evident because, unlike in Rolandslied, the topic of Christianity is also non-existent outside of the collocational field. The last epic poem discussed in the article – the Song of Alexander – had, like Rolandslied, a French precursor: a tale about Alexander the Great called Roman d’Alexandre, which the author of the German version – a priest (Pfaffe) named Lamprecht – interpreted quite freely. To be sure, the exploits of Alexander (who, in 334 bc, left his native Macedonia – then Greece – to embark on a conquest of what are now Turkey, Syria and Afghanistan, all the way up to the Khyber Pass, Egypt and Israel/ Palestine) took place during the time in which the first pair of asymmetrical counter-concepts studied by Koselleck – namely, Hellenes vs Barbarians – was still in effect. However, the period in which Alexanderlied was written falls, in Koselleck’s terms, under the spell of his second featured conceptual pair – Christians vs heathens – which makes for an interesting juxtaposition of the narrative and historical time frames. For the analysis, the ‘Strassburger’ version of the Alexanderlied was used: written at the same time as the two other epic texts analysed, it is also remarkable in that it recounts Alexander’s life in its entirety and features two traitors, which, like Genelun in the Rolandslied and the even more ambiguous Hagen in the Nibelungenlied, provide an analytically useful shade of grey in the spectrum of characters. Given that the short (356 and 323 bc) life of Alexander the Great unfolded well before Christ, his prominence as a literary figure in the Middle Ages is rather surprising. Grappling with this riddle, Christoph Mackert proposes three ways of looking at the Alexanderlied.12 Firstly, it can be read as a criticism of all things heathen, which he calls ‘the vanitasbased interpretation’. The second possibility mentioned by Mackert is

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the teleology leading to salvation, which treats events before Christ as his necessary antecedents. Finally, he links the possible popularity of Alexanderlied during the medieval period to its relative lack of religious zeal; this is probably the hypothesis that can guide the analysis of the song in the light of its asymmetrical counter-concepts. Despite the chronology and subject matter of Alexanderlied not really being conducive to the use of such asymmetrical counter-concepts as Christians and heathens, there are a handful of remarks that shed some light on the moderately Christian bent of this epic. Such references, however, are nearly always indirect or circumstantial. A couple of times, the narrator’s religious affiliation is indicated negatively – for instance, in verses 2304–6, in which the ‘Christian’ time of the narrator is linked to the ‘heathen’ past of Corinth – ‘Chorinthia was ein michel stat, / di bekarte von der heidenscaf / dar nâh sanctus Paulus’ (Corinth was a large/great city, / which was [afterwards] converted from heathendom / . . . (by) saint Paul). In a similar vein, the opening verses about Alexander’s birth and youth mention King Salomon, who, having been informed of Alexander’s many virtues, bitterly remarks: ‘Man mûstin wol ûz scheiden, / wande  Alexander was ein heiden’ (81–82) (One thing should be mentioned [though] / . . . Alexander was a heathen). Another somewhat metonymic self-ascription of Christianity practised in Alexanderlied is the quotations from (and allusions to) the Old Testament, such as verses 23–24, ‘vanitatum vanitas / et omnia vanitas’ (Vanity of vanities, all is vanity), referring to Ecclesiastes 1:2, or the depiction of Alexander’s birth with a sun standing still in the sky (verses 125–38), which is reminiscent of Joshua 10:13. These convoluted professions of faith suggest the possibility of discussing the asymmetrical counter-concepts ‘Christian’ and ‘heathen’ in a poem that is largely devoid of explicit references to Christianity. As far as collocational analysis of the poem is concerned, Alexander is its only full-blown character with a sizable number of collocations. Unsurprisingly in light of the earlier data, the references to Alexander’s supreme social status, such as lord (Herr, nine times), rich (reich, nine times), king (König, eight times) and hero (Held, seven times), predominate. It is interesting to note the single appearance of a clearly Christian epithet ‘merciful’ (gnadenvoll), which only occurs in Rolandslied when an enemy undergoes conversion to Christianity, and is entirely absent in Nibelungenlied. In Alexanderlied, by contrast, it is used by Darios III as a part of his plea that the two traitors Bysan and Arbazan be forgiven. At the end, having both excelled militarily and shown kindness to the lost souls, Alexander is a hero – royal and strong, and even merciful in one instance, which supports Mackert’s opinion about the marginality of

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Christian motivation in Alexanderlied. The fact that the Song of Alexander is a narrative whose heathen protagonist is described by a Christian writer does not set it apart from Nibelungenlied or Rolandslied, which are marked no such discrepancies: all of the main positive figures in the three poems display the same royal and military virtues, with a sprinkling of misericordia, regardless of their confessional affiliation. Once again, the prevalence of the asymmetrical counter-conceptual pair Christian vs heathen in the medieval epics looks highly doubtful, despite the unquestionable adherence of all three narrators to the religion of Christ. In the Netherlands, my home country, being a German scholar demands explanation: for the most people, devoting considerable time and effort to the study of a language they used to loath at high school is unimaginable. The same sort of skepticism could surely be roused in relation to the use of asymmetrical counter-concepts as an analytical tool, particularly after their rather disappointing performance in the material analysed above and given the general uncertainty about their origins. Another reading of this failure to inscribe Rolandslied, Nibelungenlied and Alexanderlied into Koselleck’s straight and elegant narrative could highlight the possibility of qualifying the uses of the conceptual asymmetries he considered universal and searching for other relevant ­counter-concepts that were overlooked in his universalistic zeal. With the seemingly perpetual Middle Eastern and African crises and resulting migratory movements, not to mention intra-European migration towards economically and culturally favourable locations, the pervasiveness of the conceptual asymmetry Europeans vs ? is unavoidable, and it might be too optimistic to conclude that the place occupied by the question mark would always be occupied in public discourse by terms that are analytically superior to ‘barbarians’ or ‘heathens’. In any case, as a part of the human condition, we will always need to answer the question(s), ‘Who are we? Who are we not?’, and Koselleck is probably right to link these primary self- and other-identifications to the development of asymmetrical counter-concepts.13 Paul Paradies studied at the University of Utrecht, where he obtained a BA in First Language Acquisition and another BA in Middle High German Literature in 2009. Other interests include Middle High German epic literature and the development of human, animal and artificial cognition. Since 2014, he has been involved with the Student Starcraft AI Tournament, organized by Czech Technical University in Prague and Comenius University, Bratislava.

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Notes  1. Reinhart Koselleck, ‘Zur Historisch-Politischen Semantik Asymmetrischer Gegenbegriffe’, Vergangene Zukunft (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1979), 211–59; Reinhart Koselleck, ‘The Historical-Political Semantics of Asymmetric Counterconcepts’, in Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time, trans. Keith Tribe (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1985), 155–91.  2. Kay Junge and Kirill Postoutenko, Asymmetrical Concepts after Reinhart Koselleck: Historical Semantics and Beyond (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2011).  3. Stephanie Seidl, ‘Narrative Ungleichheiten. Heiden und Christen, Helden und Heilige in der Chanson de Roland und im Rolandslied des Pfaffen Konrad’, in Wolfgang Haubrichs and Uta Goerlitz (eds), Integration oder Desintegration? Heiden und Christen im Mittelalter (Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler, 2009), 46–64.  4. Stephanie Seidl and Julia Zimmerman, ‘Jenseits des Kategorischen’, in Michael Borgolte and others (eds), Integration und Desintegration der Kulturen im europäischen Mittelalter (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2011), 325–82.  5. Michael Heintze, König, Held und Sippe: Untersuchungen zur Chanson de geste des 13. und 14. Jahrhunderts und ihrer Zykelnbildung (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 1991).  6. Seidl, ‘Narrative Ungleichheiten’.  7. Jan-Dirk Müller, Spielregeln für den Untergang die Welt des Nibelungenliedes (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2010).  8. Seidl, ‘Narrative Ungleichheiten’; Seidl and Zimmerman, ‘Jenseits des Kategorischen’.  9. Seidl, ‘Narrative Ungleichheiten’. 10. Seidl, ‘Narrative Ungleichheiten’. 11. Koselleck, ‘Zur Historisch-Politischen Semantik Asymmetrischer Gegenbegriffe’. 12. Christoph Mackert, ‘Die Alexandergeschichte in der Version des “Pfaffen” Lambrecht: die frühmittehochdeutsche Bearbeitung der Alexanderdichtung des Alberich von Bisinzo und die Anfänge weltlicher Schriftepi in deutscher Sprache’, Beihefte zu Poetica (1999). 13. Koselleck, ‘Zur Historisch-Politischen Semantik Asymmetrischer Gegenbegriffe’.

References Heintze, Michael, König, Held und Sippe: Untersuchungen zur Chanson de geste des 13. und 14. Jahrhunderts und ihrer Zykelnbildung (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 1991). Hüning, Matthias, Textstat, software retrieved 1 June 2017 from http://neon. niederlandistik.fu-berlin.de/textstat/. Junge, Kay, and Kirill Postoutenko (eds), Asymmetrical Concepts after Reinhart Koselleck: Historical Semantics and Beyond, Histoire (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2011). Kinzel, Karl (ed.), The Alexanderlied by Priest Lamprecht (Halle, 1884). Digital version courtesy of the universities of Florence and Pavia, retrieved 5 August 2016 from http://scrineum.unipv.it/wight/alexsv.htm. Koselleck, Reinhart, ‘The Historical-Political Semantics of Asymmetric Counterconcepts’, in Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time, trans. Keith Tribe (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1985), 155–91.

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–––, ‘Zur Historisch-Politischen Semantik Asymmetrischer Gegenbegriffe’, in Vergangene Zukunft (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1979), 211–59. Mackert, Christoph, ‘Die Alexandergeschichte in der Version des “Pfaffen” Lambrecht: die frühmittehochdeutsche Bearbeitung der Alexanderdichtung des Alberich von Bisinzo und die Anfänge weltlicher Schriftepi in deutscher Sprache’, Beihefte zu Poetica (1999). Müller, Jan-Dirk, Spielregeln für den Untergang die Welt des Nibelungenliedes (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2010). Reichert, Hermann (ed.), Das Nibelungenlied, digital version courtesy of the University of Vienna, Institut für Germanistik, retrieved 7 August 2016 from http://germanistik.univie.ac.at/fileadmin/user_upload/inst_germanistik/ NibHsBReichert.doc. Seidl, Stephanie, ‘Narrative Ungleichheiten. Heiden und Christen, Helden und Heilige in der Chanson de Roland und im Rolandslied des Pfaffen Konrad’, in Wolfgang Haubrichs and Uta Goerlitz (eds), Integration oder Desintegration? Heiden und Christen im Mittelalter (Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler, 2009), 46–64. Seidl, Stephanie, and Julia Zimmerman, ‘Jenseits des Kategorischen’, in Michael Borgolte et al. (eds), Integration und Desintegration der Kulturen im europäischen Mittelalter (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2011), 325–82. Wesle, Carl (ed.), ‘Das Rolandslied des Pfaffen Konrad’, Rheinische Beiträge und Hülfsbücher zur germanischen Philologie und Volkskunde 15, 1928. Digital edition courtesy of the University of Augsburg, retrieved 7 August 2016 from http:// digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/cpg112.

Chapter 2

‘Blond Flowing Hair’, ‘Tumid Lips’, ‘Rigid Posture’ and ‘Choleric Temperament’ Universal Aspirations and Racial Asymmetries in Linnaeus’s Descriptions of Homo Sapiens Monica Libell La Nature est encore à l’ouvrage.

—Jean-Baptiste Robinet, De la nature

Introduction

R

einhart Koselleck’s theories of Begriffsgeschichte have received considerable attention in many fields of scholarship. But only recently have historians of science and epistemology, often inspired by the work of Georges Canguilhelm and Gaston Bachelard, taken a greater interest in Begriffsgeschichte.1 Part of the reason might be Koselleck’s own differentiation between political and natural scientific language. In Futures Past, Koselleck claims that asymmetrical counter-concepts, defined by criteria that render them unequally antithetical, only allow for the counter-­position to be negative. Since the negations lack positive characteristics, they cannot be investigated scientifically. Backed by Immanuel Kant’s thought that dividing the world into pairs does not lead to specific concepts, Koselleck concludes that counter-concepts are ‘politically efficient, but unsuitable for natural scientific knowledge’.2 Consequently, he focuses on social and political language and excludes language of the natural sciences.3 To complicate things further, Koselleck does not provide adequate definitions of either science or asymmetrical counter-concepts. Remedying these deficits is outside the scope of this chapter, but providing some working definitions of both is hardly

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avoidable. Following Kay Junge’s understanding of ‘asymmetry’ as the difference in power and status between at least two parties, I will somewhat simplistically interpret it as a hierarchical relation.4 The term ‘counter-concept’ appears to be trickier. Koselleck’s idea that they can only be produced by negations lacking positive characteristics implies a simple A–B binary relationship, where A has ø and B lacks it. However, this definition seems to be highly unsatisfactory: after all, this is not how Koselleck describes the traits that, for instance, Hellenes ascribed to Barbarians (subjects of despotic rulers, a hunkering posture, etc.), however unflattering they may seem. The counter-concepts are thus not empty, but filled with negative characteristics that stand in opposition to a self-prescribed norm: in João Feres’s words, they are ‘conceptual formations that have the function of providing communal identification to social and political groups while excluding outsiders into a generic category’.5 This meaning appears much more productive, particularly if we allow each of Feres’s ‘generic categories’ to include multiple groups, given the variations do not challenge the categorization criteria. With this qualification, I arrive at the (admittedly over-simplistic) stipulation that I will use in this chapter: asymmetric counter-concepts characterize hierarchical relationships in which the in-group members reduce all out-group members to a generic derogatory gestalt that is defined by the differences to the in-group. Koselleck is equally nebulous on what constitutes science and how it can be separated from other fields of human activity. It should, however, be noted that, in contrast to the Anglo-Saxon practice whereby it is primarily the natural sciences that are considered ‘science’, the German tradition labels all academic research science, regardless of discipline. But notwithstanding the differences in demarcating scientific boundaries, there are no privileged and exclusive domains for scientific investigation and language. History has repeatedly proven that science is never conducted in a vacuum and when it comes into direct contact with politics, its effect on society can be very strong. As Koselleck points out, only words can be used to convey human deeds and understandings of the world. This holds true for scientific work as much as for any other type of human endeavour: words bind people together and without common concepts there would be no society6 and no science. ‘Race’ is an example of such a common concept: born in the scientific sphere in the late eighteenth century, it soon spread into the social and political domains. Racial studies mushroomed all over the Western hemisphere and the concept of race grew, during the nineteenth century, into a compelling idea that incited both aggressive political judgements and intense actions. Though Koselleck shies away from the concept of

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race in his discussion of asymmetrical counter-concepts, the idea of it is embedded in his theory. As Feres argues, Koselleck’s model of the Übermensch–Untermensch dichotomy easily translates into twentiethcentury racist theories.7 Given that Koselleck takes as much of an interest in the historical contexts in which asymmetric concepts are produced as in the temporally limited structural asymmetries, this interpretation seems justified. Inspired by Koselleck’s notion of asymmetrical counter-concepts as the hierarchical relationship between the Self-based norm (Hellenes/ Christians) and the Other-based deviation (Barbarians/Heathens), this chapter will investigate the structural relationship between Carl Linnaeus’s (1707–78) four varieties of human races. Linnaeus’s quaternary division of humankind was part of his effort to classify and establish a scientific taxonomy of the natural world, having laid the groundwork for race studies in Europe. By delving into Linnaeus’s environmental and physiognomic ethno-racial descriptions, I will explore the extent to which Koselleck’s asymmetrical counter-concepts capture valid underlying structural features in these classifications.

Reconfiguring Humankind In Futures Past, Koselleck describes both the counter-conceptual asymmetries between ancient Hellenes and Barbarians and those between medieval Christians and Heathens in predominantly immaterial and invisible terms. In both cases, the asymmetries largely consist of differences in religious persuasion, values, customs and types of government. (In contrast to Hellenes, Barbarians were perceived as being subjected to despotism and submission under a ruler and Christians were primarily differentiated from Heathens or heretics on grounds of religious piousness and moral rectitude.) Meaningful differences were mostly internal and did not lie in peoples’ external appearances. They were ideal for political usage and provided frames that could be filled with politically strategic content. The political language of the day was not yet saddled with visible physical characteristics. Only occasionally were Barbarians described in material or visual terms, for instance, through references to their posture or skin colour. During the course of the eighteenth century, this state of affairs would change. In 1735, the first edition (out of twelve) of Linnaeus’s classificatory centrepiece Systema Naturae was published. On a meagre eleven pages, consisting of methodological principles (Observationes) and numerous tables, Linnaeus categorized the entire natural world. By naming the

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entities in the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms, he established a nomenclature that is still of relevance. The genus humankind (Homo) was lumped together with apes (Simia) and sloths (Bradypus) in the order Anthropomorpha (i.e. something that is humanlike in form)8 and in the class Quadrupedia (based on the notion that they had four feet). Though he refrained from suggesting any name for the human species, he divided humankind into four geographically separate and colourcoded varieties.9 In the tenth edition of Systema Naturae, published in 1758, the descriptions of the varieties were amended. Humankind, which was now presented as Homo sapiens, was still divided into four varieties, but it was complemented with lists of distinct physical and psychological characteristics, forming a symmetry of colour, balance and beauty that celebrated Linnaeus’s most cherished belief systems – ancient humoralism and Christian physico-theology. Linnaeus’s theory emerged at a time of great transformation that was particularly influenced by two independent but overlapping processes. Firstly, with European expansion and colonialism developing globally, the sphere of experience grew. Abstract political and theological doctrines about human nature and culture collided with witness accounts and travelogues that reported a plethora of new sensuous and visual experiences – sounds, smells, tastes, textures and customs, along with divergent human fashions, lifestyles and facial features. Some naturalists also engaged in the budding commercialization of human skulls and anatomical parts. As part of his own universal classificatory aspirations, Linnaeus sent pupils on global missions to gather material samples and specific information relating to everything from plants, crops, animals, climate and topography to human customs, clothing, tools and appearances. As can be expected from dedicated pupils, they returned with meticulous reports, abundant material samples and detailed drawings, which provided Linnaeus with ample empirical and visual material, ready to be catalogued and categorized. Secondly, the natural sciences, following the scientific advancements of the seventeenth century, had established new rules for rigorous scientific inquiry and categorization. Before any natural item could be classified, it had to be observed and defined according to clear and cogent criteria. Deciding upon including specific items in, or excluding them from, certain categories demanded precise descriptions in order to properly distinguish between similarity (almost the same), sameness (variations within the same) and difference (different enough). The requirements further emphasized ease of use, economic productivity and universality. To facilitate their universal application, classifications were based on empirical observations and analogical conclusions. Notwithstanding

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Linnaeus’s religious bent, his scientific interest and his professional identity as a naturalist necessitated visible cues that could be observed by the naked eye. He wrote: ‘He may call himself a naturalist who well distinguishes the parts of natural bodies by sight.’10 With these new guidelines, the supremacy of immaterial and invisible criteria was increasingly hard to uphold. The material and visible principles that Linnaeus had initially established for botanical classifications, following criteria of similitude, sameness and difference, were extended to the rest of the natural world. Animals, including humans, were identified and classified according to anatomical characteristics. Descriptions of the class that was later labelled ‘mammals’ (Mammalia) included observations about dental arrangements, along with the position and number of nipples. This class was populated by four-footed hairy animals that gave birth to live offspring (viviparae) and possessed teats with which to suckle their young (lactiferae).11 Commenting upon his critics’ bewilderment at the human mammal’s alleged ‘four-footedness’, Linnaeus explained that ‘man cannot be said to have just two feet, like birds, because he does not have wings. Man has four feet, two for locomotion and two for gripping.’12 Through his inclusion of humankind as an entity of nature, Linnaeus brought humans closer to animals and the natural world than they had ever been before. While many authors before him – from Aristotle to the eighteenth-century French commentator François Bernier13 – had focused their attention upon external differences between themselves and other ethnic groups, Linnaeus’s classifications may be seen as the first serious attempt to discuss humans in overtly naturalistic terms.14 Humans were first and foremost earthly natural beings, which was aptly expressed in Linnaeus’s choice of species name, Homo sapiens, that is, wise earthling. Upon examining the interior of the human body, Linnaeus wrote that no organ could be found that accounted for the higher faculties that differentiate humans from other animals. All in all, it seemed that it was impossible to claim on morphological grounds a unique and separate space for humans, which only strengthened Linnaeus’s belief that humans were animals. Nevertheless, it was obvious that humans were not merely animals. Humans were special, the crown of god’s creation. They had been endowed with unique and immaterial components – a divine spark, an immortal soul, reason and language – that differentiated them from all other animals.15 This ambiguous but unique mixture of material and immaterial features is expressed in Clavis Medicinae Duplex (1766), in which Linnaeus uses an arboreal metaphor to describe how nature is composed of two principles. One principle resides in the

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interior and is hidden (the marrow), whereas the other is exposed for the world to see (the bark). Together, the inner and outer principles form a dichotomous system.16 Applied to humankind, the inner principle, expressed in Linnaeus’s definition of humanity, nosce te ipsum (know thyself), translates to the invisible and immaterial metaphysical essence that unifies all humans. The outer principle, on the other hand, presents visible naturalistic differentiae, which offer guidance in distinguishing and differentiating the human varieties. Beliefs in the ambiguous nature of humankind were certainly not new. The scholastic insistence on humans being animals was as indubitable as the unique human relation to the Christian god.17 Humans straddled the natural and the divine. This dual nature called for nota characteristica that went far beyond the observable and material. The immaterial and divine features manifested themselves almost exclusively in the human capacity for the production of culture and were pivotal to Linnaeus’s understanding of the human essence. The significance of human culture is expressed in both his definition of humankind, nosce te ipsum, and in the species’ name, Homo sapiens, but it is perhaps most apparent in the definition of Homo sapiens’ mirror image, Homo ferus.18 Described as a mute, four-footed and hairy creature, Homo ferus is the uncultivated human in his or her natural state. (See figure 2.3, in which Homo ferus is exemplified by wild children and substantiated by references to the years they were found and when the cases were documented.) This simple, unadulterated and immature quadruped lacked the ­requisite of Homo sapiens, culture, without which humans would walk on all fours, like other land-dwelling mammals.19 Nosce te ipsum can, in this sense, be seen as the definition of mature humans, but also as a command or, as nineteenth-century anthropologist Thomas Bendyshe describes it, as Linnaeus’s tongue-in-cheek advice to his reader.20 Humankind’s quest was to learn, progress and perfect itself in order to become truly human. Through the cultivation of virtues, effort, hard work and self-control, the child (particularly boys) could develop into an adult – a disciplining process without which we would all be Homines feri. In this context, nosce te ipsum appears as a conditional characteristic. We can never recognize a human being before the individual reaches adulthood, since the definition specifica is not realized at birth. Only in retrospect might an individual be revealed as a human, through the display of self-knowledge. This notion, harking back to ancient Greece, stretching through the Enlightenment and fertilizing the German tradition of Bildung, posited that humans are born as a seed, a mere potential that will possibly, but not necessarily, grow into a cultivated human being. If we accept this interpretation of

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nosce te ipsum, it reveals a privative opposition: while some individuals mature, others never will. Cultural maturation may be a continuing process, but for Linnaeus, two categories – Homo sapiens and Homo ferus – sufficed. Revealed in both visible and invisible characteristics, the evaluative immaterial and invisible traits so prominent in Koselleck’s structure-oriented narrative appear to apply to Linnaeus’s descriptions too.

Four Corners, Four Varieties, Four Colours Man is an ambivalent creature whose delimitation remains a political risk. —Reinhart Koselleck, Futures Past

Koselleck framed the relation between Hellenes and Barbarians in spatial terms: the latter were located either outside of the Greek or Roman borders or, as in the case of slaves in ancient Greece, within the boundaries of the city-states but in separate sociopolitical spaces from their masters and other citizens. The Greco-Roman world was centred on the lands around the Mediterranean Sea, with Barbarians and mysterious peoples on the margins of the experiential world. Some 1,500 years later, Linnaeus sought to specify what those mysterious groups actually were. Humankind was one species, but it was divided into four varieties and dispersed over the entire planet. The concept of variety, already established as a reputable category in botany, provided Linnaeus with a way of separating various ethnic groups observed by European travellers and scientists. These previously mysterious groups now conveniently converged into four varieties that were lexicalized and categorized along humoralist lines. Human varieties, divided into four different colours, were introduced in Linnaeus’s first edition of Systema Naturae of 1735, in which Linnaeus created what Walter Mignolo has termed a ‘color-coded ethno-racial tetragon’.21 Starting with whitish Europeans, H Europaeus albescens, Linnaeus’s list continued with reddish Americans, H Americanus rubescens, brown Asians, H Asiaticus fuscus, and ended with black Africans, H Africanus niger (see figure 2.1).22 If Linnaeus seemed to equivocate on the correct colour-coding for Europeans and Americans in the early editions of Systema Naturae, the colour-coding was more determined and precise in his 1758 edition, as Europeans and Americans were labelled white or fair (albus) and red (rufus). Asians, who started out as brown (fuscus) and remained so for a long time, were, in 1758, suddenly described as yellow (luridus), a point on which I will elaborate shortly. The only group that

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Figure 2.1. The first edition of Carl Linnaeus, Systema Naturae, Leiden 1735, 10. Public domain (www.alvin-portal.org).

remained stable in all Linnaeus’s editions is the Africans. They remained black throughout. Linnaeus’s quadripartite geographical division was in line with his belief in the existence of a universal order. The model, as has been mentioned before, was grounded in the authoritative doctrine of humoralism. This ancient theory, described in the essay Nature of Man, attributed to Polybus, and further developed and popularized by Galen in his work On Temperaments, was based on the idea of health as a mixed equilibrium of four fluids or humours in the body: yellow bile, black bile, water and blood. The humours were related to seasons and weather conditions (hot, dry, cold, wet), time periods in a person’s life (childhood, youth, maturity and old age) and eventually Empedocles’ cosmic elements (fire, earth, water, air; see figure 2.2). With the addition of cosmic elements, the model went from encompassing human life to encompassing reality in its entirety and became a convenient explanatory model for all queries great and small. The aesthetic and schematic model of humoralism was able to accommodate the human experience of diversity, offering a wide variety of combinations. The humours allowed for both discrete categorizations and a degree of fluidity. Over the centuries, the denotations of the humours changed repeatedly – depending on the author, region and political climate – but the importance and determinism of the model remained undiminished. During the eighteenth century, it affected the anthropological outlook and directed much of the enquiry of scholars such as Charles Louis de Montesquieu, Kant, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, Petrus Camper, Johann Gottfried Herder, Georges-Louis de Buffon, as well as Linnaeus himself. Although Koselleck inexplicably ignores humoralism in his discussion of sociopolitical asymmetrical thinking, he briefly

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Figure 2.2. Schematic figure representing the relationship between the four elements, humours and temperaments. Image created by the author following Galen, Method of Medicine [ebook], edited and translated by Ian Johnston and G.H.R. Horsley, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011, vol. 1, lix.

mentions climatological components lodged in the theory. This is most explicit when he highlights the structural relation between Greeks and Barbarians. Compared to the sophisticated Greeks, the ancient Barbarians were perceived as animalistic, he writes. Their gluttony, cruelty and lack of artistic skills produced an uncivilized culture that was constrained by climate and nature. This relationship, he suggests, created a fixity that limited the scope of political experiences. While Koselleck misses the opportunity to disentangle the environmental influences on character traits, he does recognize the important link between the natural world and politics, suggesting that the natural world may set boundaries for the experiential political space. Though humoralism as a theory was profoundly artificial, many of the descriptions Linnaeus assigned to the varieties of humans had an empirical basis. Ultimately, he mixed the artificial categories of humoralism with

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natural empirical descriptions. Both the colour-coding and the physiognomic characterizations discussed in the next section are examples of this mixture. Modern scholars attest to the fact that the colours ‘black’ and ‘white’ became each other’s opposites very early, with whiteness being an unmarked colour reference of human skin.23 With the notable exception of some nuanced descriptions (for instance, by Buffon), black served as the counter-trope of En-light-enment reason and conveniently relegated Africans to the role of alterity in relation to white European existence. White was a positive member of the privative opposition, in which white connoted the light of reason, moral rectitude and civilization, and black signified the lack thereof. The inhabitants of Africa, which was covered with dangerous impenetrable forests and dark unknowable secrets, were depicted as ignorant, uncouth and child-like. In this sense, ‘black’ and ‘white’ appear to be asymmetric counter-concepts: the concepts are cast as each other’s opposites and relate to each other hierarchically, with ‘white’ defined positively and ‘black’ negatively. This notion of ‘black’ further overlaps with the asymmetrical and hierarchical Christian narrative of Noah and his sons Shem, Ham and Japheth. In this oft-repeated biblical story, the sons symbolize the tripartite geographical dispersion of humanity on earth, with Ham’s descendants representing the African populace. Their black skin, whether cursed or burned, condemned them to serfdom. Notwithstanding this biblical explanation of human ethnicities, the supremacy of whiteness over blackness (or any other colour) is not in itself supported in Linnaeus’s work. In fact, he did not overtly relate blackness to negative characteristics. Also, in humoralism, there was an apparent equality between the colour-coded humours. Although added and changed over time, the humours were all equally normal. If ‘white’ and ‘black’ could be seen as both empirical descriptions and ideological constructs of the time, Linnaeus’s colour choices ‘yellow’ and ‘red’ seem more puzzling. In the case of the American natives, the initially reddish ‘Indians’ were, in the 1758 edition, decisively called ‘red’. A possible reason for this choice of colour is the fact that some tribes called themselves red. According to Nancy Shoemaker, Native Americans introduced this colour code to French settlers in the early seventeenth century. By the 1730s, ‘red men’ had been incorporated into French terminology used to describe American Indians.24 Although Europeans usually described American Indians as tawny (yellowishbrown or orange), this colour code might have been adopted by European commentators. Kant, who also relied on humoralist and climatological explanations, attributed the reddish colour of American skin to the harsh

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climate. In his opinion, the Americans in the far north (from the extreme north to Staten Island) suffered bitterly cold weather, which gave their brownish skin a reddish hue.25 Notably, Linnaeus, in his description of Americans, mentioned that they painted their faces with ‘fine red stripes’ (see figure 2.3). Whether this adornment substituted any characterization of skin colour, amended it or simply reproduced the evaluation of other European commentators is hard to say. Linnaeus never commented on the description. If red Americans is a curious choice, Linnaeus’s shift from brown to yellow in his description of Asians must seem to the modern reader like the most dramatic discord between experience and idea. Indeed, some scholars have suggested political and ideological reasons for this shift.26 As a result of vexed economic relationships and trade agreements between Europe and East Asia, the term ‘white’ underwent a change of status in the mid-eighteenth century. Before Linnaeus’s 1735 edition, the whole palette of colours was used to refer to Asians, with yellow being just one option among many.27 Michael Keevak, who, in his book, speculated at length about Linnaeus’s definitive colour choice of yellow, reminds us that Linnaeus was a trained and experienced physician, to whom luridus – a pallid or ashy yellow – should have borne a special meaning as a colour of disease (jaundice, for instance).28 Whereas some early travelogues and eyewitness reports had testified to Asians’ attractive and healthy golden skin tone, Linnaeus’s change to luridus likely undermined any ascription of more appealing nuances. Though Linnaeus never backed any of his colour-choices with medical theories, other scholars did. Kant, for instance, argued that the skin of Asians in India is yellow because they are widely afflicted with congested gallbladders and swollen livers, due to a ‘continuous excretion of the gall’ that enters the bloodstream.29 Though Keevak’s medico-ideological interpretation may appear plausible, the symmetrical beauty of the humoralist taxonomy appears to be a more obvious explanation for Linnaeus’s choice of colours. While brown might have been an initial empirical choice, the shift to yellow conveniently aligned all four human varieties with the humoralist system, allowing classificatory harmony to prevail over empirical messiness.

Four Humours, Four Physiognomies [Variations in] size and constitution of the body do not prevent all human beings who inhabit the earth from being of the same kind, which has been

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altered by different climates just as we see animals and plants changing their nature and improving or degenerating. —Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Otium Hanoveranum

As we shift our attention to Linnaeus’s physiognomic characterizations, we reach the core of his asymmetrical and hierarchical thinking in his descriptions of the human varieties. In his tenth edition of Systema Naturae of 1758, Linnaeus supplemented his colour-coded variations with physiognomic charts.30 Following Galen’s humoralist script of four discrete temperaments, external appearances were matched with inherent character traits (see figure 2.3–2.5). In Linnaeus’s scheme, we find the so-called Americans at the top of the list. They are described as choleric (cholericus) by nature, with upright posture (rectus) and harsh faces. They have thick black straight hair, wide nostrils, scanty beards and are ruled by customs. Their choleric temperament is expressed in their behaviour as they are innately bad-tempered and easily angered. As a people, they are stubborn and obstinate (why not proud and principled?), yet merry and free. The second group described is the Europeans, who have predominantly flattering traits. They are portrayed as joyful, social (sanguineus), strong, muscular (torosus), attentive and creative. They are governed by law or trends (ritibus). They are blue-eyed with blond or brown flowing hair. The Asians, about whom Linnaeus has little positive to say, comprise the third group. They are governed by opinions (opinionibus) and possess a melancholic streak (melancholicus). Their downtrodden character is matched by rigid (rigidus) body posture and their most notable traits are sombreness, arrogance and greediness. The last group is the Africans (afer), who are ascribed even less flattering traits. Despite his limited exposure to Africans (he had most probably encountered a live African, but nothing points to him ever having examined or communicated with one), Linnaeus asserted that they are governed by caprice (arbitrio) and have frizzled (or woolly) hair, a flat nose and tumid lips. Dominated by a stolid (phlegmaticus) temperament, they are lazy, sluggish (segnis), sneaky and negligent. Linnaeus never offered a methodology for pinpointing the differences between the varieties and forwent the strict methodological principles he had developed for the botanical field. As we can see, the only diagnostic principles that he systematically assigned to all ethnicities were humoral fluids, body posture (upright, strong, rigid, relaxed), hair colour, personality traits and governmental style. The remaining characteristics were largely composed of impromptu comments, some italicized, others not. If we extract the character traits and compare the Europeans to the other three ethnicities, some differences are amplified (see table 2.1).

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Figures 2.3–2.5. The tenth edition of Carl Linnaeus, Systema Naturae. Monstrosus was a fifth variety, following the basic four varieties. Group a is monstrous as a result of ‘loco’, that is, geographical location and climate (Alpini stands for the Sami people). Group b is monstrous as a result of ‘arte’, that is, human culture (this group includes Hottentots, as well as young European girls who suffocate in tight corsets). Carl Linnaeus, Systema Naturae (Holmiae: 1758), 22. Public domain (www.alvin-portal.org). The over-cultivation of Europeans that led young girls to suffocate in corsets, might be behind Linnaeus’s suggestion that Europeans are governed by ‘ritibus’. Most scholars of Linnaeus have chosen to translate the word into law, but the Latin word is more akin to custom and Linnaeus might have used it to mean trend or fashion.

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Figures 2.3–2.5(cont.)

The Europeans appear joyful, while the others are hot-tempered, depressed or stolid. The next row describes their main character trait. All italicized – swift or indecisive (levis), obstinate (pertinax), austere (severus), sneaky (vafer) – they indicate equal, if not higher, descriptive values compared to the non-italicized traits in the next two rows – attentive and inventive (acutissimus, inventor), merry and free (hilaris, liber), arrogant and greedy (fastuosus, avarus), lazy and negligent (segnis, negligens). The clothing of Europeans and Asians is commented upon (tight

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Figures 2.3–2.5(cont.)

and loose respectively), but nothing is said about the garments of Africans or Americans. Facial features dominate the descriptions of Africans, whereas little is said about Asian or European faces. The haphazard and impressionistic comments suggest an emphasis on deviations from an unmarked norm, which recalls Koselleck’s model of asymmetrical dualism. Though Linnaeus acknowledged the incompleteness of the descriptions (to be completed by future naturalists), the gaze is unmistakably European and the system effectively establishes the groundwork for a

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Table 2.1. Linnaeus’s four human varieties and their assigned character traits. Europeans

Americans

Asians

Africans

Joyful

Hot-tempered

Depressed

Stolid

swift

obstinate

austere

sneaky

acute

merry

arrogant

lazy

inventive

free

greedy

negligent

Ruled by law/trends Ruled by customs Ruled by opinions Ruled by caprice

comparative  ethno-physiognomy rooted in discrete observable traits. On the face of it, all four varieties were positively identified and it could be argued that  they fit Koselleck’s definition of a scientific language. Any asymmetries between them are not semantically inevitable. Yet, in comparing the single European set of traits X with the others (Y’, Y’’, Y’’’), asymmetries between X and any of the Ys abound. If ritibus is interpreted as law, then the idea that Europeans are ruled by law, while the others are governed by opinion, caprice and customs respectively, seems the most glaring example of assymetry.The European governmental style would appear superior and the other styles inferior. The only possible exception is American ‘customs’, because of the historically legitimate development of customs into national laws. Similar ambiguities can be discerned in many of Linnaeus’s descriptions of Americans (which will be elaborated on below). In the case of Africans and Asians, ambiguities and valued traits are missing entirely; the asymmetries between Africans and Europeans, in particular, stand out. According to M. Lynne Murphy and Roberta Piazza, deviant categories are more likely to be classified and lexicalized early, compared to the norm or default category. Deviations that are lexicalized ‘cannot be understood as deviations unless there is an underlying conceptualization of the “norm”’.31 This assertion rings particularly true in the case of Linnaeus’s description of Africans, with nota characteristica that radically set them apart not only from the norm – Europeans – but also from the other ethnicities. They appear as the most degenerate and disparate of the groups. ‘Hottentots’, posited as the evolutionary roots of Africans, are described as the offspring of white women and male apes (possibly the result of women being raped by apes). From Hottentots, the ‘Negros’ evolved and spread all over Africa.32 This curious tale might explain the preoccupation of literary Europe, as well as Linnaeus himself, with the facial features of Africans, their hair texture, and other sensual and cognitive properties. According to Linnaeus, Africans had tumid lips,

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flat noses and crisp woolly hair. Kant, a reader of Linnaeus, added that they had large heavy bones and broad faces and exude a bad odour. He also concurred with Hume that they were stupid.33 Lord Kames (Henry Home), who proposed that Negro pigmentation was a result of their dominant black bile, agreed with the belief that they had a rank smell, but also claimed that they had larger genitalia and smaller brains than white people.34 The French Encyclopédie enumerated the same facial features as Linnaeus, but also singled out Hottentots as the ugliest Africans. Their ‘swarthy’ skin colour and their hair texture were furthermore described as the most exceptional features among all African groups.35 An entry in the Encyclopedia Britannica from 1798 is even more denigrating in its descriptions. While acknowledging that the Negro, Homo pelli nigra, was a variety of humankind, the article’s emphasis on Africans’ vices, irregular physical features and ugly faces36 distinguished them from all other human varieties to such an extent that Africans might just as well have been deemed a separate species. Though Linnaeus categorized Africans as a part of humankind, a note in Föreläsningar öfver djurriket (1748) suggests that he seems to have entertained the possibility of their exclusion: There is only one species of man, but it contains several varieties: Americans are red, Europeans and the Nordic peoples are white, the Asians brown and the Africans or Moors black, although their huge lips might make you think they belong to a different genus, but they do not. And the udders of the Hottentot women are so long they can throw them onto their backs.37

Although neither Africans’ exceptional lips nor Hottentot women’s breasts exclude them from humankind, Africans appear as borderline human. Regardless of the intention behind Linnaeus’s remark, the consequences of excluding Africans from the category of humans would be significant. It would deprive them of the unique human essence, nosce te ipsum, that is, the capacity of knowing themselves. And a contention that Europeans are governed by law while Africans are ruled by caprice might imply such a cognitive deficit. Though many contemporary and later commentators explicitly made this conclusion, Linnaeus never did. As exemplified in the previous quote, ethnic descriptions were often fractured along gender lines, with women being portrayed differently from men. The stereotypical image of universal femininity cast women as creatures of beauty, grace and sensuous delight – an aestheticization that almost rendered women a category unto themselves. However, in the case of Hottentot women, this stereotype of female beauty could hardly be challenged in a more dramatic fashion. In the tenth edition of Systema Naturae, Linnaeus claims that African women lactate profusely

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and have exceptionally elongated breasts and labia (a comment that did not make it into the English translation of Systema Naturae by William Turton). The labia of Hottentot women were elongated to the point that they ­covered  their genitalia, creating a so-called apron.38 This almost pathological peculiarity was pointed out by several contemporary authors, along with the French Encyclopédie, and set Hottentot women – and, by extension, all African women – apart from all other ethnic categories.39 While Linnaeus’s descriptions of Africans seem primarily to be informed by contemporary stereotypes, his view of Asians is harder to explain. For Michael Keevak, Linnaeus’s depictions of Asians as melancholic and rigid effectively cast them as stagnant pagans more inclined to despotism and superstition than civilization and Christianity.40 Although Keevak offers limited empirical material to back up his conclusions, there are a few notes by Linnaeus that seem to confirm his low opinion of Asians. In Critica Botanica, he writes that Greeks and Romans, but ‘certainly not the Asiatics or Arabians’, should be seen as the ‘fathers of botany’.41 On the basis of comments like these, taken together with Linnaeus’s notes on Asian physiognomy, which contain hints at the austerity and permanence of Asian culture, and quixotic comments about Asians’ yellow skin and paradoxical character traits (gloom and arrogance at the same time), one might be tempted to side with Keevak. But considering Linnaeus’s scanty remarks about Asians, a definitive  response seems too hasty. There are also other reasons to be cautious  in relation to Linnaeus’s perceptions of Asians. David Porter  reminds us that  eighteenth-century European scholars often held Chinese civilization in high esteem. He asserts that enlightened universalism emanated from China’s literate authorities and helped European intellectuals to imagine the emancipation of reason from religion. Consequently, China was viewed as a model of discipline, order  and filial piety. After a century of political turmoil and wars in Europe, European intellectuals looked to China for stability and peace, both in theory and practice.42 Birgit Tautz, who favours Porter’s approach, contrasts the eighteenth-century view of Asia with that of Africa. Whereas the perception of the latter was dominated by seeing – colours, materiality, the body and other sensuous effects – European representations of China focused on reading. Though both approaches – textuality and colour – rely on the primacy of vision, they relate, according to Tautz, to ethnicity in different ways: textuality (through reading) allows for the integration of difference, whereas colours mark alterity.43 Hence, in Tautz’s interpretation, the symbolic image of China as an ancient culture based on books, tradition, Confucian bureaucracy and

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autocratic regimes resulted in the perception of Chinese people as stable and secure. Categories tend to be construed as prototypes, producing overall relational symmetry. They only exist in relation to other, more specific notions.44 In Linnaeus’s categorizations, a prototypic structural symmetry can be found in the balance of the four fluids within humoralism, along with the equal geographical distribution of colour-coded ethnic groups. The four prototypes of the East, the South, the North and the West were attributed, respectively, to the Chinese, the Hottentots, the Nordic people and the New England natives. They were held together by nosce te ipsum, which served as the unifying and glorifying essence of humankind. Together, these relational dimensions lent credence to a classificatory harmony of beauty and perfection. But Linnaeus never elaborated on how each of the varieties of humans related to nosce te ipsum. Could the narrative of humankind, unified through its quest to know god’s plan and itself, really encompass all of its varieties? Did spatial and temporal coordinates, together with humours and colours, provide any content for Linnaeus’s scientific definition of humankind? The human essence in Linnaeus’s work appears to be selfreferentially modelled upon the European cultivated male, but how the other varieties were subsumed under the overarching motto was never explicitly discussed. To some extent, the relationships between the parts (varieties) and the whole (humankind) appear complementary rather than mutually exclusive, recalling the way Koselleck explains the Stoic view of humankind. In Koselleck’s interpretation, the Stoics contended that being a human and being a citizen are not mutually exclusive in the way being a barbarian and being a Hellene are; every human is a participant in cosmic reason, whereas a citizen’s birth in a specific country is the result of chance. In a similar way, Linnaeus’s concepts of humankind and variety are supplementary; while nosce te ipsum is a regulative ideal for every human being, the physiognomic descriptions of the four varieties are coincidental consequences of geography and climate. Hence, everybody belongs simultaneously to a specific group and the whole of humanity. It is reasonable to expect that Linnaeus would emphasize differences between the ethnic groups as well as the similarities within each group. In fact, he did stress discrepancies between the groups, but he was conspicuously silent on their similarities or shared properties, except for their joint partaking in humankind. His system was one of differences and discrete traits rather than one of inductive descriptions of all properties. In keeping with the perfect symmetry of humoralism, one would expect the distances

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between the varieties to be equal. However, Linnaeus’s tables contain a supplementary binary opposition whereby the European Self appears superior to the three non-European Others. This soft dichotomy is even more visible in other texts by Linnaeus. In a speech to the Swedish monarchy in 1759, Linnaeus explains that it is only the possession of  science that separates ‘us’ from ‘wild men, Barbarians, and Hottentots’.45 Here, a European ‘we’ is opposed to the tripartite ‘them’; wild men, that is, Homines feri (those lacking human culture), Barbarians (uncivilized non-Europeans) and Hottentots (the over-cultivated or climatologically degenerated group). To this, he immediately adds that Barbarians oppress and destroy, whereas the sciences enlighten people, thus contrasting the light of knowledge with the darkness of ignorance. In a comment on the naming of plants in Critica botanica, the enlightened and cultivated West towers above the rest of the world in a similar fashion. One should, Linnaeus demands authoritatively, refrain from accepting botanical names that come from ‘barbarous languages’ (i.e. local vernacular languages) and only accept them in those exceptional cases in which the word has ‘an agreeable form that is readily adapted to the Latin tongue and to the tongue of civilized countries’.46 As Linnaeus’s texts are written in Latin and Swedish, the self-referential we of knowledge and culture here seems to span both the European heartland and the otherwise easily dismissable Scandinavia at the margin of Europe. Indeed, the European continent and Scandinavia stand united against ignorance and darkness. The world may be divided into four parts, but in some cases, two parts seem to be enough: the civilized us and the uncivilized them.

Temporalities Time is a potent factor in Koselleck’s asymmetrical counter-concepts. Whereas it seems inconsequential in the opposition between Hellenes and Barbarians, it attains a dynamic function in the relationship between Christians and their two satellites – Heathens and heretics. With the rise of Christianity, Heathens were seen as potential but ‘not yet’ Christians, while the heretics, who used to be Christians, were ‘no longer’ such. With Christianity as the fixed norm, the outliers, Heathens and heretics, were tied into a temporal and dynamic relationship of potential inclusion and exclusion, revaluation and devaluation. As we have seen, Linnaeus changed the order of Europeans and Americans in his tenth edition of 1758. In the 1735 edition, he had listed Americans first and Europeans second. Though this may seem like a mere curiosity and a detail that Linnaeus himself did not even bother

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to elaborate on, we may find interesting clues to this choice in different parts of his work. In the first edition of Linnaeus’s Systema Naturae, nature appeared inalterable. God’s creation was stable and the natural categories were unchangeable. It was the task of the naturalist to unveil this hidden order. In the tenth edition, time has been introduced and nature is perceived as continuously changing. The change of heart was the result of Linnaeus’s consideration of some puzzling cases of hybridity in plants. In 1748, he tentatively contended that species and genera might change over time. Hesitant to destabilize god’s creation, he wrote that it may ‘turn out more proper to ascribe species to the effect of time’.47 God was not at fault for these natural changes, he assured the reader; rather, time – in conjunction with climate, temperament, cultivation (cultura) and geographical location (loco) – was. With this shift in perspective, an accumulation of temporalities emerge. In the 1758 edition, the reader encounters a complex, arbitrary and incomplete structure. European civilization is cast as the pinnacle of true human existence. From the European epicentre, cultivation seems to collapse in time and space into a two-dimensional geometry that could be couched in terms of immaturity and degeneration, though Linnaeus did not use these words. The West and the North represented the lands of immature peoples, populated by Native Americans and the native Nordic people (the Sami) respectively, with both groups appearing carefree and living in harmony with nature. The degenerated, or what Linnaeus called the over-cultivated, were represented by the East and the South, with an emphasis on the Hottentots in southern Africa. The Hottentots belonged to the so-called monstrous groups, which constituted their own variety. These groups were listed below Africans, possibly bridging the gap between humans and other animals. The forces that engendered ­monstrosity were human culture and/or climatological factors (see figure 2.5.). From Linnaeus’s limited experiential horizon, the monstrous Sami (Alpini) and the Hottentots symbolized the margins of human civilization. In Gunnar Broberg’s analysis of their relationship, the two groups constituted a parallel pair as they lived in the outmost North and South parts of the human habitat. Although formally within the boundary of humanity, they represented the least human and were on the verge of non-human animality, as the least attractive and gifted of all human varieties. They also embodied the symmetrical degeneration of humankind: their equal temporal and geographical distance from true civilization, along with their comparable climates, explained their modest mental faculties and small stature.48

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In Koselleck’s theory, spatial and temporal dimensions play equally central roles. The relation between Hellenes and Barbarians is located on a spatial axis. In this relationship, marked by sociopolitical separation, time seems incapable of seamlessly fusing the two groups. In medieval times, the asymmetry between Heathens and Christians challenged this geographical separation, and a temporal dimension moved to the forefront. Instead of being condemned to a life of Otherness, like the ancient Barbarians, the Heathens of the scholastic world could, according to Koselleck, anticipate a glowing future of unity within Christendom by accepting the Holy Scripture and the redemption of Christ. The temporal distance between Christians and Heathens in Koselleck’s theory mirrors the relationship between Europeans and Americans in Linnaeus’s works. Along with the Sami of Ultima Thule, the uncultivated Heathens of the Americas were, in Linnaeus’s fantasy, children capable of redemption. On his travels to different regions of Sweden, Linnaeus encountered the Sami in the north and experienced their natural and simple lifestyle firsthand. When reports of the virtuous and authentic culture of the Native Americans reached him, Linnaeus found such great similarities between the two that he subsumed the Sami people under the label Americans, giving us reason to suspect that his term ‘American’ was regarded as a cultural rather than an ethnic category. Notwithstanding his appreciation of the healthy and robust lifestyle of the Americans and the Sami, the asymmetry between these peoples and what he called Europeans lent itself to colonial tutelage, as well as to various forms of interventionist economic and political projects. True Homo sapiens were found among the civilized Europeans, that is, those who ‘master Latin’ – the true measurement of civilization.49 With human destiny in the hands of cultural progress, the yet-to-mature or not-yet-cultivated children were trapped in the past and in need of civilized guidance. For the benefit of themselves and the nations to which they belonged, they all, or at least the Sami, must be colonized. However, at this point, there are some tensions in Linnaeus’s writings. The boundaries Linnaeus posited for European culture did not come without qualifications. He expressed disdain for the artificiality, decadence and sophistry of certain aspects of European culture, most notably young women suffocating in tight corsets. Here, he joins a tradition of cultural self-critique that runs from at least the Cynics in ancient Greece up to modern times and can be found in the works of writers such as Michel de Montaigne, Montesquieu and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The historical importance of this idea does not go unnoticed by Koselleck, who points to the relativity and temporality of the ancient Greek perception of the asymmetry between Hellenes and Barbarians. Thucydides, Plato

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and Aristotle all recognized that there had been a time when Greeks had behaved like Barbarians and lived in societies similar to those of Barbarians. In fact, most of Europe had been barbarian in the eyes of Greeks and Romans. Barbarism implied that those civilized today had once been uncivilized, that is, barbarian. It is against such a background that one should interpret Linnaeus’s ambivalence regarding cultural progress; while civilization is inevitable and necessary, it does come at a price. Cultural and moral progress is a product of time. As it is humans, rather than god, that drive culture from a natural and authentic state to an increasingly sophisticated state, Linnaeus recognized that civilization is a historical phase that is continually under threat from human culture, at risk of tipping over into pathological over-cultivation. Like Koselleck’s heretics, who were once blessed with true religion, the people in the east and south in Linnaeus’s model may once have been civilized but they lost touch with authentic culture and passed the point of salvation. Although climate and geography formed the backbone of Linnaeus’s  division of humankind, one might suspect that the religious  Linnaeus was  not immune to the Christian ideal of future redemption. While a cultural fluidity existed, it was primarily open to Americans, in contrast to whom the Asians in the east and the Africans in the south may be lost to eternity, invoking a paradox of temporal and spatial organization. As Philip Manow has suggested, the West was coded early on as the space of expansion, colonization and progress, whereas the more densely populated and culturally advanced east became associated with threat and danger.50 Though Linnaeus does not call the entire populace of Asia and Africa over-cultivated, his descriptions of them, based on travel reports by his pupils and travelogues of uneven quality, should give us pause. Some common contemporary stereotypes, such as those of rigid and arrogant Asians governed by opinions or lazy and sneaky Africans ruled by impulse, seem to have crept into his descriptions. If we compare these descriptions with a portrayal of Europeans as a happy, strong and inventive people governed by law, Asians and Africans seem destined to be eternally separated from the cultivated Europeans, whereas the door for the carefree and authentic Americans remains open.

Concluding Remarks Linnaeus was not primarily interested in denying mutual recognition between Europeans and non-Europeans. Nor was his division of Homo sapiens into varieties representative of an unambiguous desire for the

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hierarchization or qualification of human dignity. He could not anticipate the discriminatory ways in which his system would be used by those who came after him. Indeed, it would be anachronistic and unfair to call him a racist. At the same time, Linnaeus was a child of his time. Human groups were characterized as components of the natural landscape, comparable to indigenous plants and animals, along with natural features such as climate, topography, plant and animal species. As part and parcel of the economic Cameralism of the time, natural resources were classified by the civilized, for the civilized. It was a colonial enterprise intended to serve the interests of the homeland. The race categories that Linnaeus bequeathed to the Western world were part of this exploitative project. Linnaeus provided a scientific base of visible, material and cultural parameters that validated and strengthened a growing Western belief in differences between groups of people. Though a scientific enterprise, the descriptions were hardly part of a neutral and factual assessment, nor did they rule out evaluative conclusions. Instead, they sustained opportunist interpretations. The previous depictions of Otherness (Heathen, Barbarian) were thickened with new layers of meaning. Culture, societal rules, facial features, temperament, behaviour and ostensible shortcomings found their match in scientific concepts. Depending on the situation and motives, the new set of variables allowed Europeans to switch between classical tools and more contemporary gestalts in characterizing the Other. Whether divided into four geographical or three temporal entities, the Other could, when convenience called for it, be reduced to two, with the over-cultivated and the precultivated merging as dualistic negations of the civilized Europeans. As variations of the same, the varieties reproduced a structural relationship of ‘Europeans’ vs ‘non-Europeans’ that ultimately allowed for the survival of the dichotomy ‘Hellenes’ vs ‘Barbarians’ along Koselleckian lines. Monica Libell holds a PhD in the History of Sciences and Ideas from Lund University, Sweden. Research interests and publications include animal ethics, the history of medicine, the history of science and epistemology  and scientific classification. Her current research project focuses on  eighteenth-century racial categorizations, primarily in Carl Linnaeus’s  writings, and their intersection with political discourses on human rights.

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Notes  1. See Ernst Müller and Falko Schmieder (eds), Begriffsgeschichte der Naturwissenschaften: zur historischen und kulturellen Dimension naturwissenschaftlicher Konzepte (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2008).  2. Koselleck, Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1985), 159. All references to Koselleck in this chapter relate to his article ‘On the Historical-Political Semantics of Asymmetric Counter-Concepts’.  3. In the German tradition, science includes all academic disciplines, in contrast to the Anglo-Saxon tradition, in which science usually only includes the natural sciences.  4. Kay Junge suggested two criteria as definitions of asymmetry – the status difference or a situation of conflict and the absence of mutual ratification of one of the terms. Despite its obvious closeness to Koselleck’s original definition, the second criterion is not without its flaws as victims sometimes internalize the values of the powerful, which creates at least an appearance of mutual ratification. Kay Junge and Kirill Postoutenko, ‘Self-Concepts, Counter-Concepts, Asymmetrical Counter-Concepts: Some Aspects of a Multi-faceted Agenda’, in Kay Junge and Kirill Postoutenko (eds), Asymmetrical Concepts after Reinhart Koselleck. Historical Semantics and Beyond (Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2011), 19–49, 42.  5. João Feres, ‘Building a Typology of Forms of Recognition: Beyond the RepublicanHegelian Paradigm’, Contemporary Political Theory 5 (2006): 259–77, 266.  6. Koselleck, Futures Past, 75f.  7. Feres, ‘Building a Typology of Forms of Recognition’.  8. The dissertation Anthropomorpha was translated into German under the title Vom Thiermenschen in 1776 (i.e. On Animalhumans). Carl Linnaeus, Anthropomorpha (Uppsaliae, 1760).  9. Carl Linnaeus, Systema Naturae (Leiden, 1735). 10. Linnaeus, Systema Naturae, aphorism 12. 11. Carl Linnaeus, Föreläsningar öfver djurriket (1748; reprint, Uppsala: 1913), 7. 12. Carl Linnaeus, Fauna Svecica (Holmiae: Laurentii Salvii, 1746), Preface. 13. François Bernier, ‘Nouvelle division de la terre, par les differéntes espèces ou races d’hommes qui l’habitent’, Journal de Sçavans 12 (1684), 148–55. 14. Gunnar Broberg, Homo sapiens L. Studier i Carl von Linnés naturuppfattning och människolära (Stockholm: Almqvist och Wiksell, 1975), 154. 15. Carl Linnaeus, Konung Adolf Frideriks naturalie samling (Stockholm: 1754), p. 7f. 16. Carl Linnaeus, Clavis Medicinae Duplex. The two keys of Medicine, ed. Lars Hansen, trans. Peter Hogg (1766; reprint, London: IK Foundation, 2012). 17. Gunnar Broberg and Charlotte Christensen-Nugues, ‘Homo Sapiens: 250 Years as an Animal and a Moral Being’, Svenska Linnésällskapets årsskrift (2008), 7−30. 18. Homo diurnus (day man) was, for a long time, a taxonomical given. One of its advantages was its semantic coordination with its opposite – Homo nocturnus. Besides, the absence of evaluative connotations met the requirements of natural history better than Homo sapiens, a name that was inspired by Simia sapiens – an ape with extraordinary wits (see Broberg, Homo sapiens L., 177). 19. According to Broberg, Rousseau’s story of two wild girls found in the Pyrenees who walked on all fours became a popular theme in literate Europe. The story supported Linnaeus’s idea that humans, like other land-dwelling mammals, were four-footed creatures in their natural state. Broberg, Homo sapiens L, 216. 20. Thomas Bendyshe, ‘On the Anthropology of Linnaeus’, in Memoires Read before the Anthropological Society of London (London: Trubner and Co., 1865), vol. 1, 1863–64, 439. 21. Walter Mignolo, ‘Citizenship, Knowledge, and the Limits of Humanity’, American Literary History 18, no. 2 (2006), 312–31.

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22. Linnaeus, Systema Naturae, 1735. 23. See, for instance, Winthrop D. Jordan, White over Black. American Attitudes toward the Negro, 1550–1812 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1968). 24. Nancy Shoemaker, ‘How Indians Got to Be Red’, American Historical Review 102, no. 3 (1997), 625–44. 25. Immanuel Kant, ‘Of the Different Races of Human Beings’, in Günther Zöller and Robert B. Louden (eds), Anthropology, History and Education, trans. Holly Wilson and Günther Zöller (1775; reprint, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 82–97. 26. For whiteness as a property in the eighteenth-century natural history of colonialism, see Tomomi Kinukawa, ‘Science and Whiteness as Property in the Dutch Atlantic World: Maria Sibylla Merian’s Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium (1705)’, Journal of Women’s History 24, no. 3 (2012), 91–116. See also Michael Keevak, Becoming Yellow: A Short History of Racial Thinking (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 2011). 27. Keevak points out that some travellers described the Japanese as brown or black, assigning them an inferior status compared to Europeans. Keevak, Becoming Yellow, 28ff. 28. Keevak, Becoming Yellow, 51. 29. Kant, ‘Of the Different Races of Human Beings’. 30. Carl Linnaeus, Systema Naturae (Holmiae: 1758), 20ff. 31. Lynne M. Murphy and Roberta Piazza, ‘Linguistic Semantics and Historical Semantics’, in Kay Junge and Kirill Postoutenko (eds), Asymmetrical Concepts after Reinhart Koselleck: Historical Semantics and Beyond (Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag 2011), 62. 32. Since Antiquity, Ethiopians stood for all Blacks and Africans, but during the eighteenth century they were replaced by Hottentots. Consequently, Africans were attributed many of the peculiar anatomical characterizations ascribed to Hottentots (most notably what Linnaeus calls skoerten, elongated vaginal lips that cover women’s ­genitalia  – often referred to as ‘the Hottentot apron’). Conversely, negative features such as ugliness, laziness, stupidity and lasciviousness were ascribed to the Hottentots; features that had earlier been generally attributed to all Africans (see Broberg, Homo sapiens L, 250). 33. Immanuel Kant, ‘On National Characteristics’, in Emmanuel C. Eze (ed.), Race and the Enlightenment. A Reader (Oxford; Carlton: Malden, 2005), 30–34. 34. Lord Kames (Henry Home), Sketches of the History of Man, 4 vols (Glasgow: 1802), vol. 1, 11. Lapps are said to be short and ugly, but at the same time the healthiest of all people (p. 24). 35. See ‘Encyclopédie “Nègre”’ in Eze, Race and the Enlightenment, 93f. 36. Cited in Sundiata Keita Cha-Jua, ‘The Changing Same: Black Racial Formation and Transformation as a Theory of the African and American Experience’, in Theodore Koditschek, Sundiata Keita Cha-Jua and Helen A. Neville (eds), Race Struggles (Urbana, IL: Chicago University Press, 2009), 9–38, 20. 37. Linnaeus, Föreläsningar öfver djurriket, 12. Translation is mine. 38. Lessing also comments on Hottentots, whom he describes as disgusting and filthy, with Hottentot women’s flabby breasts reaching down to their belly buttons. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Laocoön, trans. Robert Phillimore (1766; reprint London: 1905), 185f. 39. Zoë Strother, ‘Display of the Body Hottentot’, in Bernth Lindfors (ed.), Africans on Stage. Studies in Ethnological Showbusiness (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999), 1–61. 40. Keevak, Becoming Yellow, 36.

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41. Carl Linnaeus, Critica Botanica, trans. Arthur Hort (1737; reprint London: Ray Society, 1938), 82, aphorism 241. 42. David Porter, Ideographia. The Chinese Cipher in Early Modern Europe (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001), 15–77 passim. 43. Birgit Tautz, Reading and Seeing Ethnic Differences in the Enlightenment. From China to Africa (New York: Palgrave, 2007), 3f. 44. M. Lynne Murphy and Roberta Piazza, ‘Linguistic Semantics and Historical Semantics’. 45. Carl Linnaeus, Tal vid deras Kongliga Majesteters Höga Närvaro (Uppsala: 1759), 3. 46. Linnaeus, Critica Botanica, 92, aphorism 244. 47. Carl Linnaeus, Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Natural History, Husbandry and Physick, trans. Benjamin Stillingfleet (1751; reprint London: 1762), 298. 48. Broberg, Homo sapiens L., 243f. 49. Linnaeus, Critica Botanica, 92, aphorism 244. 50. Philip Manow, ‘“We Are the Barbarians”: Thomas Hobbes, the American Savage and the Debate about British Antiquity’, in Asymmetrical Concepts after Reinhart Koselleck, 141–64.

References Bendyshe, Thomas, ‘On the Anthropology of Linnaeus’, in Memoires Read before the Anthropological Society of London (London: Trubner and Co., 1865). Bernier, François, ‘Nouvelle division de la terre, par les différentes espèces ou races d’hommes qui l’habitent’, Journal de Sçavans 12 (1684), 148–55. Broberg, Gunnar, Homo sapiens L. Studier i Carl von Linnés naturuppfattning och människolära (Stockholm: Almqvist och Wiksell, 1975). Broberg, Gunnar, and Charlotte Christensen-Nugues, ‘Homo Sapiens: 250 Years as an Animal and a Moral Being’, Svenska Linnésällskapets årsskrift (2008), 7–30. Cha-Jua, Sundiata Keita, ‘The Changing Same: Black Racial Formation and Transformation as a Theory of the African and American Experience’, in Theodore Koditschek, Sundiata Keita Cha-Jua and Helen A. Neville (eds), Race Struggles (Urbana, IL: Chicago University Press, 2009), 9–38. Feres, João, ‘Building a Typology of Forms of Recognition: Beyond the RepublicanHegelian Paradigm’, Contemporary Political Theory 5 (2006): 259–77. Galen, Method of Medicine [ebook], eds and trans. Ian Johnston and G.H.R Horsley, Harvard University Press, 2011, vol. 1. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Laocoön, trans. Robert Phillimore (1766; reprint London: 1905). Jordan, Winthrop D., White over Black: American Attitudes toward the Negro, 1550–1812 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1968). Junge, Kay, and Kirill Postoutenko, ‘Self-Concepts, Counter-Concepts, Asymmetrical Counter-Concepts: Some Aspects of a Multi-faceted Agenda’, in Kay Junge and Kirill Postoutenko (eds), Asymmetrical Concepts after Reinhart Koselleck. Historical Semantics and Beyond (Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2011), 19–49.

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Kames, Lord (Henry Home), Sketches of the History of Man, 4 vols (Glasgow: 1802). Kant, Immanuel, ‘Of the Different Races of Human Beings’, trans. Holly Wilson  and  Günther Zöller, in Günther Zöller and Robert B. Louden (eds), Anthropology, History and Education (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007 [1775]). –––, ‘On National Characteristics’, in Emmanuel C. Eze (ed.), Race and the Enlightenment. A Reader (Oxford; Carlton: Malden, 2005). Keevak, Michael, Becoming Yellow: A Short History of Racial Thinking (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011). Kinukawa, Tomomi, ‘Science and Whiteness as Property in the Dutch Atlantic World: Maria Sibylla Merian’s Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium (1705)’, Journal of Women’s History 24, no. 3 (2012), 91–116. Koselleck, Reinhart, Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1985). Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, Otium Hanoveranum (Lipsiae: Impensis Johann Christiani Martini, 1718). Linnaeus, Carl, Anthropomorpha (Uppsaliae, 1760). –––, Clavis Medicinae Duplex: The Two Keys of Medicine, ed. Lars Hansen, trans. Peter Hogg (1766; reprint, London: IK Foundation, 2012). –––, Critica Botanica, trans. Arthur Hort (1737; reprint London: Ray Society, 1938). –––, Fauna Svecica (Holmiae: Laurentii Salvii, 1746). –––, Föreläsningar öfver djurriket (1748; reprint, Uppsala: Akademiska Bokhandeln, 1913). –––, Konung Adolf Frideriks naturalie samling (Stockholm: 1754). –––, Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Natural History, Husbandry and Physick, trans. Benjamin Stillingfleet (1751; reprint, London: 1762). –––, Systema Naturae [ebook] (Holmiae: 1758). –––, Systema Naturae [ebook] (Leiden: 1735). –––, Tal vid deras Kongliga Majesteters Höga Närvaro (Uppsala: 1759). Manow, Philip, ‘“We Are the Barbarians”: Thomas Hobbes, the American Savage and the Debate about British Antiquity’, in Kay Junge and Kirill Postoutenko (eds), Asymmetrical Concepts after Reinhart Koselleck: Historical Semantics and Beyond (Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag 2011). Mignolo, Walter, ‘Citizenship, Knowledge, and the Limits of Humanity’, American Literary History 18, no. 2 (2006), 312–31. Müller, Ernst, and Falko Schmieder (eds), Begriffsgeschichte der Naturwissenschaften: zur historischen und kulturellen Dimension naturwissenschaftlicher Konzepte (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2008). Murphy, M. Lynne, and Roberta Piazza, ‘Linguistic Semantics and Historical Semantics’, in Kay Junge and Kirill Postoutenko (eds), Asymmetrical Concepts after Reinhart Koselleck: Historical Semantics and beyond (Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag 2011). Porter, David, Ideographia: The Chinese Cipher in Early Modern Europe (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001). Robinet, Jean-Baptiste, De la Nature (Amsterdam: E. van Harrevelt, 1766).

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Shoemaker, Nancy, ‘How Indians Got to Be Red’, American Historical Review 102, no. 3 (1997), 625–44. Strother, Zoë, ‘Display of the Body Hottentot’, in Bernth Lindfors (ed.), Africans on Stage. Studies in Ethnological Showbusiness (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999), 1–61. Tautz, Birgit, Reading and Seeing Ethnic Differences in the Enlightenment. From China to Africa (New York: Palgrave, 2007).

Chapter 3

The Contribution of Asymmetrical Concepts to the Building of Spanish Liberal Discourse in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century Methodological Reflections and Applications Ana Isabel González Manso Introduction

D

o we live in a symmetrical or asymmetrical physical world?1 Do the forces of nature tend towards asymmetry or towards achieving the greatest possible symmetry? And what about human behaviour? Asymmetrical concepts provide us with an interesting way of analysing these issues. More than thirty years ago, Reinhart Koselleck coined the expression ‘asymmetrical counter-concepts’ (referred to as AC from now on), offering as examples two conceptual pairs (Hellenes – barbarians, Christians – ­heathens) and one triad (humans – non-humans/under-humans – super-humans).2 Koselleck defined asymmetry as ‘those coordinates that are unequally contrary and that are only applied unilaterally’.3 Foreseeing the future career of AC as an analytical tool in social studies, Koselleck clearly linked the asymmetry between self- and other-ascriptions to the basic identity markers us vs them.4 But this approach was not without its difficulties, leaving, as M. Lynne Murphy and Roberta Piazza have observed, the gap between social history and linguistic/conceptual history wide open.5 In the same volume, Jan Marco Sawilla discussed the limitations of counter-concepts as an analytical tool, highlighting the fact that relations within conceptual pairs could be symmetrical or asymmetrical, depending on the point of view adopted in each particular case.6 As AC reflect dominant structures of language and discourse, they have frequently been addressed from the perspective of the main

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methodologies that deal with these strata of language, such as conversation analysis, critical discourse analysis (CDA) and positioning theory.7 From the standpoint of conversation analysis, the identities are produced in ‘talk-in-interaction’, with reciprocity being particularly important in communication in general and negotiating conversational positions in particular. CDA places greater emphasis on the practices of dominant discourses and ideologies, focusing on the role of politics and ideology in shaping identities.8 The local aspect of conversation analysis could be combined with the more global aspect of CDA by means of positioning theory, which takes into account how historical and sociocultural forces affect the dominant discourse,9 as well as how speakers’ positions are constructed.10 Rooted in social constructivism, these methodologies, however, neither nullify the essence of the individual nor ignore the ‘irreducible tension that defines human action’.11 All these methodological innovations are helpful in countering the shortcomings of Koselleck’s approach: despite the general allegiance of this chapter to the historical semantics of Koselleck, focused on the semantic structures generating asymmetries in AC, the structured oppositions in discourse have to be taken into account when identifying the links between memories, identities and conceptual asymmetries. From the constructivist point of view, the social representations of the past supporting group identity entail reconstructing the past as the basis of social memory: by means of anchoring and objectification, present and future are recombined in the past, providing continuity of identity. In my opinion, both anchoring and objectification are the consequences of the growing abstractness – and therefore greater ­complexity  – of concepts,  observable from the mid-eighteenth century, when human beings began approaching concepts via specific images to make them understandable.12 These images not only have explicit meanings but also carry hidden connotations, detectable in the feelings they are capable of awakening in every individual belonging to any community.13 The voluntary (or involuntary) recollection of collective memories has a teleological purpose as it moves the action in a particular direction.14 Collective memory, in its turn, is subject to continuous joint construction by members of the group: it is not a finished product but rather a battleground of different views concerning the collective past, present and future.15 For Teun A. van Dijk, group identity is linked to ideology, with this being understood as ‘fundamental beliefs that form the basis for the social representations of a group. They are represented in social memory as “group frameworks” that define its identity.’16 Ideology leads us ‘to construct a narrative plot (ludus) in which past and present link up to project an imagined future (mythos) based on preferred values

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which, at the same time, make some past events more memorable than others’.17 Groups, like individuals, ‘use memories for identity purposes, which means that sometimes their memory is distorted so they can hold onto a good image of themselves’.18 According to Roy F. Baumeister and Stephen Hastings, the forms of distortion are self-deception (the tendency to selectively omit unpleasant events; the invention of past events), the manipulation of associations between events (one of the causes of the event is exaggerated and others underestimated), the projection of one’s own fault onto the enemy or  attribution of responsibility to contextual circumstances.19 As we shall see below, all these techniques are part of the rhetoric present (in condensed form) in AC; this makes the study of conceptual asymmetries a hugely complex undertaking, which, however, is well worth the effort. After presenting, in the first part of the chapter, possible amendments to both the definition and possible use of AC, I will attempt to put this theoretical approach into practice by investigating the concept of ‘nobility’ within two liberalist trends in Spain in the first half of the nineteenth century.

The Concept of AC and Its Usefulness In order to analyse the semantic structure of the asymmetry contained in AC, Koselleck confined himself, in his 1979 study, to the pairs of counterconcepts with universal aspirations. In Koselleck’s words, ‘the structure of the counter-concepts does not depend only on the words with which the pairs of concepts are formed. The words are interchangeable while the asymmetrical structure of the argument remains the same.’20 Understood in this way, conceptual pairs can be separated from the context in which they arose, with their properties and functions changing over time. It can probably be argued that the original meaning of the conceptual opposition between Hellenes and barbarians – the difference between those who mastered ancient Greek and those who did not – was consensual (symmetrical). It was only when this contradistinction became imbued with value dichotomies (associating, for instance, ‘virtue’ with ‘us’ and ‘vice’ with ‘them’) that the conceptual pair began to take an asymmetrical shape. From that time on, the negative values of the surrounding conceptual world began to be attributed to barbarians. Highlighting the role of AC in the self-definition of identity, Koselleck chose, in his foundational article, to leave the position of the ‘them’-group undefined, focusing on how it is seen through the eyes of the ‘us’-group controlling the discourse and bringing AC into play. In later studies, Koselleck expanded his understanding of conceptual asymmetries,

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discussing their successions, correlations and complementarities,21 taking spoken discourse and its political instrumentation into account and finally arguing for the need to attend to the view of the ‘them’-group.22 It is this last aspect that gained the attention of the authors interested in the application of Koselleck’s approach to social studies: João Feres, for instance, stressed its usefulness in the studies of social misrecognition occurring in the (standard for AC) situation in which the Other does not recognize itself in the definition of it produced by the Self.23 In my view, this situation is inherently ambivalent because there are two different reasons for this lack of recognition: the group identified by the negative counter-concept (such as barbarian) may refuse to accept it (the case put forward by Feres), but it may also fail to grasp it because the assigned meaning does not belong in its conceptual world. The choice between the two options (referred to below as Aa and Ab respectively) makes a huge difference in the asymmetrical functioning of counter-concepts, which I shall discuss at length below, drawing in part upon Kirill Postoutenko’s scalar trichotomy of AC and pointing to the problems relating to the degree of symmetry in conceptual pairs when view of the ‘them’-group is taken into consideration.24

Asymmetrical Relation (A) ‘Us’ and ‘them’ belong to separate conceptual universes (Aa)

In this case, AC only serve to define the conceptual universe of those who use them (‘us’) through the characteristics they attribute to ‘them’: the other side cannot recognize itself in these concepts and sees no point in using them as they do not belong to its conceptual universe. For example, all ethnic groups are somehow aware of their own identity, but if an ethnic category is imposed upon a group from without, the group members would normally not recognize themselves in the categorization.25 Meanwhile, the ‘us’-group in the process of self-definition associates negative characteristics with the ‘them’-group while keeping their positive antonyms for itself. In some cases, such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s overhaul of the concept ‘barbarian’ during the Enlightenment, there may be soul-searching within the ‘us’-group, leading to a positive reavaluation of a previously disparaged 'them’-group'. But, in reality, this practice does not challenge the evaluative monopoly of the ‘us’-group: the idolization of ‘noble savages’ does not in itself imply any knowledge of them (as highlighted, for example, by the fact that, like any ‘them’-group, they consist of many incompatible identities that are all one in the eyes of the uninformed ‘us’-group). In fact, as colonialist and imperialist practices show, the interest of the ‘us’-group in the ‘them’-group is normally limited to the context of specific actions aimed at the subjugation of the

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indigenous population, as well as to the post-factum justifications of these activities; under such circumstances, the discourse produced by the ‘us’-group is geared towards its own members. Often, this insulation, as Koselleck points out, is achieved by territorial separation between the ‘us’- and ‘them’-groups.26 But if the insulation is broken and AC are used by their inventors to justify aggressive action against the ‘them’-group, would this situation trigger a unification process among the different identities of 'them'-group? As argued in section Ba below, such unification would be incomplete, as it would be confined to the needs of the immediate defensive action, which do not imply an identity phenomenon of the same sort as that in the ‘us’-group. This situation will be analysed in section Ba in more detail.

Both groups share the same conceptual universe, but one of them has a social and discursive monopoly and leaves no relevant channels of expression open for the other (Ab)

While in the previous scenario the ‘us’-group defines the ‘them’-group in order to dominate it, in this case the domination has already been achieved and what the dominating group wants is to reinforce its existing control over its adversaries. The discourse within the ‘us’-group is directed not only at its own members, but also at members of the ‘them’group. In its turn, the ‘them’-group is capable of perceiving the label affixed to it by the ‘us’-group, but has no social or communicative means of challenging the derogation at its disposal (the notion of under-human investigated by Koselleck in the context of Nazi terror comes to mind).27 In Postoutenko’s classification, this variation of AC is called ‘strong antagonistic asymmetry’: the discrimination of the out-group occurs on the general communicative (rather than particular linguistic) level.28 In my view, this kind of conceptual asymmetry is more intense and loaded with more negative experiences than the previous one: whereas in Aa the negative attributions made by the ‘us’-group are neither understood nor internalized as negative by the ‘them’-group, in Ab the negative attributions are perfectly graspable for the targeted outgroup, provoking a strong, if invisible, counter-reaction and boosting group cohesion and self-identification as such. As a result, the identities of both groups (and not just the ‘us’-group, as in Aa) receive a boost, triggering a symmetrical chain reaction of self-definitions and identity reinforcements.

Symmetrical Relation (B) Would we be distorting the essence of Koselleck’s theory by assessing the symmetrical properties of asymmetrical conceptual pairs? Frankly,

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I do not think so. On the contrary, this theoretical innovation has considerable advantages, allowing for the study of more complex constellations than single conceptual pairs: if, following Koselleck, we define conceptual asymmetry as the unilateral ascription of identities by the 'us'-groups to the 'them'-groups, why not try analysing this asymmetry as just one wing of two conceptual asymmetries directed against each other in a similar fashion? Surely, this does not happen with all AC, but when it does, we may witness the crumbling of discursive domination and the symmetrical collapse (or at least weakening) of conceptual asymmetries. Another possible consequence of this new approach would be to shift the discourse to the ideological and political conflict for the two groups. As in A, both scenarios are tested in circumstances in which the opposed groups belong to separate (Ba) or overlapping (Bb) ­conceptual universes.

The two groups do not share the same conceptual and cultural universe, but, unlike the situation discussed in section Aa, both groups do seek to define themselves at the expense of the other (Ba)

This situation is the symmetrical follow-up of Aa: as a result of the discursive and/or direct social attack directed against the ‘them’-group by the ‘us’-group, the former, which had not previously felt any need to address the bearers of the latter identity, responds in kind, thereby reinforcing its own self-identification. In this case, the main purpose of counteraction would be to hold the group’s ground, rather than engaging in deliberations concerning respective self- and other-identities: mutual symmetrical identifications as ‘foes’ (as opposed to respective ‘friends’ on both sides) would be more likely than complex revaluations, as in case of ‘Hellenes’ vs ‘barbarians’. However, it may be hypothesized that achieving complete symmetry of conceptual asymmetries would be unlikely in such a case: whereas the group that first deployed AC linked to its own cultural values to define Self and Other has little incentive to budge in its pursuit of domination, the target of the aggressive behaviour would have to hastily produce and display ‘defensive’ concepts to ward off the pressing threats to its identity. If successful, this defence could result in the competition between two sets of AC leading to a more stable situation, discussed below in Bb.

The two groups share the same conceptual universe and a discursive conflict arises in the ideological field as each group attempts to become the dominant group (Bb)

This situation is perhaps the most frequently seen in the world of political conflicts fought by discursive means. Although there is no parity in

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conditions of self-expression for different groups, there is no monopoly either. This means that all groups active in public discourse may resort to AC, identifying any other group as the negative pole of their conceptual positions, but also engaging in conceptual negotiations in search of some common (symmetrical) ground. This kind of situation falls within the domain of either conversation analysis (if the emphasis is on negotiating positions in discourse) or critical discourse analysis (if ideological semantics and structures of domination are at the forefront). In Postoutenko’s terms, this state of affairs is called ‘strong agonistic asymmetry’.29 In this case, one could observe one asymmetry (i.e. non-identification with the concepts attributed by the other group) together with three symmetries (both groups possess social and communicative privileges to express themselves, simultaneously perform self- and otheridentifications, and use cultural concepts to define themselves and their alter egos). Obviously, this scenario has the largest number of variations of the four, as the degree of each of the asymmetries may vary. Even the first asymmetry can become profoundly ambivalent if both groups use the same pair of counter-concepts to identify themselves and others, but attribute to the respective terms the values opposite to those attributed by the other group (which are obviously positive for Self and negative for Other). A case in point is the opposition between liberales and serviles in nineteenth-century Spain (see Luis Fernández Torres’s chapter in this volume). Last but not least, the same process of asymmetrical contestation can be observed in the context of a single concept claimed by two opposing groups, which give it different, if not opposite, evaluative loads: symmetrical in terms of its signifier (obviously unchanged in the process of contestation), such a concept becomes asymmetrical as each of its multiple meanings is unilaterally affixed to a ‘them’-group without its consent. The use of one concept for the opposite (asymmetrical) purposes in a semantic contest may be reminiscent of the concept of ‘nexus’, defined by Michel Louis Rouquette as an abstraction ‘projected’ outwards.30 To illustrate this possibility (which has already been acknowledged in the theory of AC),31 I shall refer to the use of the concept ‘nobility’ within two liberalist trends – the moderate and the progressive – in the first half of the nineteenth century in Spain.

Nobility as an Asymmetric Concept The early 1800s in Spain saw the decline of the Old Regime visible in the War of Independence against France (1808–14), the approval of the

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liberal Constitution of Cádiz (1812) and the recognition of national sovereignty. But the implementation of a liberal regime was not without its problems. Following the proclamation of the Cádiz Constitution and the withdrawal of French troops from the Peninsula, Ferdinand VII – the beloved Spanish king who had been detained in France by Napoleon – returned to his country in 1814. Among other things, this resulted in the recently approved liberal constitution being discarded and absolutism returning for six years (1814–20), as well as the exile and incarceration of numerous politicians. This period was followed by a three-year liberal interlude (1820–23) that enabled the re-establishment of the constitution and an  attempt to put into practice some of the liberal principles contained in the Magna Carta. The end of this liberal triennium was marked by the arrival in Spain of the army assembled by the Holy Alliance – the Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis – and headed by the Duke of Angoulême; this intervention resulted in another decade of absolutism under King Ferdinand VII, which ended only upon his death in 1833. It was from that moment onwards that the liberal regime finally began to be consolidated, though in a different political and cultural context than its early days. Throughout the period we are analysing, the concept of ‘nobility’ played a major role in the political debate. As the Cádiz Constitution was being drawn up, those politicians who were eager to get rid of the remnants of feudalism still present in many institutions asked themselves what role the nobles should play in the new political structure they were about to build. There was a choice between making the nobility a part of the new parliament, rewarding it for resisting the French invaders in 1808–14 with the rest of the nation, or viewing it as a remnant of the Old Regime and removing it from politics. So, in parallel with the notion of people, the concept ‘nobility’ became a staple of political debate in the early days of liberalism. When liberals – or defenders of the Old Regime – talked about nobility, one could not but wonder whether they were referring to the actual titled nobility or rather to aristocracy that, in many cases, could be considered the intellectual or socially prominent elite. The references to medieval nobility peppering the political pronouncements of nineteenth-century intellectuals suggest that the term ‘noble’ – both in the past and in the present – only covered individuals who were in possession of an appropriate nobility title. But the wider context reveals a much more complex situation, with the meanings of ‘nobility’ ranging from titled aristocrats to the intellectual elite, social and political leaders, etc. I am not going to analyse all these meanings of ‘nobility’; instead, I shall confine myself to the uses of the term as an asymmetrical concept, considering its positive

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or negative evaluations in relation to the political forces using them and the specific representation of the past to which they aim to be connected. How did the ‘nobility’ concept become a key concept around which most of the parliamentary and journalistic debates revolved, and how did it become asymmetrical? A possible answer might sound something like: ‘through re-examining the role of nobility in the past.’ This role, focused specifically on certain historical events in which nobles were involved, had been fulfilling the function of representing political ideas that defined each liberal trend by means of particular images taken from the ‘symbolic market’, as defined by Pierre Bourdieu,32 or borrowed from the elective traditions described by Javier Fernández Sebastián.33 The liberal world was revisiting the past by projecting onto it the desire for reforms and changes that it wished to be implemented in the present and future: some elements of the new political concepts were traced back as far as the Middle Ages. For liberals, the medieval Spanish nobility not only preserved its reputation by refraining from engaging in reprehensible and abusive behaviour, but also acted as the intermediary between the king and the people – always on the side of the latter. Intellectuals such as Alberto Lista argued that ‘feudal privileges were never as absurd and unfair among us as in France’.34 The liberal newspaper El Tribuno del Pueblo Español stated: ‘They were true Grandees and Prelates while they joined their own interests more to those of the People.’35 These claims were underpinned by references to the common plight of the two social groups: ‘Ferdinand the Catholic was the first to shackle the strength of the Lords, and the house of Austria, despite smothering the noble cries of the Communards, did not desist from oppressing the nobles. Both grandees and people lost their influence.’36 Most Spanish intellectuals up until the liberal triennium (1820–23) emphasized the fact that one of the features that made Spain different to the rest of Europe was the kind of feudal regime that existed in medieval Spain. This sharp differentiation between Spanish and European nobility allowed liberal politicians to justify the special path followed by Spain (as opposed to France, for example) in the establishment of the liberal regime on the Peninsula. What was really expected of nobles in the early nineteenth century was respect for the constitution, as well as support for and defence of the rights of the entire nation and not just their former privileges. In this context, it was important to differentiate them from the late eighteenth-century French nobles, whose reprehensible past served as the pretext for provoking extreme violence against them. In this sense, the concept of ‘nobility’, rooted in Spain’s very special national history, served as an element of self-definition for the Spanish liberal movement (in contrast to French or general European liberalism),

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while also proving it was fit for several kinds of political action: helping to build the liberal state, the nobles – unlike the defenders of the Old Regime – would be on guard against foreign ideological insurrections and would foster the prestige of the Spanish nation. This use of the concept was asymmetrical insofar as the self-definition of nobility was exclusively based on the selectively viewed past of Spanish society, whereas the past or present of French or European nobility mattered very  little.  Despite the fact that we are dealing with a single concept (‘nobility’) with a dual opposed evaluation (‘good’ as a self-reference to Spain vs ‘bad’ as an other-reference to the rest of Europe), this situation appears to be quite similar to Aa because the Other’s opinion on the matter is not even considered due to the non-overlapping discursive fields (French nobles could hardly be expected to know – or care – about the negative instrumentalization of their identity in Spanish political discourse). I shall continue by giving a series of examples that illustrate liberal thinking on this matter, presenting each liberal trend through the reflections of certain politicians and intellectuals of the period. Such reflections are obviously inextricably linked to the specific context of the political debates at that time, but each meaning attributed to the term ‘nobility’ rests on a set of referential social representations relevant to the particular group. In addition to creating a shared self-identity among its users, each of these reflections is contingent in terms of its situational function and stable in terms of the cultural world it refers to. During the liberal triennium, both moderate (moderados) and progressive (exaltados) liberals took the role played by the past nobility upon themselves, with variations depending on the function they wanted the nobility to perform in the present. This led to the discursive shift from the single conceptual opposition ‘past Spanish nobility’ vs ‘past European nobility’ towards a choice between a positive view of the old nobility (advanced by the moderates) and a more critical interpretation (put forward by the progressives). Once again, the tactical symmetry of asymmetrical approaches to the single concept attests to the discursive struggle between various trends of liberalism over the control of political semantics capable of justifying specific political plans for the future Spain. The moderate liberals who sought the integration of the nobility into the emerging political structure insisted on the symbolic nature that noble titles had acquired over the centuries. In the pages of the newspaper El Universal, it was stated that the proliferation of nobility over time deprived the notion of its meaning beyond ‘a monosyllable in front of the name given at baptism’: under such circumstances, political equality

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put forward by the 1812 Constitution had only recognized a de facto situation.37 In a similar vein, the congressman Francisco Martínez de la Rosa played down the possibility of the nobility threatening the new political structure, as he no longer viewed it as having any kind of ‘hateful privilege’ or being the enemy of freedom.38 The congressman Nicolás Garelli y Battifora even went as far as speaking of the ‘domestication’ of the nobility that had begun back in the sixteenth century: It is well known that the Catholic King and Queen, when they completed the conquest of Granada, had no further use for the old nobility and indirectly uprooted it from fortresses and rocky outposts in mountainous country. Once they were back on low ground, so to speak, the high-ranking feudal lords preserved the vestiges of their primitive power in jousts and tournaments, until these sad remains fell into ridicule and they had to become palace owners, following the natural impulse of human nature, which appeals to all kinds of resources to sustain the things that contribute to their exaltation.39

However, less moderate congressmen and exaltados insisted on the brutal nature of the nobility in the feudal era and their attempts to snatch power from the monarchy, which, according to this view, made the possessions of the nobility illegal and justified their expropriation. Congressman Francisco Martínez Marina underscored this negative evaluation of the feudal nobility when he stated that it formed a state within a state, had therefore threatened the national sovereignty of the nation in the past and could do the same again in the present:40 Since that time, rich and powerful hereditary nobility formed another state within the nation, a numerous, restless and turbulent body, whose ambitious aspirations and rebellious spirit were perpetually at odds with both the monarch’s authority and the rights of the people. The lords rarely joined forces to promote the common good . . . They treated the honourable local community like slaves.41

After the death of Ferdinand VII and the succession of Isabella II (whose mother acted as regent as she was still underage), the consolidation and real construction of the liberal regime finally began. The process, however, was marred by great difficulties: with French doctrinarism gaining ground, along with the ideas of a moderate English parliamentary government, the Cádiz Constitution that had sparked so many debates, struggles and exaltations began to lose its prominence.42 From that time onwards, the intense parliamentary debate on the text of the 1834 Royal Statute, the 1837 Constitution and finally the 1845 Constitution gave rise to new ways of interpreting the past, particularly in relation to the role of the nobility.

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Despite the creation of the second representative chamber (which had already been approved in the 1834 Royal Statute), there was intense debate during the drafting of the 1837 Constitution regarding the appropriateness of having two representative chambers rather than one and the necessity of an elected senate. From the standpoint of progressive liberals, this second chamber would have to be elected by the general population, so these liberals accordingly extolled the role of the people (and belittled the significance of the nobility) in Spanish history.43 Faced with the prospect of a lifelong and hereditary aristocratic senate, congressman Antonio González highlighted the negative characteristics of the nobility throughout history, particularly during the War of the Communities (1520), widely considered a crucial setback in the fight for freedom: ‘What did nobles do in other eras? Let’s hear what Villalar has to say . . . They drowned that cry [of people clamouring for their independence].’ For this congressman, the nobles were a scourge and an instrument of anarchy.44 In the same vein, congressman Bartolomé Benegas y Cabrera stated in the courts: ‘Let’s go back to what grandees were in Spain before Charles V. Back then they were the only revolutionaries and reactionaries in Spain, the ones who tormented the Monarchy and the people, the ones who grabbed all the privileges for themselves and the ones who became rich very fast.’45 However, moderate liberals, who were generally in favour of an aristocratic senate, defended an interpretation of the past whereby nobles and the people were part of a brotherhood and whereby, over the centuries, Spanish nobles has been the true defenders of European freedom and civilization. During a debate in the senate, the Marquis of San Felices stated: The owner of the hut and the lord of the castle, the one at the service of the other, went together to reconquer a country and an altar, because they were both Spanish, and the lords of the castle were not a foreign and oppressive race like in other nations; together they completed the great mission of reestablishing Spain, and they did not just save it – together they saved the whole of Europe, the Western civilization, since despite Carlos Martel’s victory, the Saracens would have crossed the Pyrenees once and a hundred times, had they not come across the unrivalled Spanish swords – the swords wielded by nobles and plebeians alike. One obeying and the other directing.46

In this chapter, we have seen how AC can be extremely useful for social studies because of the volume of information carried by each asymmetry: serving as criteria for self- and other group identifications, they provide mechanisms for handling confrontations in a non-violent way, reflect important cultural values and even reveal social representations of the groups’ past. But, as I have attempted to show, all these benefits become available only if all positions in the debates involving multiple sets of

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AC – or multiple interpretations of a single asymmetrical concept – are taken into account. Ana Isabel González Manso is a researcher at the Department of Constitutional History of the Basque Country University (Spain). She has a PhD in Biological Sciences and a PhD in History. She has been a member of Iberconcepts since 2011. Her main interests include concepts of time and history, emotions in history and the intellectual history of modern politics. She has recently published papers in Contributions to the History of Concepts, Almanack, Historia da Historiografia and Historia Constitucional.

Notes  1. On the notion of ‘symmetry of asymmetries’ in a wider sociocultural context, see Kirill Postoutenko, ‘Towards a Conceptual History of Canonization in Totalitarian Societies’, Ariadna histórica. Lenguajes, conceptos, metáforas 5 (2016), 197–209.  2. Reinhart Koselleck, Vergangene Zukunft. Zur Semantik geschichtlicher Zeiten (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 1979), 211–59.  3. Reinhart Koselleck, Vergangene Zukunft, 213.  4. Reinhart Koselleck, Vergangene Zukunft, 211.  5. M. Lynne Murphy and Roberta Piazza, ‘Linguistic Semantics and Historical Semantics’,  in Kay Junge and Kirill Postoutenko (eds), Aymmetrical Concepts after Reinhart Koselleck. Historical Semantics and Beyond (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2011), 52–80, 63.  6. Jan Marco Sawilla, ‘On Histories, Revolutions, and the Masses. Visions of Asymmetry and Symmetry in German Social Sciences’, in Kay Junge and Kirill Postoutenko (eds), Aymmetrical Concepts after Reinhart Koselleck. Historical Semantics and Beyond (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2011), 165–96, 174.  7. Joao Feres Jr, ‘Building a Typology of Forms of Misrecognition: Beyond the RepublicanHegelian Paradigm’, Contemporary Political Theory 5 (2006), 259–77; Kay Junge and Kirill Postoutenko (eds), Aymmetrical Concepts after Reinhart Koselleck. Historical Semantics and Beyond (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2011); Peter Strohschneider, ‘Fremde in der Vormoderne. Über Negierbarkeitsverluste und Unbekanntheitsgewinne’, in Anja Becker (ed.), Alterität als Leitkonzept für historisches Interpretieren (Berlin: AkademieVerlag, 2012), 388–416.  8. Emanuel Schegloff, ‘Whose Text? Whose Context?’, Discourse and Society 8, no. 2 (1997), 165–87.  9. Rom Harré and Luk van Langenhove, ‘The Dynamics of Social Episodes’, in Rom Harré and Luk van Langenhove (eds), Positioning Theory: Moral Contexts of Intentional Action (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), 1–14. 10. Anna de Fina, Deborah Schiffrin and Michael Bamberg (eds), Discourse and Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 7.

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11. James V. Wertsch, ‘Narrative Tools of History and Identity’, Culture and Psychology 3, no. 1 (1997), 5–20, 6–7. 12. Anchoring is the means of classifying and naming things that involves giving them a positive or negative value and confining them to a set of behaviours and rules. Objectification, in turn, is the process of unearthing the iconic quality of an idea behind its blurred appearance, reproducing a concept in the form of an image. Related to one another, images go on to form a figurative nucleus that visually reproduces a complex of ideas, enabling people to talk about the latter more and more. This, in turn, leads to this figurative paradigm taking on a life of its own, becoming free in the society that accepts it as something conventional but nonetheless real: ‘the image can become completely assimilated and what is perceived replaces what is conceived.’ Alberto Rosa, Guglielmo Bellelli and David Bakhurst, ‘Representaciones del pasado, cultura personal e identidad nacional’, in Memoria colectiva e identidad nacional (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 2000), 41–87, 74. 13. Frederic C. Bartlett, Remembering. A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1932), 215–26. 14. Alberto Rosa, Guglielmo Bellelli and David Bakhurst, ‘Representaciones’, 47. 15. Tzvetan Todorov, El miedo a los bárbaros. Más allá del choque de civilizaciones (Barcelona: Círculo de lectores, 2008), 93. 16. Teun A. van Dijk, Ideología y discurso (Barcelona: Planeta, 2003), 77. 17. Alberto Rosa et al., ‘Imaginando historias de España en el tiempo de unas elecciones generales’, in Alberto Rosa, Guglielmo Bellelli and David Bakhurst (eds), Memoria colectiva e identidad nacional (Madrid, Biblioteca Nueva, 2000), 349–84, 354. 18. Alberto Rosa, Guglielmo Bellelli and David Bakhurst, ‘Representaciones’, 70. 19. Roy F. Baumeister and Stephen Hastings, ‘Distortions of Collective Memory. How Groups Flatter and Deceive Themselves’, in James W. Pennebaker, Dario Paéz and Bernard Rimé (eds), Collective Memory of Political Events. Social Psychological Perspectives (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1997), 277–93. 20. Reinhart Koselleck, Vergangene Zukunft, 209–10. 21. Reinhart Koselleck, Begriffsgeschichten. Studien zur Semantik und Pragmatik der politischen und sozialen Sprache (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2006), 159–81. 22. Reinhart Koselleck, Begriffsgeschichten, 274–84. 23. Joao Feres Jr, ‘Building’, 266. 24. Kirill Postoutenko, ‘Asymmetrical Concepts and Political Aymmetries. A Comparative Glance at 20th Century Democracies and Totalitarianisms from a Discursive Standpoint’, in Kay Junge and Kirill Postoutenko (eds), Aymmetrical Concepts after Reinhart Koselleck. Historical Semantics and Beyond (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2011), 81–113, 82–83. 25. Anthony D. Smith, National Identity (Londres: Penguin, 1991), 20–21. 26. Reinhart Koselleck, Vergangene Zukunft, 217. 27. Ibid. 28. Kirill Postoutenko, ‘Asymmetrical Concepts’, 92. 29. Ibid., 95. 30. Michel Louis Rouquette, Sur la connaissance des masses: essai de psychologie politique (Grenoble: Presses Universitaire de Grenoble, 1994), 68–70. 31. Kirill Postoutenko, ‘Asymmetrical Concepts’, 84–85. 32. Pierre Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994), 37–38. 33. Javier Fernández Sebastián, ‘Tradiciones electivas. Cambio, continuidad y ruptura en historia intelectual’, Almanack 7, (2014), 5–26, 18–19. 34. El Espectador Sevillano, ‘Cuestión II: En el caso de la representación por estamentos, ¿deberá reunirse en un solo cuerpo, o dividirse en dos cámaras? (cont.)’, 5 December 1809, no. 65, 257.

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35. El Tribuno del Pueblo Español, ‘Legislación: Examen de los medios de hacer efectiva la responsabilidad del Poder Ejecutivo’, 20 November 1812, no. 6, 68–70. 36. Marqués de San Felipe, Diarios de Sesiones de las Cortes Generales y Extraordinarias (DSC) (Madrid: imprenta de J.A. García, 1870–74), 17 June 1811, no. 258, 1275. 37. El Universal Observador Español, ‘Constitución Española’, 26 May 1820, no. 15. 38. Francisco Martínez de la Rosa, DSC, 25 March 1821, no. 28, 692. 39. Nicolás Garelli y Battifora, DSC, 28 March 1821, no. 31, 743–44. 40. José Manuel de Vadillo, DSC, 29 March 1821, no. 32, 757. 41. Francisco Martínez Marina, DSC, 6 April 1821, no. 40, 919. 42. Joaquín Varela Suanzes-Carpegna, La Monarquía doceañista (1810–1837) (Madrid, Marcial Pons Historia, 2013). 43. Martín de los Heros y de las Barcenas, DSC, 9 April 1837, no. 164, 2600; Agustín de Argüelles, DSC, 11 April 1837, no. 166, 2658. 44. Antonio González, DSC, 9 April 1837, no. 164, 2603. 45. Bartolomé Benegas y Cabrera, DSC, 10 April 1837, no. 165, 2629. 46. Marqués de San Felices, DSC, DSC Senado, 30 December 1844, no. 23, 202.

References Bartlett, Frederic C., Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1932). Baumeister, Roy F., and Stephen Hastings, ‘Distortions of Collective Memory: How Groups Flatter and Deceive Themselves’, in James W. Pennebaker, Dario Paéz and Bernard Rimé (eds), Collective Memory of Political Events: Social Psychological Perspectives (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1997), 277–93. Bourdieu, Pierre, Language and Symbolic Power (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994). Feres, João, Jr, ‘Building a Typology of Forms of Misrecognition: Beyond the Republican-Hegelian Paradigm’, Contemporary Political Theory 5 (2006), 259–77. Fina, Anna de, Deborah Schiffrin and Michael Bamberg (eds), Discourse and Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). Harré, Rom, and Luk van Langenhove, ‘The Dynamics of Social Episodes’, in Rom Harré and Luk van Langenhove (eds), Positioning Theory: Moral Contexts of Intentional Action (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), 1–14. Junge, Kay, and Kirill Postoutenko (eds), Aymmetrical Concepts after Reinhart Koselleck. Historical Semantics and Beyond (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2011). Koselleck, Reinhart, Begriffsgeschichten. Studien zur Semantik und Pragmatik der politischen und sozialen Sprache (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2006), 159–81. –––, Vergangene Zukunft. Zur Semantik geschichtlicher Zeiten (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 1979), 211–59. Murphy, M. Lynne, and Roberta Piazza, ‘Linguistic Semantics and Historical Semantics’, in Kay Junge and Kirill Postoutenko (eds), Aymmetrical Concepts after Reinhart Koselleck: Historical Semantics and Beyond (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2011), 52–80. Postoutenko, Kirill, ‘Asymmetrical Concepts and Political Aymmetries: A Comparative Glance at 20th Century Democracies and Totalitarianisms from a Discursive Standpoint’, in Kay Junge and Kirill Postoutenko (eds), Aymmetrical

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Concepts after Reinhart Koselleck. Historical Semantics and Beyond (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2011), 81–114. –––, ‘Towards a Conceptual History of Canonization in Totalitarian Societies’, Ariadna histórica. Lenguajes, conceptos, metáforas 5 (2016), 197–209. Rosa, Alberto, et al., ‘Imaginando historias de España en el tiempo de unas elecciones generales’, in Alberto Rosa, Guglielmo Bellelli and David Bakhurst (eds), Memoria colectiva e identidad nacional (Madrid, Biblioteca Nueva, 2000), 349–84. Rosa, Alberto, Guglielmo Bellelli and David Bakhurst, ‘Representaciones del pasado, cultura personal e identidad nacional’, in Memoria colectiva e identidad nacional (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 2000), 41–87. Rouquette, Michel Louis, Sur la connaissance des masses: essai de psychologie politique (Grenoble: Presses Universitaire de Grenoble, 1994). Sawilla, Jan Marco, ‘On Histories, Revolutions, and the Masses: Visions of Asymmetry and Symmetry in German Social Sciences’, in Kay Junge and Kirill Postoutenko (eds), Aymmetrical Concepts after Reinhart Koselleck. Historical Semantics and Beyond (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2011), 165–96. Schegloff, Emanuel, ‘Whose Text? Whose Context?’, Discourse and Society, 8, no. 2 (1997), 165–87. Sebastián, Javier Fernández, ‘Tradiciones electivas. Cambio, continuidad y ruptura en historia intelectual’, Almanack 7 (2014), 5–26. Smith, Anthony D., National Identity (Londres: Penguin, 1991). Strohschneider, Peter, ‘Fremde in der Vormoderne. Über Negierbarkeitsverluste und Unbekanntheitsgewinne’, in Anja Becker (ed.), Alterität als Leitkonzept für historisches Interpretieren (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 2012), 388–416. Todorov, Tzvetan, El miedo a los bárbaros. Más allá del choque de civilizaciones (Barcelona: Círculo de lectores, 2008). van Dijk, Teun A., Ideología y discurso (Barcelona: Planeta, 2003). Wertsch, James V., ‘Narrative Tools of History and Identity’, Culture and Psychology 3, no. 1 (1997), 5–20.

Chapter 4

‘Kultur’/‘Bildung’ vs ‘Civilization’

A Close Look at One Conceptual Asymmetry in the Early Nineteenth-Century Finnish Discourse Heli Rantala

Introduction

T

his chapter examines the emergence and development of conceptual asymmetry between the concepts of ‘culture’ (Kultur, Bildung) and ‘civilization’ in Finnish (Swedish-speaking) intellectual discourse of the early nineteenth century. My aim is to show how the concepts of culture and civilization were adopted for Finnish use and how they served an important purpose in the emerging national discourse. Concepts are not only language-specific but also become attached to different areas, and some concepts travel beyond linguistic borders. The concepts of culture and civilization fit both of these descriptions: on the one hand, they migrate from one language to another and can be understood as transnational or nomadic concepts; on the other hand, they have different connotations in different languages and places. Furthermore, these concepts also serve different purposes in different languages and cultures. ‘Culture’ and ‘civilization’ are not only highly complicated and entangled, but also extensively studied concepts, so one may wonder whether there is anything left to say about them. The novelty of my study lies in the introduction of the geographical perspective – the Nordic North – to the conceptual analysis of culture and civilization. Until now, the special relations between the two concepts were mainly researched from the German linguo-geographical standpoint.1 But how does the shift of language and place change the story of this conceptual relation? This volume proposes several answers to these questions (see, for instance, the contribution of María Luisa Sánchez Mejía and Nere

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Basabe). This chapter, however, will examine the conceptual opposition between culture and civilization in the Nordic context. More specifically, the aim of this chapter is to show how the entangled, sometimes synonymously used concepts of culture and civilization turned into counter-concepts in Finland. I will examine the binary nature of this conceptual pair by drawing on Reinhart Koselleck’s ideas about asymmetrical counter-concepts (1979). But what does the German historian mean by this double definition? According to a standard definition, asymmetry refers to the absence of symmetry and the prefix ‘counter-’ means against. Asymmetrical counter-concepts should thus be concepts that are set against one another in an asymmetric way. Koselleck himself states that we are dealing with ‘asymmetrical concepts that are unequally antithetical’ and gives three examples of these kinds of pairs: ‘Hellene’ – ‘Barbarian’, ‘Christian’ – ‘Heathen’ and ‘Human’ – ‘Non-Human’ (the last of these is subdivided further into ‘Inhuman’, ‘Super-Human’ and ‘Under-Human’).2 Koselleck goes on to argue that the structure of counter-concepts does not depend on the words since the words can be replaced without losing the ‘asymmetric structure of the argument’.3 Does this structure include the specific correlation between the concepts, meaning that it becomes visible only in the relation between the two components of these particular asymmetric pairs? This seems to be the case, although Koselleck does not use his (or any other) examples of binaries to elaborate on his thesis. According to Koselleck, the original binary ‘Hellenes’ – ‘Barbarians’ included a spatial separation that was naturally asymmetrical in nature: people living outside the Greek cities were treated as barbarians and defined negatively. This, among other things, is a clear testimony to the territoriality of the concepts. But merely entering the ‘Greek’ area would not turn a barbarian into a proper Greek, as Aristotle’s blunt definition of Barbarians as natural-born servants who were inferior to Greeks unmistakably highlights.4 Hence, the territorial dimension cannot explain everything in the opposition between Hellenes and Barbarians; here, the concept of civilization comes to the rescue. As Jan Ifversen has stated, the terms ‘civilization’ and ‘barbarism’ belong together and form an asymmetric pair, with barbarians being the ultimate enemy of civilization.5 The semantic origins of the concepts of civility and civilization are well-known: the Latin word civis, referring to the status of the citizen in question, highlights not only the difference between citizens and non-citizens (that is, barbarians),6 but also the superiority of the members of the civis over non-citizens. Thus civility, or civilization, is connected to values and morality, while barbarism represents the lack of these qualities.

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But the spatial dimension of civility, which is embedded in the separation between Hellenes and Barbarians, suggests that civility and the city are closely linked: after all, it was the city – the Greek polis or the Roman civitas – that created a space for civility to develop. Beyond this space were unknown places inhabited by the barbarians. Apart from this spatial dimension, the asymmetry between the city and its outskirts (or between civility and barbarism) entails temporality as barbarians were considered more primitive and hence were seen as living in a different time than Hellenes (that is, city dwellers).7 This temporality of civilization becomes important for the concepts’ development from the mid-eighteenth century onwards, when the word ‘civilization’ began to be used. For such French eighteenth-century authors as Mirabeau or Condorcet, civilization was understood as a process of refinement of human powers.8 The idea of progress is thus embedded in the semantics of the term: its temporality is clearly directed towards the future. What, then, is asymmetrical in the structure of the conceptual pair in question? I argue that in the Finnish case the asymmetry between ‘culture’ and ‘civilization’ is both a spatial and temporal one. Despite the importance of temporality to the notion of civilization, the concept still entailed a clear spatial dimension during the late eighteenth century, as has been shown by Larry Wolff in his Inventing Eastern Europe.9 Civilization did have its geographic cores, such as the city of Paris, the centre of French courtly life and the Enlightenment. Civility and the city were thus still interconnected during the late eighteenth century. The example I examine in this chapter shows how the alternative to this spatial model emerges on its margins, shifting the focus from cities and civilization to nature and the countryside as representative of authentic culture. Moreover, my example demonstrates a shift in the understanding of temporality connected to the idea of civilization. I argue that the future-oriented temporal ideal and order of civilization is called into question in the Finnish conceptual realm: instead of progress, civilization becomes an image of the past, unable to forge a path towards the future. Culture, on the other hand, can represent a new horizon for the Finnish nation. My examination draws on texts from Sweden and Finland published in the first decades of the nineteenth century, written by literary scholars for newspapers and scholarly journals. I call the discussion between these scholars a discourse, which in this case can be understood as a bundle, or condensation, of ideas and also as a manifestation of conceptual thinking. My analysis is based on certain key texts that were fairly well known among educated audiences of the time. Along with a number of texts authored by important public

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figures, I draw upon the Finnish National Library’s electronic collection of Finnish newspapers, which includes all published newspapers from the Finnish territory between 1771 and 1910.10 This collection allows for various keyword searches and widens the scope of the analysis in other ways. Furthermore, in order to depict the travel and translation of concepts from one linguistic and geographic area to another, the chapter takes into account some influential German texts that highlight the use of Kultur and Zivilisation in the late eighteenth century. The chapter covers the period from the late eighteenth century to the first half of the nineteenth century, focusing on the first decades after the creation of the Grand Duchy of Finland in 1809. Beginning with a short survey of the Nordic conceptual landscape, with a particular emphasis in Finland, I will demonstrate how the modern concepts of culture and civilization were adopted by Swedish and Finnish discourse from the German language. Thereafter, I will further elaborate on the Finnish conceptual realm, tracing the emergence of the conceptual asymmetry in question and evaluating its importance in a specific transitional phase in the history of the territory.

The Northern Dimension The burgeoning field of studies on the concepts of civilization and culture in Europe has been dominated by research on German, English and French discourses.11 More recently, the scope of this investigation has been widened to include Spanish, Italian and Dutch discourses, as well as those of the Asian continent.12 However, despite this broadening of perspective, there are still some languages and areas that have received scanty attention in terms of conceptual analysis of these key terms. One might argue that the Nordic area represents a relatively small part of a wider European context both in terms of its population and the political and cultural relevance of the region. Still, as my analysis seeks to demonstrate, even regions of minor political relevance can contribute to the development of key concepts in European thought. In a recent publication, Helge Jordheim traces the semantics of the term ‘civilization’ in late nineteenth-century Scandinavian lexicons. His findings reveal that civilization is not treated as a key concept in these dictionaries, assuming a more or less peripheral role. In Scandinavian countries, its place is taken by education, bildning or Bildung.13 Jordheim’s observations regarding the late nineteenth century also apply to its beginning. My chapter examines the origins, rather than consequences, of this conceptual phenomenon. Moreover, it extends the area of research beyond

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the three Scandinavian countries – Sweden, Denmark and Norway – to a Nordic level (represented by Finland). Of course, the Finnish language does not belong to the family of Scandinavian languages, but, in the early nineteenth century, the dominant scholarly and literary language in Finland was Swedish, which linked the country to the Scandinavian countries as far as the semantics of ‘civilization’ was concerned. It should be emphasized that at the turn of the nineteenth century there was no such thing as Finnish-only intellectual life distinct from Sweden. This was the result of the Finnish territory belonging to the Swedish kingdom until 1809 and Swedish being a common language among the Finnish scholarly elite. Hence, when we are dealing with the so-called Finnish case, we must do so within the wider Swedish context. In the eastern part of the Swedish realm that is present-day Finland, there was, from 1640 onwards, a university called the Academy of Turku or Åbo.14 This institution had strong connections to Uppsala, the leading Swedish university, and there were teacher exchanges between the universities. It was also quite common for the students of the Academy of Turku to spend some time in Uppsala as exchange students; thus, numerous scholars of the Academy of Turku were partly educated in Uppsala. In 1809, the Finnish territory became the Grand Duchy of Finland and was part of the Russian Empire. However, the intellectual connections to the old motherland Sweden were by no means immediately broken – indeed, it was not until 1827 that the university moved from Turku to Helsinki, as the result of a fire. Even in the Swedish era, there was some newspaper publishing in the territory of Finland. The first newspaper came out in Turku in 1771. Thus, Finnish publishing activities began even before the creation of the Grand Duchy of Finland. The change of political circumstances initiated the discussion among the scholarly elite of the Academy of Turku about the future of the Finnish people, its language and culture. This emerging public discussion in newspapers and scholarly journals also included a conceptual dimension that I will soon explore in more detail. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, there were approximately one million inhabitants in the Grand Duchy of Finland;15 87 per cent were native Finnish speakers. However, Swedish remained the dominant administrative language in the Grand Duchy of Finland until the early twentieth century, sustaining a deep linguistic asymmetry within the Finnish social structure that effectively preserved inequality: both administrative and scholarly posts in the country required knowledge of the Swedish language. Although communicative disparity is not in the focus of my study, it does play a role in the emergence of the conceptual asymmetry examined in this chapter.

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Travelling Concepts In recent years, a number of initiatives have tracked the geographical movement of concepts from one language or cultural sphere to another. One tool employed in such studies has been the metaphor of travel, developed, for example, by Mieke Bal.16 Isabelle Stengers, in her turn, has been developing the idea of nomadic concepts.17 This movement, or travel, can be understood as an act of translation and transformation.18 On this subject, Jan Ifversen writes of four Ts associated with the movement of concepts – transfer, transmission, translation and transformation.19 Thus, travel or transfer is not a simple act of movement, but includes translation, which, in turn, results in different transformations. Often it is hard to pin down specific explicit cases of the conceptual migration of concepts from one writer, language or area to another, and we frequently have to merely register similarities or resemblances instead. However, in the case of German concepts of Kultur and Bildung, the movement or travel from German to Swedish is evident. Moreover, the Swedish language has no difficulties in translating the German term Bildung. In English, there is a difficulty as Kultur and Bildung are closely related: Bildung is often translated as ‘culture’, which, to some extent, obliterates the difference between Kultur and Bildung.20 In contrast, Swedish has separate terms for both – kultur and bildning;21 moreover, the semantic origins of the Swedish bildning are close to those of Bildung.22 Although the Finnish language belongs to a completely different linguistic family than German and Swedish, it does have a word  – ­sivistys  – that can be understood as a translation of Bildung.23 Thus, both in Scandinavian languages and in Finnish, the words used to signify Bildung are closely connected to the semantics of the German term: Swedish bildning, Danish dannelse and Finnish sivistys all refer to the active process of self-formation.24 Nevertheless, in the German tradition, as well as in the Swedish and Finnish traditions, the terms Kultur and Bildung have been closely connected and cannot always be divided into two separate concepts; in a way, the terms developed together, in connection with one another. One of the earliest literary statements regarding the scope of German Kultur is an article by Moses Mendelssohn in Berlinische Monatsschrift in 1784: Mendelssohn stated that the term Kultur – as well as Aufklärung and Bildung – was a newcomer in the German language. Mendelssohn’s rather pragmatic notion of culture associated it with certain practical skills and the quality of social life.25 This definition seems very close to what might be understood as civilization, so the terms could be used as synonyms in the German language. However, Norbert Elias has argued, in his classical

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study The Civilizing Process, that in the German language the concept of culture has served a special, nationally oriented purpose involving an antithetical relation with the concept of civilization. In French and English, the word ‘civilization’ was used as a neutral or positive term, while in the German language it had a negative connotation. Elias traces the emergence of this conceptual dichotomy to Immanuel Kant, although it only grew in prominence after the First World War.26 Elias’s interpretation has been criticized for being one-sided,27 but it is nevertheless one of the best-known examples of conceptual analysis, recognized far beyond conceptual history. In order to trace the travel of German concepts into Swedish and Finnish, it is worth taking a closer look at the emergence of the conceptual pair ‘culture’ – ‘civilization’ in the German language. To do this, it is necessary to take a closer look at Kant’s terminology. Political philosopher Raymond Geuss has argued that Kant, in his Critique of Judgement (1790), used the word Kultur to refer to the properties of the rational individual, whereas Zivilisation was linked to the social sphere.28 In this sense, Kant would not have used the word to convey its modern meaning as a social concept. However, this does not give a fair picture on Kant’s terminology. In his Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim (1784), Kant is definitely using the term Kultur in a social sense, introducing the term as a reference to the process of socialization:29 Thus happen the first true steps from crudity toward culture, which really consists in the social worth of the human being; thus all talents come bit by bit to be developed, taste is formed, and even, through progress in enlightenment, a beginning is made toward the foundation of a mode of thought which can with time transform the rude natural predisposition to make moral distinctions into determinate practical principles and hence transform a pathologically compelled agreement to form a society finally into a moral whole.30

Here, Kant clearly connects culture with the development of human qualities, including morality. He refers to ‘crudity’ and ‘rude natural predisposition’ – the state of nature from which humans are capable of progressing towards morals (and freedom) through the social process of acculturation. Compared to Mendelssohn, whose text appeared in the same year, Kant’s notion of culture is more abstract and more normative. In the seventh proposition, Kant makes the distinction on which Elias’s observation is based: We are civilized, perhaps to the point of being overburdened, by all sorts of social decorum and propriety. But very much is still lacking before we can be held to be already moralized. For the idea of morality still belongs to culture;

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but the use of this idea, which comes down only to a resemblance of morals in love of honor and in external propriety, constitutes only being civilized. – But everything good that is not grafted onto a morally good disposition, is nothing but mere semblance and glittering misery.31

It seems that instead of a clear dichotomy between the terms ‘civilization’ and ‘culture’, Kant’s argument consists of three components: culture, civilization and morality. This has also been noted by Jörg Fisch, who has stated that the dichotomy between culture and civilization that Elias traced back to Kant was in reality a relation between these two concepts and morality.32 Still, it seems quite clear from the quote that Kant associated morality, or at least the possibility of morality, with culture rather than civilization, assigning markedly different values to the terms. But, in the context of his time, this position is far from representative. In 1795, for instance, Friedrich Schlegel, one of the leading theorists of German Romanticism, in commenting upon Condorcet’s concept of civilization, translated it as Bildung or Fortschritt (progress), thus underscoring the closeness of the French term to the German notion of Bildung.33 This example attests to the overlap between the two concepts rather than their asymmetry. Concurrently, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, another representative of German Idealism, wrote in Some Lectures Concerning the Scholar’s Vocation (1794) that culture is ‘the last and the highest medium for the goal of a human being’.34 Here, culture refers to the social sphere, but is, at the same time, semantically close to Bildung. A year before, Fichte had published his Contribution to the Rectification of the Public’s Judgment of the French Revolution, in which he also offered a formulation of culture as the development of human powers to the point of perfection, that is, freedom.35 This notion of culture was swiftly introduced to the Swedish reading public by Benjamin Höijer (1767–1812). Active at the University of Uppsala, Höijer was one of the leading representatives of Kantian philosophy in Sweden. In 1795, he presented Fichte’s work on the French Revolution, as well as his notion of culture, in a Swedish literary journal Litteratur-Tidning.36 Höijer was also the translator of Fichte’s lectures on the scholar’s vocation: his translation was published in 1796 – just two years after the publication of the original work.37 In addition, Höijer made a distinction between culture as the authentic cultivation of human qualities and ‘sheer civilization’, pertaining to outer behaviour or appearance. According to Swedish historian Jonas Hansson, Höijer adopted this distinction from Kant.38 This seems convincing, since Höijer was most likely acquainted with Kant’s writings. Höijer introduced his notion of civilization in the Journal för Svensk Litteratur (1807)

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and did so again a few years later in another literary journal Lyceum (1811). In these writings, he stated that cultivation had never been an individual act, having always been connected to species or ‘kin’ (släkt). Höijer went on to state that ‘from cultivation we/. . ./ have to separate what is sheer civilization, or an ease to adapt oneself to the forced sociability’.39 Höijer’s way of differentiating cultivation from ‘sheer civilization’ recalls Kant’s words, quoted above. As in the case of Kant, the formulation leaves some room for different interpretations and it remains unclear how negatively civilization is marked. We can also observe that Höijer avoids the Swedish term for Kultur that he himself had introduced (kultur), writing about cultivation (odling) instead. This highlights the ambivalent status of the relatively new term. As we know, our modern concept of culture derives from the latin cultura, referring to the cultivation of the soil.40 Although Höijer obviously employed the term in a figurative sense, referring to the cultivation of the soul, both ‘cultivation’ and ‘culture’ were still used in the agrarian context: as late as 1815, a Finnish newspaper reported on the successful ‘development in the culture of the potatoes’ in northern Finland.41 Pim den Boer has emphasized the agrarian dimension of the German concept of culture,42 which holds true for Finland and Nordic countries as well, although, in Germany, the meaning of the term was probably not as practical as in the case of ‘the culture of the potatoes’. Indeed, the idea of cultivation in Scandinavia has its roots in the soil; this will be discussed below.

The Dangers of Civilization The German notion of culture – understood as cultivation of the soul and morality or the development of Bildung – soon appeared in Finnish scholarly discussions. Moreover, in Finnish literary discourse, the distinction between the concepts of culture and civilization is similar to that outlined by Kant and Höijer. This movement of concepts and their basic meanings from one language to another is an example of the territorialization of concepts: it can be argued that by entering into Swedish and Finnish literary use, the German concepts occupied new territories. However, this territorialization did not occur as a simple act of adaptation or imitation, but included some genuine developments in terms of conceptual asymmetry. The word ‘culture’ (kultur or cultur in Swedish) appeared in a Finnish newspaper in the early 1780s,43 but these early references do not contain any wider discussion of the term’s meaning. The earliest example

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of explicit attention being paid to both culture and civilization is in the essay ‘On Some Obstacles to Finland’s Literature and Culture’ (Swedish original: ‘Om några hinder för Finlands litteratur och cultur’) by Johan Jakob Tengström (1787–1858), published in 1817 and 1818. The text not only spread the Höijerian and Fichtean notions of culture among the Finnish scholarly audience, but also introduced a clear dichotomy between culture and civilization. Moreover, this dichotomy was key to the development of the author’s argumentation. Tengström was a scholar (and later also a professor of philosophy) at the Academy of Turku. In assessing his influence as a teacher and mentor of the younger generation of Finnish academics, one should bear in mind that the academy was the only university on Finnish territory, meaning that all students were educated within the same academic setting, by a relatively small number of teachers. During his own studies, Tengström spent time in Uppsala, where he came in direct contact with Höijer, who was well versed in German Idealist philosophy. Overall, Uppsala can be considered an important intellectual centre for scholars of the Academy of Turku. The relatively short physical distance between the cities was not the only reason for this. The intellectual distance was not big either, because of the aforementioned movement of scholars (particularly from Turku to Uppsala), but also because of Uppsala’s position as the centre of academic publishing in Sweden: literary journals published in Uppsala were assiduously read in Turku. However, these close relations between the two universities do not in themselves suggest a lack of direct contact between Turku and German territories. Nevertheless, Uppsala served as an intellectual hub, a space for academic discussion that, among other things, generated re-conceptualizations of key terms spreading to the Finnish territory. Tengström’s essay had a clear aim: to initiate discussion regarding the development of literary activities in a new Grand Duchy of Finland. Moreover, Tengström’s goals were to advance national awareness among the Swedish-speaking population and to offer a vision of the future direction of the Finnish nation. In his writing, he applies the conceptual distinction made earlier by Höijer for the Finnish national cause. Tengström introduces an explicit distinction between culture and civilization, which is asymmetrical in nature. In his words, ‘many of us [who] have not learnt to separate civilization, which is based on bourgeois [borgerlig] security and convenience, from proper intellectual culture’.44 He continues by stating that civilization, which, in fact, is nothing more than ‘outer utility or usability’, is often incorrectly understood as ‘the highest goal for science and knowledge’, while intellectual culture is accorded an instrumental value in relation to the former.45 It

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becomes clear that, in Tengström’s view, this hierarchy should be turned upside down. One can certainly identify the elements of Kant’s statement regarding the concepts of culture, civilization and morality in Tengström’s writing, but the latter pushes his argument further than Kant – or Höijer, for that matter – drawing a clear distinction between culture and civilization, understood here as counter-concepts. Tengström writes that the conception of civilization entertained by some of his contemporaries was, in fact, an obstacle to the true culture: It is undeniable that the newer Europe has been enchanted by its victorious civilization, that it has deviated from the higher intellectual strand that laid the first foundations of its present culture; that its interests little by little were directed towards the economic benefits rather than to the real cultivation of the soul, to a harmonious development of the most beautiful tendencies of the humanity.46

The highest purpose of the state is not civilization but ‘culture, that is the constantly increasing ennobling of the humanity’.47 In Tengström’s writing, culture is connected to higher values, the cultivation of the soul, intellectual values, self-education and the ennoblement of humanity, in very close connection with Bildung. Civilization, on the other hand, lacks morality and is driven by a simple quest for comfort and superficial knowledge. In Tengström’s text, civilization is connected to the false kind of Enlightenment that he felt was superficial, hypocritical and egocentric. Similar criticism was simultaneously voiced in Sweden – for example, by Erik Gustaf Geijer (1783–1847) who published a work entitled ‘False and True Enlightenment in Relation to Religion’ (‘Om falsk och sann upplysning med avseende på religionen’) in 1811. Geijer directed his critique against the one-sided appraisal of progress and attacks on religious beliefs – two tendencies that, in his view, sprang from Enlightenment.48 The Nordic reception of the Enlightenment is beyond the scope of this chapter. It should be stated, however, that in eighteenth-century Sweden, the Enlightenment tradition manifested itself in the founding of scientific societies, as well as publications promoting the ideas of the French philosophes. Among the most prominent advocates of the ‘Enlightenment’ who commented upon the concept were J.H. Kellgren and Nils von Rosenstein. One of the culminations of this discourse was Rosenstein’s treatise on Enlightenment (‘Försök til en afhandling om uplysningen’), which he wrote in 1789 but published in 1793, a few years after the outbreak of the French Revolution. At this point, criticism

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of Enlightenment ideas became more frequent due to their revolutionary connections.49 Contemporary scholars disagree about whether one should treat the revolution as a consequence of Enlightenment ideas and actions,50 but, in the early nineteenth century at least, the two dots were connected, which made the Enlightenment unpopular with a number of scholars. In Tengström’s writing, this critical attitude towards the French Enlightenment extends to the French way of life in general. Tengström openly states that the dominance of French civilization was threatening other nations and their national cultures. The French tradition of Enlightenment, or civilization, which, for him, went more or less hand in hand, ignored the achievements of other cultures, inviting them to abandon national differences and establishing a (French) norm that others should follow. Part of this critique was directed towards Sweden, where French-style court society flourished during the reign of Gustav III.51 This scepticism is echoed in the writing published in Mnemosyne, a Turkubased literary journal, in 1819: Adolf Ivar Arwidsson – another Academy of Turku scholar – directed his criticism towards the utilitarian spirit (of his time), as well as the French-style taste that some people, notably in Sweden, were too eager to emulate.52 This critique of French cultural domination is comparable to the German intellectual tradition as analysed, for example, by Norbert Elias. Elias’s argument regarding the national purpose of German Kultur suits Tengström’s intentions perfectly, regardless of the fact that the latter deals with Finland rather than Germany. It is possible that Tengström’s critical attitude towards civilization was adopted from German intellectuals, who formulated their views of Germany in opposition to the French – and the French-speaking nobility – in Germany. As far as I am aware, however, this explicit conceptual asymmetry between culture and civilization did not appear in the same form in the German language as it did in Tengström’s text. In German, a deeper asymmetry between the concepts was developed mainly in the early twentieth century.53 On the other hand, the asymmetry between culture and civilization is not a uniquely German phenomenon, as Elias appears to suggest. In 1830, Samuel Taylor Coleridge stated in his On the Constitution of the Church and State that: [But] civilization is itself but a mixed good, if not far more corrupting influence, the hectic of disease, not the bloom of health, and a nation so distinguished more fitly to be called a varnished than a polished people, where this civilization is not grounded in cultivation, in the harmonious development of those qualities and faculties that characterize our humanity.54

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This statement shows that the dichotomy between culture, or cultivation, and civilization was known also in the English language.55 On the other hand, the statement cannot be connected to the Finnish discourse as it appeared a few decades later than Tengström’s polemic writing. Tengström’s way of separating morality from civilization shows how differently this concept could be understood in the Finnish tradition when compared to the standard meaning of the term in the French language. For example, François Guizot, one of the most influential French historians of the nineteenth century, was convinced that the universal civilization of the human species was a positive goal for humanity.56 In the Finnish tradition, this positive meaning of civilization was turned upside down, becoming the counter-concept of deeper morality or humanity. For Tengström, the concept of civilization did not offer a suitable model for the development of the Finnish nation – a model he believed could be found in culture and Bildung.

Civilization, Culture and Nature ‘There is a university in that city, and they make some attempts in it to cultivate the intellect: but the vicinity of the bears and wolves during the winter is so close, that all ideas are absorbed in the necessity of ensuring a tolerable physical existence.’57 This is how the French intellectual Anne Louise Germaine de Staël-Holstein, also known as Madame de Staël, described her impressions of the city of Turku when travelling through Finland on her way from St Petersburg to Stockholm in 1812. For de Staël, the town appeared to be surrounded by wilderness and nature that literally threatened the modest attempts of the locals to cultivate their souls. For inhabitants of the north, questions about nature, culture and civilization were understood somewhat differently. In Finland, as well as in other Nordic countries, the emerging ideas of national uniqueness were deeply connected to geography and landscapes – in other words, to nature. Jordheim has examined this connection in the Scandinavian context during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He has emphasized the importance of nature for the national narratives of the Scandinavian countries and its importance for the semantics of the term ‘civilization’ in these countries.58 The foundations of these late nineteenthcentury narratives were already laid at the beginning of the century. Those early nineteenth-century authors who defined the contents of the national imagination in Nordic countries were aware of the challenges

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the harsh climate posed to the inhabitants of the region. As Jordheim has stated, they were also aware of Montesquieu’s ideas regarding the impact of climate on national qualities.59 In the Nordic case, this challenge was turned into a national strength: the inhabitants of the region were understood to reflect the positive qualities of untouched nature, perceived as loving, honest and steady. Frans Michael Franzén (1772–1847) and his ideas about the freedom of the Nordic wilderness anticipated nineteenth-century national views. Franzén was a poet; he was a Swedish citizen who wrote in Swedish, but he also considered himself a Finn. He was born in the Finnish territory, on the northernmost coast on the Baltic Sea in the town of Oulu, and he received his academic schooling in the universities of Turku and Uppsala. In 1795–96, he made a European tour, visiting several regions in western continental Europe and also travelling to England. During his trip, Franzén visited several German cities, but it was Paris that he was most anxious to see. Experiencing Paris changed his views on this urban metropolis: Franzén found the city to be uncomfortable, dirty and chaotic and his experience made him rethink the role of Paris as the centre of Europe.60 During his stay in the city, Franzén wrote a poem in which he elaborated his ideas on French liberty. Moreover, in his poem, he dreams of a kind of northern freedom that he associated with the wilderness of Lapland.61 Franzén had never actually been in Lapland, but for him it represented an alternative, imaginary model for freedom. This critical attitude towards the metropolitan cityscape became a part of the nineteenth-century national understanding in the Nordic countries. As stated by Jordheim, this turn towards nature challenges the fundamental premise of civilization as a process of refinement in contrast to the state of nature.62 This scepticism towards larger cities was also characteristic of the German Romantic movement, which lauded the authentic Germanic landscape in smaller towns and in the culture of the Rhine Valley.63 Compared to this point of view, the Nordic (and Finnish) national imagination was more strongly oriented towards wild nature untouched by any human culture. During his visits to well-known  European cultural  sites, Franzén practised his somewhat humorous habit of reiterating his own Nordic roots. In particular, he constantly – and favourably – compared the natural beauty of his homeland (both Sweden and Finland) with the manmade places he visited in continental Europe.64 In his conceptual analysis, Jordheim uses the example of Scandinavian national anthems, which emerged during the second half of the nineteenth century and all draw heavily on the natural beauty of the respective home

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countries.65 To this list, one should also add the Finnish anthem, written in 1846 by Swedish-speaking poet Johan Ludwig Runeberg (1804–1877) and published as a poem (as well as publicly performed as a song) in 1848.66 In Runeberg’s lyrics, there is the very same appraisal of northern nature as in other Nordic anthems.67 Along with wild, untamed nature, a recurrent feature in nineteenthcentury Finnish literature was the peasantry who lived in close connection with nature and its soil – despite the obstacles created by the harsh climate. Runeberg, for example, found authentic Finnish peasants in the country’s Finnish-speaking inland and depicted (in an idealized form) their simple lives in his poems. Similarly, the author of the Kalevala, Elias Lönnrot (1802–84), had to search for the authentic folk song tradition far away from the populated coastal area in the thick of a Finnish forest; according to him, it was there that the authentic and pure folk song tradition that formed a backbone of Finnish culture was born. Lönnrot himself wrote that authentic Finnish oral poetry was not actually manmade, but was, rather, produced by nature.68 In this sense, culture and nature became connected in the Finnish national imagination. One of the oppositions embedded in the division between civilization and culture is the distinction between the authentic and its imitation, which can be understood as a division between cosmopolitan and national traditions (also prominent in German and Nordic national development). This dichotomy is embedded in Tengström’s belief that civilization cannot provide a model for the Finnish nation. Similarly, in 1842, Lönnrot explicitly stated that the ‘pruning clippers of civilization’ will cut out national authenticity.69 This fear of uniformity appears to be an important driving force behind the asymmetrization of culture and civilization: the emerging genuine Finnish national culture, pure in its authentic simplicity, was considered to be in need of protection from civilizational uniformity. Why was it, then, that in the Finnish case the counter-idea of the national project had to be a cosmopolitan yet French-dominated civilization? Why wasn’t the counter-idea Sweden, for example? To be sure, this kind of oppositional relation to Sweden did develop during the nineteenth century, but in the early years of the nineteenth century the promoters of Finnish national culture were themselves part of Swedish culture, educated in it and speaking the Swedish language. The essence  of  ‘Finnish  culture’ was, at that point, so thin that it was impossible for its promoters to alienate themselves completely from Swedish culture and turn it into the counter-image of the Finnish cultural orientation.

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Conclusion This chapter has sought to trace the emergence of conceptual asymmetry between civilization and culture in early nineteenth-century Finnish discourse. In the Finnish case, there was a conceptual shift from civilization to culture: while German Kultur and Bildung were considered suitable models for the Finnish nation, civilization was connected to more superficial values and could be understood as a harmful universalizing force that threatened national uniqueness. In Finnish discourse, the superiority and exemplariness of civilization, as well as its normative value, were called into question. Civilization no longer served as a model or standard to be achieved: instead, it became a negative counter-image for deeper morality and national authenticity. This conceptual shift was turning the European periphery – the uncivilized rural inland regions of Finland – into the centre of emerging national culture, producing a deep conceptual asymmetry: in this tradition, Enlightenment becomes darkness, civilization becomes the opposite of humanity and the primitive outskirts of civilization come to be the heart of national culture. In this sense, the counter-concepts of ‘civility’ and ‘barbarism’ were turned upside down in Northern Europe. As a spatial asymmetry, the opposition between culture and civilization created a model whereby geographical distance from the civilized centres of Europe became a source of national pride: closeness to nature served as proof of cultural authenticity. Nordic national projects connected to the idea of German self-formation introduced the North as the territory of Bildung, where civilization played only a minor role. As for the temporal asymmetry, the conceptual pair of culture and civilization was needed for the formulation of new direction for the emerging Finnish nation. In this process, the forward-looking orientation of civilization was called into question; civilization was relegated to the past and disconnected from the future. An alternative temporal model was seen in the development of kultur, conceived as a replacement for the European civilizational project. On the other hand, the projected rise of the national culture required a sort of a negative backdrop and this necessitated the asymmetry between culture and civilization. Heli Rantala (PhD) is Research Fellow and Adjunct Professor (Docent) at the Department of Cultural History, University of Turku, Finland. She has published especially on nineteenth-century Finnish cultural discourse, press history and travel writing. Her research interests include early nineteenth-century intellectual history and the travel of concepts in Northern Europe.

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Notes  1. This relation has been studied by Norbert Elias in his Über den Prozess der Zivilisation and in the German project Geschichtliche Grundbergiffe.  2. Reinhart Koselleck, Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time, trans. Keith Tribe (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1979; reprint New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), 157.  3. Ibid., 159.  4. Ibid., 160–62.  5. Jan Ifversen, ‘Civilisation og barbari’, in Mikkel Thorup, Hans-Jørgen Schanz and Mehdi Mozaffari (eds), Totalitarisme. Venskab og fjendskab (Aarhus: Aarhus Universitetsforlag, 2007), 25, 27.  6. Originally, Barbarians were singled out as those who could not speak the Greek language properly (see, for instance, Ifversen, ‘Civilisation og barbari’, 26). On the semantics origins of civilization, see, for example, Jörg Fisch, ‘Zivilisation, Kultur’, in Otto Brunner, Werner Conze and Reinhart Koselleck (eds), Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe. Historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland, Band 7 (Stuttgart: KlettCotta, 1992), 688–89.  7. Ifversen, ‘Civilisation og barbari’, 26–28.  8. Fisch, ‘Zivilisation, Kultur’, 717–19. On this temporal shift, see also Ifversen, ‘Civilisation og barbari’, 29.  9. Wolff has argued that the Enlightenment shifted the spatial division of Europe from the south–north dichotomy towards a separation between west and east. Larry Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994). 10. This collection is provided by the Finnish National Library, retrieved 20 May 2017 from http://digi.kansalliskirjasto.fi/. 11. This has been also stated by Pim den Boer. See Pim den Boer, ‘Concepts in Focus: Civilisation’, Contributions to the History of Concepts 3, no. 2 (2007), 205. See also Lucien Febvre, Civilisation: Le Mot et l’Idée (Paris: Centre International de Synthèse: 1930); Norbert Elias, Über den Prozess der Zivilisation: soziogenetische und psychogenetische Untersuchungen (Basel: Verlag Haus zum Falken, 1939); Georg Bollenbeck, Bildung und Kultur. Glanz und Elend eines deutschen Deutungsmusters (Frankfurt am Main; Leipzig: Suhrkamp, 1996); Brett Bowden, The Empire of Civilisation: The Evolution of an Imperial Idea (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009). 12. Pim den Boer, ‘Towards a Comparative History of Concepts: Civilisation and Beschaving’, Contributions to the History of Concepts 3, no. 2 (2007), 207–33; Sandro Chignola, ‘Civis, Civitas, Civilitas: Translations in Modern Italian and Conceptual Change’, Contributions to the History of Concepts 3, no. 2 (2007), 234–53; Javier Fernández Sebastián, ‘The Concept of Civilization in Spain, 1754–2005: From Progress to Identity’, Contributions to the History of Concepts 4, no. 1 (2008), 81–105; Margrit Pernau and Helge Jordheim (eds), Civilizing Emotions. Concepts in Nineteenth-Century Asia and Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). 13. Helge Jordheim, ‘The Nature of Civilization: The Semantics of Civilization and Civility in Scandinavia’, in Civilizing Emotions, 28–31ff. 14. Åbo is the Swedish name of the city. 15. Mauri Nieminen, Väestötilastoja 250 vuotta. Katsaus väestötilaston historian vuosina 1749–1999 (Helsinki: Tilastokeskus, 1999). 16. Bal treats the act of travelling as propagation – a term she adopts from the natural sciences. See Mieke Bal, Travelling Concepts in the Humanities: A Rough Guide (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002), 29–33. The metaphor of travel was originally introduced by Edward Said – see Birgit Neumann and Ansgar Nünning, ‘Travelling Concepts

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17.

18.

19. 20. 21. 22.

23. 24.

25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30.

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as a Model for the Study of Culture’, in Birgit Neumann and Ansgar Nünning (eds), Travelling Concepts for the Study of Culture (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012), 4–5. Bal’s model has also been criticized for paying too little attention to the active reworking of concepts by different users during the travel. See Wolfgang Hallet, ‘Conceptual Transfer: A Cognitive Approach to the Construction, Re-Interpretation and Re-Contextualisation of Academic Concepts’, in Neumann and Nünning, Travelling Concepts, 389–91; Jani Marjanen, ‘Undermining Methodological Nationalism: Histoire Croisée of Concepts as Transnational History’, in Mathias Albert et al. (eds), Transnational Political Spaces. Agents – Structures – Encounters (Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 2009), 254. Stengers’s idea has been presented in the recent themed issue of the journal of the History of Concepts Group. See Jan Surman, Katalin Stráner and Peter Haslinger, ‘Nomadic Concepts: Biological Concepts and Their Careers Beyond Biology’, in Contributions to the History of Concepts 9, no. 2 (2014), 1–17. The concept of translation has been much discussed in the field of cultural studies, but also within the practice of conceptual history. See, for example, Doris BachmannMedick, ‘Introduction: The Translational Turn’, in Translation Studies 2, no. 1 (2009), 2–16; Martin J. Burke and Melvin Richter (eds), Why Concepts Matter? Translating Social and Political Thought (Leiden: Brill, 2012). Jan Ifversen, ‘Afterword: Reflections on Some Challenges’, in Civilizing Emotions, 289. On the complicated relationship between these German concepts, see Bollenbeck, Bildung und Kultur. Similarly, in the Danish language, dannelse is the translation of Bildung. In the case of Bildung, there is a reference to image (Bild, Abbild, Ebenbild), as well as to form (Gestalt) and formation (Gestaltung). Rudolf Vierhaus, ‘Bildung’, in Otto Brunner, Werner Conze and Reinhart Koselleck (eds), Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe. Historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland, Band 1 (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1974), 509. Similarly, in the Swedish language, there is a connection between bildning and the words for image (bild) and formation (bilda). Jonas Hansson, Humanismens kris. Bildningsideal och kulturkritik i Sverige 1848–1933 (Stockholm: Stehag, 1999), 45. Heikki Kokko, ‘Sivistyksen varhaista käsitehistoriaa’, Kasvatus & Aika 4, no. 4 (2010), 8–9. In the case of dannelse, see Jordheim, ‘The Nature of Civilization’, 31. According to Koselleck, self-formation is the closest definition of Bildung in English. Reinhart Koselleck, ‘Einleitung – Zur anthropologischen und semantischen Struktur der Bildung’, in Industrielle Welt. Bd 41: Bildungsbürgertum im 19. Jahrhundert. Teil II: Bildungsgüter und Bildungswissen (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1990). Moses Mendelssohn, ‘Über die Frage: was heisst aufklären?’, Berlinische Monatsschrift, Bd. 4 (1784), 193–4 [digital version on deutschestextarchiv.de]. Elias, Über den Prozess der Zivilisation, 95–96. Fisch, ‘Zivilisation, Kultur’, 725. Raymond Geuss, ‘Kultur, Bildung, Geist’, in History and Theory 35, no. 2 (1996), 154–55. To be precise, in this section, Kant is dealing with the term ‘unsociable sociability’ (ungesellige Geselligkeit). Immanuel Kant, ‘Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim’, trans. Allen Wood, in Amélie Oksenberg Rorty and James Schmidt (eds), Kant’s Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim. A Critical Guide (1784; reprint, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 13. Original: ‘Da geschehen nun die ersten wahren Schritte aus der Rohigkeit zur Kultur, die eigentlich in dem gesellschaftlichen Werth des Menschen besteht; da werden alle Talente nach und nach entwickelt, der Geschmack gebildet und selbst durch fortgesetzte Aufklärung der Anfang zur Gründung einer Denkungsart gemacht, welche die grobe Naturanlage zur sittlichen Unterscheidung mit der Zeit in bestimmte praktische Principien und so eine pathologisch-abgedrungene

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31.

32. 33.

34.

35.

36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43.

44.

45. 46.

47. 48.

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Zusammenstimmung zu einer Gesellschaft endlich in ein moralisches Ganze verwandeln kann.’ See Immanuel Kant, ‘Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbürgerlicher Absicht’, Berlinische Monatsschrift, Vierter Satz (November 1784) [digital version on Project Gutenberg]. Kant, ‘Idea for a Universal History’, 18–19. Original: ‘Wir sind im hohen Grade durch Kunst und Wissenschaft cultivirt. Wir sind civilisirt bis zum Überlästigen zu allerlei gesellschaftlicher Artigkeit und Anständigkeit. Aber uns schon für moralisirt zu halten, daran fehlt noch sehr viel. Denn die Idee der Moralität gehört noch zur Cultur; der Gebrauch dieser Idee aber, welcher nur auf das Sittenähnliche in der Ehrliebe und der äußeren Anständigkeit hinausläuft, macht blos die Civilisirung aus. — Alles Gute aber, das nicht auf moralisch-gute Gesinnung gepropft ist, ist nichts als lauter Schein und schimmerndes Elend.’ Fisch, ‘Zivilisation, Kultur’, 725. This observation has been made by a Finnish Schlegel specialist, Asko Nivala. See Asko Nivala, ‘Catastrophic Revolution and the Rise of Romantic Bildung’, in Hannu Salmi, Asko Nivala and Jukka Sarjala (eds), Travelling Notions of Culture in Early Nineteenth-Century Europe (New York: Routledge, 2016), 31. Translation is mine. Original: ‘das letzte und höchste Mittel für den Endzweck des Menschen.’ See Johan Gottlieb Fichte, ‘Vorlesungen über die Bestimmung des Gelehrten’, vol. 1, in Fichtes Werke, ed. Immanuel Hermann Fichte (1794; reprint, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1971), 298. Johan Gottlieb Fichte, Beitrag zur Berichtigung der Urtheile des Publicums über die französische Revolution, Erstes Buch. Zur Beurtheilung der Rechtmässigkeit einer Revolution. Erstes Capitel. Hat überhaupt ein Volk das Recht, seine Staatsverfassung abzuändern? (Danzig: Troschel 1793). According to a Swedish intellectual historian, Jonas Hansson, this was the first time that the German concept of culture appeared in Sweden. Hansson, Humanismens kris, 56. Höijer also had personal contact with Fichte as he studied under Fichte’s guidance in Germany. Hansson, Humanismens kris, 56. B.C.H. Höijer, Samlade skrifter (Stockholm, 1825–27), 248–49. Fisch, ‘Zivilisation, Kultur’, 680–88. Åbo Allmänna Tidning, no. 63 (1815). Pim den Boer, ‘Towards a Comparative History of Concepts’, 227–28. Prior to that, the term had been confined to the scholarly discussion conducted in Latin. See Hannu K. Riikonen, ‘Porthan klassillisen filologian, poetiikan ja estetiikan tutkijana’, in Juha Manninen (ed.), Porthanin monet kasvot: kirjoituksia humanistisen tieteen monitaiturista (Helsinki: SHS, 2000) 58–59. Johan Jacob Tengström, ‘Om några hinder för Finlands litteratur och cultur’ I–II, Aura, 1817–18, 89. Translation by the author. Original: ‘Mången av oss, som ej lärt att skilja civilisation, som blott går ut på borgerlig säkerhet och beqvämlighet, ifrån egentlig intellectuel cultur —.’ Tengström, ‘Om några hinder för Finlands litteratur och cultur’, 93–94. Ibid., 101–2. Translation by the author. Original: ‘Onekligt är äfven, att det nyare Europa förbländadt och intaget af sin öfverträffande civilisation, afvikit från den högre ideela rigtning, som lade första grunden till dess nuvarande cultur, att dess sträfvande småningom mer rigtades på merchantila och ekonomiska fördelar, än på verklig själsförädling, harmonisk utveckling af mensklighetens skönaste anlag.’ Ibid., 99. It seems obvious that Tengström was inspired by this text, although he does not mention it in his own writing. On Geijer’s text, see Anders Lundahl, Geijer. Filosofen (Nora: Nya Doxa, 1999), 77–78, 86.

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49. Arne Jarrick, Back to Modern Reason: Johan Hjerpe and Other Petit Bourgeois in Stockholm in the Age of Enlightenment (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1999), 3–12. On Rosenstein’s writing, see also Minna Ahokas, Valistus suomalaisessa kirjakulttuurissa 1700-luvulla (Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica, 2011), 228–33. 50. Jonathan Israel, Revolutionary Ideas: An Intellectual History of the French Revolution from The Rights of Man to Robespierre (Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2014); John Robertson, The Enlightenment. A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). 51. Tengström, ‘Om några hinder för Finlands litteratur och cultur’, 79–87. 52. Arwidsson’s writing appeared as a serial in the journal. Mnemosyne, no. 15, 18, 22, 49, 50, 96 and 99 (1819). 53. See Bollenbeck, Bildung und Kultur, 268–72; den Boer, ‘Towards a Comparative History of Concepts’, 206. 54. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, On the Constitution of the Church and State According to the Idea of Each, ed. Henry Nelson Coleridge (1830; reprint, London: William Pickering, 1839), 46. 55. See Mikko Lehtonen, Kyklooppi ja kojootti. Subjekti 1600–1900-lukujen kulttuuri- ja kirjallisuusteorioissa (Tampere: Vastapaino, 1994), 75–76. 56. On Guizot, see Bowden, The Empire of Civilisation, 1. 57. French original: ‘Il y a une université dans cette ville, et l’on s’y essaye un peu à la culture de l’esprit; mais les ours et les loups sont si près de là pendant l’hiver, que toute la pensée est absorbée par la nécessité de s’assurer une vie physique tolérable.’ Germaine de Staël, Dix années d’exil (1818) (https://ebooks-bnr.com/ebooks/html/ stael_dix_annees_d_exil.htm). English translation provided by Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/16245/pg16245.html. 58. Jordheim, ‘The Nature of Civilization’, 27. 59. Ibid., 26. 60. See Heli Rantala, ‘Nordic Travellers Between the Centres and Peripheries of Civilisation’, in Hannu Salmi, Asko Nivala and Jukka Sarjala (eds), Travelling Notions of Culture in Early Nineteenth-Century Europe (London: Routledge, 2016), 96–112. 61. Matti Klinge, Napoleonin varjo: Euroopan ja Suomen murros 1795–1815 (Helsinki: Siltala, 2009), 16, 18–20. 62. Jordheim, ‘The Nature of Civilization’, 31. Of course, a similar shift from civilization to nature had already been made by Rousseau. 63. Nivala, ‘Catastrophic Revolution and the Rise of Romantic Bildung’, 19–20, 26. 64. Frans Michael Franzén, Resedagbok 1795–1796, ed. Anders Hernmarck (Stockholm: LTs förlag, 1977), 42–43. 65. Jordheim, ‘The Nature of Civilization’, 25–26. 66. Matti Klinge, Poliittinen Runeberg, trans. Marketta Klinge (Helsinki: Werner Söderström Osakeyhtiö, 2004), 519–20. 67. The northern dimension is emphasized in Runeberg’s lyrics – in the first verse, he mentions ‘our native North’ rather than Finland proper. Similarly, the lyrics of the Swedish anthem written in 1844 refer quite generally to the North. 68. This notion of Lönnrot has been studied by Juhana Saarelainen, who found it to be close to the Romantic understanding of poetry, elaborated, for example, by the Grimm brothers. Juhana Saarelainen, ‘The Kalevala and the Cartography of Poetry and Knowledge’, in Travelling Notions of Culture, 120–21. 69. Elias Lönnrot, ‘Om närvarande tids poesie hos Finska allmogen’, in Raija Majamaa (ed.), Valitut teokset 3. Kirjoitelmia ja lausumia (1842; reprint, Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 1991), 172.

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References Ahokas, Minna, Valistus suomalaisessa kirjakulttuurissa 1700-luvulla (Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica, 2011). Bachmann-Medick, Doris, ‘Introduction: The Translational Turn’, Translation Studies 2, no. 1 (2009), 2–16. Bal, Mieke, Travelling Concepts in the Humanities: A Rough Guide (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002). Boer, Pim den, ‘Concepts in Focus: Civilization’, Contributions to the History of Concepts 3, no. 2 (2007), 205–6. –––, ‘Towards a Comparative History of Concepts: Civilization and Beschaving’, Contributions to the History of Concepts 3, no. 2 (2007), 207–33. Bollenbeck, Georg, Bildung und Kultur. Glanz und Elend eines deutschen Deutungsmusters (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1996). Bowden, Brett, The Empire of Civilization: The Evolution of an Imperial Idea (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009). Burke, Martin J., and Melvin Richter (eds), Why Concepts Matter? Translating Social and Political Thought (Leiden: Brill, 2012). Chignola, Sandro, ‘Civis, Civitas, Civilitas: Translations in Modern Italian and Conceptual Change’, Contributions to the History of Concepts 3, no. 2 (2007), 234–53. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, On the Constitution of the Church and State According to the Idea of Each, ed. Henry Nelson Coleridge (1830; reprint, London: William Pickering, 1839). de Staël, Madame de, Dix années d’exil, ed. Jean Gillequin (Paris, 1818). English translation provided by Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/ epub/16245/pg16245.html. Elias, Norbert, Über den Prozess der Zivilisation: soziogenetische und psychogenetische Untersuchungen (Basel: Verlag Haus zum Falken, 1939). Febvre, Lucien, Civilization: Le Mot et l’Idée (Paris: Centre International de Synthèse: 1930). Fichte, Johan Gottlieb, Beitrag zur Berichtigung der Urtheile des Publicums über die französische Revolution, Erstes Buch. Zur Beurtheilung der Rechtmässigkeit einer Revolution. Erstes Capitel. Hat überhaupt ein Volk das Recht, seine Staatsverfassung abzuändern? (Danzig, 1793) [digital version: http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/ buch/-412/3]. –––, ‘Vorlesungen über die Bestimmung des Gelehrten’, vol. 1, in Fichtes Werke, ed. Immanuel Hermann Fichte (1794; reprint, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1971). Fisch, Jörg, ‘Zivilisation, Kultur’, in Otto Brunner, Werner Conze and Reinhart Koselleck (eds), Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe. Historisches Lexikon zur politischsozialen Sprache in Deutschland, Band 7 (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1992). Franzén, Frans Michael, Resedagbok 1795–1796, ed. Anders Hernmarck (Stockholm: LTs förlag, 1977). Geuss, Raymond, ‘Kultur, Bildung, Geist’, in History and Theory 35, no. 2 (1996), 151–64.

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Jordheim, Helge, ‘The Nature of Civilization: The Semantics of Civilization and Civility in Scandinavia’, in Margrit Pernau and Helge Jordheim (eds), Civilizing Emotions. Concepts in Nineteenth-Century Asia and Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 25–44. Hallet, Wolfgang, ‘Conceptual Transfer: A Cognitive Approach to the Construction, Re-Interpretation and Re-Contextualisation of Academic Concepts’, in Birgit Neumann and Ansgar Nünning (eds), Travelling Concepts for the Study of Culture (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012), 389–410. Hansson, Jonas, Humanismens kris. Bildningsideal och kulturkritik i Sverige 1848–1933 (Stockholm: Stehag, 1999). Ifversen, Jan, ‘Afterword: Reflections on Some Challenges’, in Margrit Pernau and Helge Jordheim (eds), Civilizing Emotions. Concepts in Nineteenth-Century Asia and Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 288–300. –––, ‘Civilization og barbari’, in Mikkel Thorup, Hans-Jørgen Schanz and Mehdi Mozaffari (eds), Totalitarisme. Venskab og fjendskab (Aarhus: Aarhus Universitetsforlag, 2007). Israel, Jonathan, Revolutionary Ideas: An Intellectual History of the French Revolution from The Rights of Man to Robespierre (Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2014). Jarrick, Arne, Back to Modern Reason: Johan Hjerpe and Other Petit Bourgeois in Stockholm in the Age of Enlightenment (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1999). Kant, Immanuel, ‘Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim’, trans. Allen Wood, in Amélie Oksenberg Rorty and James Schmidt (eds), Kant’s Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim. A Critical Guide (1784; reprint, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). –––, ‘Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbürgerlicher Absicht’, Berlinische Monatsschrift, Vierter Satz (November 1784) [digital version in Project Gutenberg]. Klinge, Matti, Napoleonin varjo: Euroopan ja Suomen murros 1795–1815 (Helsinki: Siltala, 2009). –––, Poliittinen Runeberg, trans. Marketta Klinge (Helsinki: Werner Söderström Osakeyhtiö, 2004). Kokko, Heikki, ‘Sivistyksen varhaista käsitehistoriaa’, Kasvatus & Aika 4, no. 4 (2010). Koselleck, Reinhart, ‘Einleitung – Zur anthropologischen und semantischen Struktur der Bildung’, in Reinhart Koselleck (ed.), Industrielle Welt. Bd 41: Bildungsbürgertum im 19. Jahrhundert. Teil II: Bildungsgüter und Bildungswissen (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1990). –––, Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time, trans. Keith Tribe (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1979; reprint New York: Columbia University Press, 2004). Lehtonen, Mikko, Kyklooppi ja kojootti. Subjekti 1600–1900-lukujen kulttuuri- ja kirjallisuusteorioissa (Tampere: Vastapaino, 1994). Lönnrot, Elias ‘Om närvarande tids poesie hos Finska allmogen’, in Raija Majamaa (ed.), Valitut teokset 3. Kirjoitelmia ja lausumia (1842; reprint, Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 1991). Lundahl, Anders, Erik Gustaf Geijer. Filosofen (Nora: Nya Doxa, 1999). Marjanen, Jani, ‘Undermining Methodological Nationalism: Histoire Croisée of Concepts as Transnational History’, in Mathias Albert et al. (eds), Transnational

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Political Spaces. Agents – Structures – Encounters (Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 2009), 239–63. Mendelssohn, Moses, ‘Über die Frage: was heisst aufklären?’, Berlinische Monatsschrift, Bd. 4 (1784) [digital version on deutschestextarchiv.de]. Neumann, Birgit, and Ansgar Nünning, ‘Travelling Concepts as a Model for the Study of Culture’, in Birgit Neumann and Ansgar Nünning (eds), Travelling Concepts for the Study of Culture (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012), 1–22. Nieminen, Mauri, Väestötilastoja 250 vuotta. Katsaus väestötilaston historian vuosina 1749–1999 (Helsinki: Tilastokeskus, 1999). Nivala, Asko, ‘Catastrophic Revolution and the Rise of Romantic Bildung’, in Hannu Salmi, Asko Nivala and Jukka Sarjala (eds), Travelling Notions of Culture in Early Nineteenth-Century Europe (New York: Routledge, 2016), 19–37. Pernau, Margrit, and Helge Jordheim (eds), Civilizing Emotions: Concepts in Nineteenth-Century Asia and Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). Rantala, Heli, ‘Nordic Travellers Between the Centres and Peripheries of Civilization’, in Hannu Salmi, Asko Nivala and Jukka Sarjala (eds), Travelling Notions of Culture in Early Nineteenth-Century Europe (New York: Routledge, 2016), 96–112. Riikonen, Hannu K., ‘Porthan klassillisen filologian, poetiikan ja estetiikan tutkijana’, in Juha Manninen (ed.), Porthanin monet kasvot: kirjoituksia humanistisen tieteen monitaiturista (Helsinki, SHS, 2000). Robertson, John, The Enlightenment. A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). Saarelainen, Juhana, ‘The Kalevala and the Cartography of Poetry and Knowledge’, in Hannu Salmi, Asko Nivala and Jukka Sarjala (eds), Travelling Notions of Culture in Early Nineteenth-Century Europe (New York: Routledge, 2016), 113–34. Sebastián, Javier Fernández, ‘The Concept of Civilization in Spain, 1754–2005: From Progress to Identity’, Contributions to the History of Concepts 4, no. 1 (2008), 81–105. Surman, Jan, Katalin Stráner and Peter Haslinger, ‘Nomadic Concepts: Biological Concepts and Their Careers Beyond Biology’, Contributions to the History of Concepts 9, no. 2 (2014). Tengström, Johan Jacob, ‘Om några hinder för Finlands litteratur och cultur’ I–II, Aura, 1817–18. Vierhaus, Rudolf, ‘Bildung’, in Otto Brunner, Werner Conze and Reinhart Koselleck (eds), Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe. Historisches Lexikon zur politischsozialen Sprache in Deutschland, Band 1 (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1974). Wolff, Larry, Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994).

Chapter 5

Liberales vs Serviles

Symmetrization of Asymmetrical Counter-Concepts and Political Polarization in Spain and Portugal (1810–34) Luis Fernández Torres

T

he conceptual environment in Spain in the last decades of the eighteenth century was framed by an intellectual tradition based on the existence of unchangeable fundamental pillars upon which every political community was supposed to be built. This perception was intimately linked, in its diverse manifestations, to a religious worldview. Unsurprisingly, in a world conceived in this way, the room for innovation was limited and history was primarily a series of repetitions. Denying the very possibility of sweeping historical changes, this static understanding of reality provided the frame for the sociopolitical concepts to be developed and used. In such a context, the use of political labels and the cluster of concepts related to them (such as ‘party’ or ‘faction’) was restricted to highlighting cracks in the system, without exploring its social foundations. Divisions in the Spanish social fabric spilled over from politics into religious, philosophical and literary quarrels,1 although most of these were perceived as temporary. However, political cleavages in society constituted a class by itself and were subjected to the separate (and more sophisticated) treatment by its members, so I will limit myself to this specific kind of social ruptures. In particular, my aim is to follow the development of a pair of political labels that arose in Spain in the midst of the Spanish War of Independence against Napoleon’s empire (1808–14);2 in a way, this topic is a part of the more general history of the idea of political division during Spanish late modernity. Any reflection on the latter subject in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Spain would be incomplete without a consideration of the political labels liberal and servil, since their interdependence and development constitute a turning point

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in the passage from the traditional understanding of political divisions to the more diversified one, suitable for operating in a changing sociopolitical context characterized by strong inner tensions. Both labels fulfilled the need to identify the new groups within the patriotic movement fighting against the French troops. In around 1810, the term ‘liberal’ entered political discourse, strengthening the self-­ identification of this new political group. But, a year later, the coining of servil to describe opponents in negative terms was of no less importance. To some extent, we are dealing here with a double resemantization process that glues disparate words together by means of an antithetical interdependence: two identifiers with unequal values – positive and negative – are coined to present just one of the identities (the first one, of course) in a favourable light. The result seems to fit into the scheme of asymmetrical counter-concepts proposed by Reinhart Koselleck. I will explain later to what extent this notion helps to clarify the lexical nature of the pair of concepts examined in this chapter. First of all, I will briefly outline the main stages in the asymmetrical structuring of Spanish political labels through the lens of asymmetrical counter-concepts. Secondly, using primary sources, I will take a closer look at how this asymmetrical schema evolves diachronically, paying particular attention to the pair liberal–servil, since it shows in inchoate form the (then) new ways of dealing with political divisions. Before proceeding with the analysis, it is necessary to chart the complex and fluid semantic field of political divisions in Spain during the first half of the nineteenth century, which was marked by variations in the nature of political labels and the degree of conceptual asymmetry. In order to give due consideration to this versatility, I will take into account locations where parties were active, as well as the respective lengths of their activity. Two major events in Spanish history could be seen as turning points in the history of political labelling. The first, purely external, determinant of Spanish conceptual history was the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789. The second took place in 1810, when the Cortes met in the city of Cadiz on the south-west coast of Spain, in the middle of the ongoing war. For the purposes of this study, the meeting of the Cortes in 1810 represents a watershed moment between two periods, whereas 1789 serves to establish a subdivision in the first period. Between 1810 to 1841, there are three further divisions (this time subsumed in a second historical phase), each corresponding to a specific parliamentary period: 1810–14, the Liberal Triennium (1820–23) and, finally, 1834–41 (which overlaps with the First Carlist War between liberals and absolutists).

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The two subdivisions of the first period have in common a scarcity of references to political parties and are replete with allusions to foreign experiences. As for the difference between them, it lies in the choice of countries used as showcases of political divisions, with respective connotative variations. Before 1789, it was mostly England that appeared as the cradle of contemporary political divisions within a political community. After the storming of the Bastille, the focus switched from England to France, at least for a time. While the occurrence of negative references to partitions increased significantly, the conceptual frame to which they belonged incorporated such terms as ‘revolution’ and ‘insurrection’.3 Positive or negative assessments of political divisions were therefore related to the context in which they were made: whereas positive evaluations predominated in the case of England, the references to France and the United States, affected by revolution and war, were largely negative. All in all, until 1789, references to political parties, limited to foreign contexts, did not give preference to negative connotations, being rather neutral or even positive when the discussion concerned activities in foreign parliaments. In short, in the last decades of the eighteenth century, there existed two images of political divisions – the negative one, underpinned by the old scholastic idea of bonum commune, and the neutral or positive one, which relied on the English parliamentary experience. With the development of asymmetrical political labels, these understandings become intimately intertwined, mutating into more complex schemas characterized by mutual transfers. The approach of conceptual history is especially helpful in showing how these processes developed during the resemantization of such concepts as party, faction, public opinion, private and public interest, and some others. What had gradually been taking shape during the first of the two main periods evolved rapidly during the second as a result of the pressure exerted by the war between patriots and French invaders and their Spanish collaborators, known as the Frenchified, on the one hand, and the political collisions between liberales and serviles (both belonging to the patriotic camp) on the other. Remarkably, beginning in 1810, one can observe the development of two concurrent binary collisions in different political spheres – a war against a foreign power in the first case and internal strife in the second. For all their differences, both antagonisms were characterized by asymmetrical relationships between the groups, reproducing the same asymmetrical structure in two different contexts. This typological likeness explains why, in the atmosphere of aversion to any political divisions, the motto of both binaries was the same: any political rupture must be undone either by means of war (the first asymmetry), or through conversion or silencing of the opponent (the second

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asymmetry). Still, despite their structural and evaluative affinity, the two conceptualizations of political division did not have an equal presence in public discourse during the first constitutional period: the first dominated the headlines while the second was buried in the back pages of newspapers. During the second parliamentary period (1820–23), the two ideas of political division, especially the second one, acquired a higher profile, which led to the formation of a new binary supra-system with unequal relations between two asymmetric oppositions: while the pair liberal–servil remained strong, the importance of the other pair (patriot vs Frenchified) faded. Meanwhile, a new division (this time among the liberals themselves) saw a new pair of political labels gaining prominence, namely exaltados (the enraged) and moderados (the moderates). In this pair, the asymmetry was more fluid and volatile than in those previously discussed. We must move on to the next period to observe the progressive weakening of the asymmetrical nature of the political labels: the two internal political binaries were interconnected, allowing for semantic transfers from one asymmetrical subsystem to the other. For instance, during the third divide, at the end of the civil war between supporters of absolutism (called carlistas – the label that, to some extent, substituted servil) and liberals (1834–41) over the succession to the throne, with the liberal victory in everyone’s sight, this enabled efforts to overcome the fully asymmetrical binary system by means of applying the strategies used to lower the intensity of the second binary subsystem to the first one, therefore lowering the degree of antagonism. Challenges to the direction of asymmetry became particularly pronounced.4 During the last quarter of the eighteenth century, only a few authors wrote explicitly about political divisions within Spain, giving them mainly negative appraisals. However, there are some examples of opposing attitudes, such as José Ibáñez de la Rentería’s distinction between party and faction, made in 1783: according to him, parties were a necessity in a republic because they were capable, among other things, of having a positive social effect, whereas factions were always undesirable. The negativity of the term ‘faction’ alluded to the level of factional violence, as well as the attempts to change the country’s constitution.5 Commenting on the writings of Antonio Genovesi, the legal counsel Victorian de Villava mentioned the existence of two parties in England – the government and the opposition (although he refrained from using the word ‘party’) – and deemed the conflict between them to be useful for the country.6 The intellectual and poet León de Arroyal also wrote about

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England with particular emphasis on the oppositional party, which he, too, considered the ‘main source of English happiness’.7 These examples demonstrate clearly neutral or even positive evaluations of the terms belonging to the semantic cluster of political groupings. This can be explained by a combination of factors, including the sedate mood before the outbreak of the French Revolution, Spain’s safely distant geographical location8 and, finally, the confinement of the evaluated activities to parliamentary chambers. Thus, with the menace of violent constitutional changes still out of sight, the key differences between the negative and the neutral references to societal division related to the spatial location of the political groups employing the concepts in question. In this sense, while in the British and Dutch cases political divisions took place behind the doors of legislatures, where the integration of parties into a stable political system was more or less assumed, elsewhere the partitions occurred throughout whole countries and it was on these vast stretches of land that confrontation was deemed particularly prone to violent radicalization. This feeling grew stronger when there were changes to the traditional constitutions of both countries and it comes as no surprise that references to political divisions in France after the revolution carried strong negative connotations. A change in any of the areas listed above implied a corresponding alteration of the connotations. This happened, for instance, when newspapers linked parties to groups outside the sociopolitical system, as El Mercurio de España did in March 1786: the reference to a ‘party of black rebels and fugitives’ was followed the next year by a mention of the ‘party of rebels’.9 After 1789, the acceptance of political partitions began to evaporate, with the discussion returning to the static worldview presented at the very beginning of this chapter. Pedro Rodríguez Campomanes, for example, identified, in May 1792, three parties in revolutionary France: the aristocratic or realistic party, the party of ‘constitucionistas, lying between aristocracy and democracy’ and the ‘Jacobites [sic] opposed to the royal authority as well as to the new Constitution and due to their libertine principles the most willing to anarchy’.10 Valentín de Foronda’s opinion on the political parties of the United States, expressed at the beginning of the nineteenth century (1804), was no more sanguine: in his view, the cleavage between federalists and democrats, compounded by pervasive sectarianism, was set to provoke a revolution.11 Throughout the year 1793, articles on political divisions in the Spanish press more frequently made reference to France than to England. However, this shift of interest was temporary; it came to an end in tandem with the relative stabilization of the political situation in France, resulting in the virtual disappearance of news about the presence of parties in neighbouring France.

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To sum up, at the end of the eighteenth century, Spanish public discourse concerning political divisions developed along two distinct semantic lines. The first was a hybrid of inherited old semantics and the recent conceptual repertoire furnished by the French Revolution: the old idea of two temporary, contending political groups was merged with the new interpretation of political divisions as struggles to impose a particular idea of the state upon the country in question. In this vein, the relationships between parties were interpreted in terms of civil war, with each side bent on pursuing its opponents, conceived as enemies, until they were annihilated. In contrast, the second line of thinking embedded political opponents in a shared institutional framework that regulated their relationships and set limits to their freedom of action. The paradigmatic location in which these relations were conducted was parliamentary chambers, whose temporal existence potentially extended ad infinitum, preventing political struggles from escaping into uncharted lands. That said, these semantic lines should not be understood as anything more than ideal types: as has been said before, the coexistence of two interpretations was marked by constant intertwining and mutual transfers, which kept producing semantic mutations and altering the degrees of asymmetry within conceptual pairs. Among the thresholds in the conceptual history of political divisions in Spain mentioned above, 1810 was arguably the most important. From then on, boosted by parliamentary activity, both political divisions and their discursive embodiment steadily grew in complexity. Each subsequent period constituted a breakthrough in the development of linguistic structures regulating the degrees of asymmetry in conceptual pairs. On 24 September 1810, the opening session of the Spanish constituent assembly was held in Cadiz, fulfilling a key precondition for the development of political parties and thus for the coining of new political labels: liberal and servil. In the Spanish case, the points of disagreement between different political opinions were tied to diverging approaches to the source of sovereignty.12 In response to this issue, two groups with loose boundaries took shape and soon a novel conceptual pair matching the new political reality – liberal vs servil – entered public discourse, along with the new definition of the term ‘party’. The terms chosen were only partially new since their signifiers had existed previously for a long time. The novelty consisted in the addition of a new layer of meaning, turning words into political concepts. Therefore, the resignification of these labels is an index that captures new relations, as well as being a factor that expands them.13

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The fact that the opening of the assembly is the main reason for this lexical development suggests that parliamentary proceedings could be an exceptional source for analysing the uses of these political labels (along with other concepts hinting at political divisions). But, in fact, in the Cortes of Cadiz, these words were rarely employed to describe the actual political division among the patriots. Moreover, the word ‘party’ was used no less sparingly and was never used to allude to specific groups within the assembly, referring instead to those involved in the war or other outside groups. Generally speaking, the use of political labels in the assembly demonstrates the prevalence of negative references and is usually limited to the other warring faction: for instance, the allusions to the ‘French party’, also called the ‘party of the usurper’, are contrastively paired with references to the ‘hidden Spanish’, that is, the patriots. Conversely, examples of positive partisan designations, such as the ‘party of Fernando VII’ or the ‘Party of the Patriots’, are few and far between. The discourse in the press around 1810 generally confirms this picture: here, too, the propensity for identifying partisanship with enemies (linked to slavery, anarchy and contempt of the constitution) is palpable. From the outset, political divisions are linked to passions, fanaticism, and civil and independence wars, and political groups are associated with instability and rupture. We must focus on the press to find more detailed references to political divisions, because both the concept of party and political labels are used in the press far more often than in Parliament. The number of times the word ‘party’ appears in the parliamentary proceedings barely exceeds thirty, whereas in newspapers such as Semanario Patriótico, El Conciso or El Diario de Mallorca the same number of instances could easily be found in a single issue. This is the general framework in which the concepts designating political groups operate. Henceforth, I will focus on the pair of concepts liberal and servil. I believe that the features of the labels used to describe these first political groups in Spain partially fit the definition of asymmetrical counter-concepts formulated by Koselleck: as a heuristic tool, Koselleck’s schema is quite helpful for understanding the partisan dynamic of Spanish politics in the first decades of the nineteenth century. Overall, asymmetrical counter-concepts referring to political parties collided with the traditional understanding of politics because the potential outcome of their struggle implied the possibility of changing the very principles upon which the monarchy had been built. Nonetheless, the conceptual couple liberal–servil displays special features that set it apart from the examples given by Koselleck.

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In his canonical essay ‘The Historical-Political Semantics of Asymmetrical Counterconcepts’, Koselleck focuses on two conceptual pairs (Hellenes–barbarians, Christians–heathens) and one triad (humans–non-humans/under-humans–super-humans) to show the common pattern underlying all contradistinctions (without discarding specific characteristics that give each pair a profile of its own). In all three cases, the asymmetry is said to be ‘semantically based on this conscious contrast of a specific name with a generic classification’.14 Placed within the global process of development, the examples are chosen to display the progressive radicalization of conceptual oppositions (which brought against Koselleck the charge of teleology).15 In this sense, the first pair entails the naturalization and territorialization of distinctive cultural features that do not change over time. The second pair adds a temporal aspect to the relationship between the opposites: creating the possibility of change in the members of both counter-concepts, temporality eventually leads to the abolition of the asymmetry – Christians may thus become heretics while heathens can convert to Christianity. Finally, the strength of exclusion reaches a new level in late modernity: the third pair is an empty formula that can be filled with any group antagonism.16 Truth be told, Koselleck did not conceal semantic similarities between the pairs: in his account, barbarians shared with non-Aryans inferior moral qualities that could not possibly be overcome. He also mentioned that successive pairs did not replace each other in the course of history but rather overlapped, leading to the contemporaneity of the non-contemporaneous.17 Still, as a whole, the evolution of asymmetrical counter-concepts in the article seems like an unstoppable development towards ever stronger conceptual asymmetries and this determinism has been repeatedly questioned. Peter Strohschneider, for instance, opines that the strength of dualisms may vary and, all things considered, their radicalism tends to decrease (rather than increase) over time.18 The history of political labels in Spain at the beginning of the nineteenth century partly supports this conjecture: more specifically, the referential fields of asymmetries expand to such a degree that their symmetrical equilibrations become inevitable. Therefore, ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ asymmetries enter a new phase of coexistence and mutual transfers in which there is a vaster scope for different uses in a more complex historical context. This process could also be described as the passage from an antagonistic asymmetry, in which the terms are mutually exclusive and generally immutable, to an agonistic asymmetry with some common semantic ground.19 Specifically applying the heuristic tool of asymmetrical counterconcepts as outlined by Koselleck to liberal and servil, we can observe an attempt by liberals to lexically create an asymmetrical relationship with

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their political adversaries. To that end, they resorted to the polarization of verbal meanings at their disposal, based on an understanding that the future would see humankind reach its most developed stage, characterized by the display of reason and the expansion of freedom. In this reading, serviles were an anachronism belonging to the former stage of social evolution where neither reason nor freedom was observable, which had an adverse impact on the moral qualities of the liberals’ adversaries. So far, this argumentation accords with Koselleck’s scheme: to some extent, servil are constructed as the denial of what liberals believed themselves to be.20 Nonetheless, the pair has other features that would pass unnoticed if we were to stick to Koselleck’s text. These features point to a possible way out of the vicious circle of asymmetry amidst the proliferation of social and political trends in late eighteenth-century Spain, particularly during the Peninsular War. In the case of the concept servil, the interrelation of its highly specific features blocked its revaluation, as described by Koselleck in relation to heathens.21 The unlikeness of the Spanish case and the pairs highlighted by Koselleck can be reduced to three general dissimilarities. 1) In the first place, the asymmetrical counter-concepts we are dealing with are spatially limited to the state borders. This does not imply that their meaning could not be extended to other countries and territories (as actually happened),22 but merely highlights that they mainly allude to the split within the Spanish political community, ideally conceived as a strong unity with no fractures. With the abolition of the very existential basis for the asymmetry as the declared goal, the total victory of one of the sides and the abrupt disappearance of the asymmetrical concepts in question seem to have been perceived as the only possible outcome of the conceptual battle. This short-term perspective puts the pair in question at odds with the examples from Koselleck’s article. 2) In contrast to the asymmetrical pairs showcased by Koselleck, the Spanish pair implies certain operational identities on both sides, which the negatively connoted group easily acquired due to the traditional symbolic and sociopolitical resources at its disposal. This internal homogeneity of the term servil offset the paralysing effect of unmitigated referential heterogeneity that prevented the concepts of barbarians, heathens or sub-humans from becoming – at least in the beginning – recognizable identity tags that could be used to fend off the unwanted negative connotations. 3) And, finally, the hybrid moral and political nature of political labels during the period made clear and stable oppositions between self- and other-ascriptions all but impossible. Taken together, the spatial contiguity, the unceasing contestation of the same totality of power and the ambiguous moral semantics were instrumental in reshaping the asymmetrical nature of the concepts in question,

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making it possible to bring them closer to a shared understanding of politics in the frame of a parliamentary regime. The historical moment in which the hybridization of the moral and political semantics took place was a turning point in the conceptual history of both words. The term liberal appeared as an adjective in literary works around 1280 with a semantics that remains in use, referring to tolerance and generosity. More than five hundred years went by before it was ascribed a political meaning. This addition of a new layer of meaning to an old word is a result of French–Spanish lexical intercourse. During the French Revolution, the adjective ‘liberal’ began to be employed in a political sense, but it was in Spain that it was first applied to a political group in the form of a noun. In particular, this new label appeared in the debate on the freedom of the press in October 1810. Before that, two other labels – partido libre and libre bando – had been employed; these labels continued to be used, with decreasing frequency, until 1813.23 This coining of the new noun, mixing political and moral connotations, is arguably Spain’s most significant contribution to Western political vocabulary. The second concept in the pair (servil) was created shortly after the first one – in 1811 – by the liberal Eugenio de Tapia, who is generally credited with providing the first ever counter-concept to ‘liberal’.24 Servil quickly became a popular term, as exemplified by the article published on 29 August 1811 in the Semanario Patriótico, entitled ‘Guerra político-literaria entre liberales y serviles’, in which the serviles are described as a vast group of illiterate people. But the lifetimes of both terms were vastly different: while liberal is still being used, widening its reach across the globe, servil remained a local word, increasingly infrequent after the Liberal Trienium (1820–23), and was substituted by other words from the 1830s, especially carlista. One thing that the pair liberal vs servil has in common with the paradigmatic asymmetric counter-concepts put forward by Reinhart Koselleck is the fact that both terms were thought up within one of the alleged groups that, unsurprisingly, turned its self-definition into a positive pole of the conceptual binary. It was in the liberal environment that the old moral concepts were endowed with political content. The liberal origin of both words not only explains the allocation of positive and negative connotations, but stakes the identifying group’s claim to lexical choice and innovation: liberals saw themselves as the political vanguard, entitled to innovate vocabulary. Even for people with a rudimentary knowledge of Spanish, it was obvious from the start that both words carried different semantic baggage. The negative meaning of servil is registered in the Diccionario de Autoridades (1739), in which it was interpreted, among other things, as

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equivalent to being ‘poor, humble and of low esteem’.25 Another meaning of the word listed in the dictionary concerns certain unworthy jobs: ‘Oficio servíl. In the republic [it means the performer of the mechanical or low [work] as opposed to the liberals or noble’;26 ‘there is something servil in making a living with the mechanical work of the body’. The Diccionario Castellano by Esteban de Terreros y Pando (1789) extends the scope of the definition to the moral realm: the servil is said to lack both good-heartedness and greatness of spirit.27 In sum, liberal and servil were already antithetical before they became politically loaded. With these meanings already established, it was not too difficult for the liberals to defame their opponents. The 1811 article mentioned above, with the headline ‘Guerra político-literaria entre liberales y serviles’, described the serviles as a ‘sect of political transgressors’, a ‘party of barbarians’, a group that earned the name ‘serviles because they fight for slavery’. Besides, they were ‘uneducated people’ and even ‘cannibals’,28 ‘vile bugs’ associated with despicable fear, stupidity and rudeness.29 Needless to say, the opposite qualities were indiscriminately attributed to liberals, portrayed as people who ‘do not know treason or premeditation’.30 It was almost inevitable that the coining of these counter-concepts would precipitate fierce contestation: in their turn, the so-called serviles subjected the term liberal to semantic analysis aimed at repudiating the inherited moral meanings claimed by the new political group. Thus, instead of being habitual conceptual asymmetries looked at from a single point of view (that of their inventors), these asymmetrical counterconcepts were alternately used and evaluated from two different angles. The cognitive and value differences between the two parties facilitated asymmetrical understanding of the same expressions.31 To some extent, the set of rhetorical strategies employed by the reactionaries after 1810 was not new: it was only their target that changed. The effectiveness of this rhetoric had already been proven decades before – during the war against the French Convention, which took place between 1793 and 1795. At that time, many booklets, articles and sermons, strongly influenced by Jesuits Lorenzo Hervás y Panduro and Augustin Barruel, identified the Spanish and the French with Christians and heathens respectively. The strategy consisted in fitting the new historical agents into the pre-existing mould of asymmetrical counterconcepts. In particular, it was common to draw upon biblical passages in which victors were positively inspired by faith, devotion and loyalty to a king; references to Maccabees (metonymically hinting at Spaniards) and Solomon were plentiful. Fifteen years later, these negative attributes used to discredit the French Revolution were transferred to the term

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liberal, becoming the point of departure for strategies aimed at undermining the concept.32 The general questioning of liberalism occurred on two main levels: the French origins of the liberal political system were invoked – a harsh accusation in the context of the war against Napoleon (furiously and repeatedly rejected by the liberals)33 – and the focus was narrowed from political principles in general to the contextual semantics and etymology of new political vocabulary, including the label liberal itself. In the conservative newspaper El Procurador, we find an example of the first strategy at work. The editor does not hesitate to highlight the French origin of the word in question: ‘liberal and French are the same if not synonyms, they are at least very similar things.’34 A second article, published after the war in April 1814, summarized the conservatives’ suspicions of close relationships between revolutionary France and the Spanish liberals,35 suggesting that, in some cases, the reformers could be even worse than their French prototypes.36 In the author’s opinion, the ‘sect of betrayers’ – that is, liberals – could only prosper by erasing both king and religion.37 That is why serviles, according to the article, called themselves Christians or fernandinos, while liberals were libertines or Bonapartists,38 as well as followers of Martin Luther and John Calvin.39 In another article, El Procurador provided an illustration of the second strategy. So-called liberals, according to the editor, had nothing in common with the traditional understanding of the term; if anything, they were quite the opposite of it.40 Such accusations were often based on the mixture of moral and political semantics in the political discourse, of which liberal was a key example. The conservatives’ efforts were aimed at preserving the earlier, non-politicized meaning of the term liberal. However, they failed to prevent the inevitable politicization of the concept and, disappointed by their failure, put the term liberal on their list of negative labels, along with such words as ‘traitor’, ‘sectarian’, ‘freemason’, ‘atheist’, ‘republican’, ‘materialist’, ‘deist’, ‘philosopher’ and ‘democrat’. Despite the conservatives’ efforts, it is not surprising, given the positive moral meaning of the word, that the liberals retained the term for their self-identification: in Spanish newspapers of the period, statements of belonging to a liberal party were not uncommon. But how do we explain the reflexive use of the term servil? Some voices within this group with porous borders understood themselves as a part of a binary political system. This necessitated a recognizable group label, which, in turn, gave rise to the challenge of dealing with the traditional negative meaning of the existing designation applied to serviles and popularized by their opponents. The first and expected reaction was to reject the

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word servil and look for a more suitable substitute. The real surprise is that some among the so-called serviles tried to accept the term as a potentially legitimate label and attempted to effect a comprehensive revaluation. They sought to relieve the term of its burden of negative connotations by means of semantic turnaround: instead of being linked to vile moral qualities, servil was connected to respect for the divine and service to god. All in all, for opponents of the liberal reforms, it was not easy to face the semantic upheaval taking place in various areas of political discourse. Notwithstanding their rejection of the new vocabulary, its rapid expansion was effectively charting the terrain within which all political interactions were, from then on, to take place. Unable to turn the tide, the conservatives resorted to reversing the connotative poles of the asymmetry, trying to swap positive (liberal) and negative (servil) semantic connotations within the conceptual pair. The well-known reactionary Rafael de Vélez observed in his Apología that the identity tag servil stood for degradation, dishonour and slavery, whereas liberal implied honour and distinction; under such circumstances, he lamented, nobody would willingly be part of the first group. The opposite side, in his opinion, strategically chose for itself the name with a positive meaning. Nonetheless, de Vélez was hopeful for the future of servil, if it could be related to religion, the king and the homeland. In this respect, Vélez concluded, all Spain was servil:41 the Spaniard loyal to the king was a serious Spaniard, or servil.42 The same resemantization was attempted in the Diccionario razonado, in which serviles were defined as ‘servants of reason enlightened by faith; those who wish for the happiness of the nation . . . This is the language of the philosophers: they call serviles the true Spaniards.’43 The resignification ultimately failed due to the difficulty overcoming the deep-rooted meanings: ‘the worst is that we become every day more hated by the people who consider the word servil to be the most horrible insult.’44 The solution proposed by de Vélez was a reorientation of efforts towards other labels, such as royalists or Catholics. However, regardless of the possible success of such a substitution, he firmly believed in the necessity of reversing the asymmetry within this conceptual pair without destroying its functional properties. Such immodest ambitious were only possible due to the powerful collective identity of their proponents. In the case of the serviles, such a group consciousness emerged rather quickly, due, at least in part, to the symbolic resources that were already at their disposal. This quick self-organization was followed by an equally swift reaction, which destabilized the functionality of the counter-concepts in a way that would have been unusual for the poster examples investigated by Koselleck, as semantic reforms

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were simultaneously tried out at both poles of the asymmetry. Besides the ample symbolic resources at hand, the concurrent reshaping of the asymmetrical counter-concepts relied on the common frame possessed by liberales and serviles, the contours of which were delineated above; sharing political terrain, both groups sought to monopolize power to impose their respective political ideas. Whereas this sort of symmetrical affinity between contested areas and objectives made the mutual contestation of each other’s identities possible, the all-out nature of the struggle rendered a dialogue between the poles impossible. This case, in which the speakers identified themselves with one of the concepts, is a sort of ‘inside’ perspective, as opposed to an ‘outside’ approach, which rejects taking part in any kind of political labelling. Going beyond the differences between the inside and the outside perspectives within an asymmetrical conceptual pair, we have to look at what they may have in common. In early nineteenth-century Spain, those at both extremes of the political spectrum were addressing the same issue  – how to express unity in a context of political rupture – using a similar strategy on the lexical level. The easiest way to achieve this goal was to establish a link with a key concept that expressed unity: the full potential of an asymmetry could arguably be unleashed when the political location from which it was contemplated was not conceived as a part but equated to the whole political community (variously marked as ‘nation’, ‘homeland’ or ‘monarchy’). The speakers clearly identified themselves with one of the concepts and this sort of inside perspective allowed for the full-fledged development of asymmetry in a binary system. The alternative strategy, frequently employed during the first constitutional period (1810–14), involved ignoring asymmetrical dynamics, including forced other-ascriptions, by simply denying any relevant differences within the political community. But the perhaps unavoidable consequence of this deliberate ignorance was the creation of a ternary system, especially once liberals split in 1820 and the new groups received political labels of their own (moderados and exaltados). The appeal to the middle class as the representative of worthy political, social and cultural values represented a rupture from the holistic pretences of the previous period: this time, just a part of the totality was expressly reclaimed as the platform to overcome the context of instability and political division. Moreover, this third way, producing additional asymmetries in a triangle of concepts (moderado–exaltado–servil) expanded the range of possible operations with political divisions: rather than being mutually recognized, denied altogether or subsumed in a single asymmetrical dichotomy, they could be further specified by introducing additional

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group identifications (corresponding to the new ruptures of the political landscape) and placing them in (asymmetrical) oppositions to the existing terms. Whereas the first modality outlined above shared with Koselleck’s second example – Christians vs heathens – the possibility of eventually overcoming the rift between the opposites, the second one was based on largely extemporal cultural features, reminiscent of the first pair of ­counter-concepts in Koselleck’s article – Hellenes vs barbarians. This evolution marked the acceptance of the obstinate political reality reluctant to bow to any idea of unity that ignores political ruptures within a given society. The initial spiritualization of the self-concept was aimed at creating the opportunity for the eventual overcoming of the constitutive difference. But since the elimination of political adversaries proved impossible (as reflected in the spread and popularity of the parliamentary system), a certain partition of spiritual properties took place. This, in turn, opened up the possibility of recognizing the other, although this other, like barbarians in the original dichotomy, still did not qualify to take part in conversation. Although the strategies employed in Spanish conceptual struggles of the early nineteenth century demonstrate two markedly different ways of escaping the asymmetry, they are both bound by the original asymmetrical schema and remain trapped in its dynamic of the delegitimization of the opponent. Nothing less than a full victory over the rival and the resulting political redemption were at stake in the modality exemplified by the first and second strategies presented above, and the development of a new version of the second strategy (i.e. the third strategy) laid its claim to totality by seizing control of moral, symbolic and political authority and posing as a golden middle ground between the extremes.45 Despite this effort to forestall the asymmetrical logic by rejecting current political parties altogether, this strategy was still seduced by the charms of political unity without cleavages. From this perspective, those who refused to subscribe to the political values expressed by the holder of the position were relegated to the underspecified negative pole of the perpetually recreated asymmetrical relationship. On the surface of it, the situation appeared similar to the last examples studied by Koselleck, in which three elements – Human, Non-Human/Under-Human and SuperHuman – challenged the customary bipartite arrangement of asymmetrical counter-concepts. But, in fact, the core of the asymmetrical schema remained untouched and even drew closer to Koselleck’s first and second examples, because the boundless heterogeneity of the Other, encompassing the extreme right and left alike, deprived it of any chance of being recognized as a single whole with specific properties: if anything, it was just a summary negation of what was deemed politically moderate.

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Nonetheless, this rhetorical strategy potentially allowed a binary with a muddled negative pole to be transformed into a fork, where the specific opposites of the identity dominating discourse could be multiplied or collapsed according to the needs of the speaker and the historical context. The usefulness of this approach lay in the fact that it allowed the establishment of adjustable asymmetrical relationships without abandoning the advantages of having a set of strong asymmetrical counter-concepts. The option to adjust the signified of the other-term was particularly useful in a country ravaged by multiple conflicts both in Parliament and on the battlefield. Let us consider a few examples of the holistic approach to political divisions. In Cadiz (1810–14), as well as during the years of the Liberal Trienium (1820–23), reactions to the term ‘party’ were overwhelmingly negative, as we can clearly read in the response of several liberal deputies to the word combination ‘liberal party’ uttered in Parliament. Here is a particularly telling quote: ‘I was very surprised to hear Mr Moreno calling the liberals a party: the serviles are a party; the afrancesados are a party, but the liberals are the whole Nation; the liberals are not, nor they have ever been, a party; they are, I repeat it, all the Nation.’46 Those who shared this point of view tried to avoid being confined to the two-party system by activating the whole potential of the conceptual asymmetry: the struggle for the country was presented as leaving no room for the coexistence of political variances. This understanding allows asymmetries to persist in an almost violent form that the more symmetrical approach tried to shy away from: for the latter, the notion of party, no doubt influenced by the British constitutional practice, was endowed with a certain degree of equality and comparability. (It is this point of view that lay beneath the idea of multiple interacting interests marked by the equality of their champions.)47 Conservatives and reactionaries were fond of this strategy, too. Thus, according to the reactionary newspaper El Restaurador, one of the main obstacles to the restoration of the monarchy was setting the servil side (now called the royalists) on a par with its opponents since this legitimized the latter’s political views. El Restaurador linked such impartiality to the rejection of absolute truth, which could not but lead to moral disorientation, confusing vices and virtues. Nevertheless, the newspaper argued, the truth was the foundation of political unity: it could be ignored, bur never destroyed: ‘Those who disagree in matters open to a variety of opinions are partisans; the truth and the error never are . . . The truth would stop to be such at the time it begins to negotiate with its contrary, and there is the immense distance that separates a royalist from a constitutionalist, a liberal from a servil.’48 The boundary that distinguishes truth from error could thus never be erased: ‘The truth must be intolerant and unyielding

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because it is one and indivisible.’ Therefore, reconciliation with that which was considered erroneous was simply out of the question.49 We saw the same approach being taken by the liberals, but in this case the core of the reasoning revealed itself more explicitly: the absolute truth was deemed incompatible with the disunion of the political field expressed by the very etymology of the word ‘party’. In this understanding of politics, there is no place for arrangements and no alternative to the war between two opposite principles.50 It is also obvious that the conservatives could not imagine any legitimate disagreement with their position as far as the political structure of the country was concerned. On both ends of the political spectrum, the strong conceptual asymmetry was perceived as a tactical tool for achieving the victory of the group at the negative pole, after which the binary counter-conceptual arrangement was supposed to vanish: with the binary political system a thing of the past, the victors were supposed to solidify their claims to the contested cluster of key concepts, like nation, monarchy and Christianity. But in the political reality, this thinking did not lead very far as neither side was capable of eradicating its opponent and two sets of formally similar but semantically opposite asymmetries remained in use. As we already know, there was a third way of plotting an escape from the dual partisan dynamic that involved choosing a middle ground; thus, some authors completely rejected any kind of binary conceptual system, stating that both sides were anti-national because they abandoned the words ‘Spain’ or ‘Fernando VII’ in favour of the partisan terms liberales and serviles.51 This new perspective, according to one of its proponents, would have been characterized by supporting Catholicism, the homeland and the king. All three concepts were able to express the highest degree of unity, in contrast to both radical wings: ‘Every extreme is vicious, and liberals and serviles touch it from the opposite sides.’52 The booklets Espejo de serviles y liberales and Reprehensión a los liberales y serviles are just two more examples of this approach.53 But it was not until the Triennium that this perspective grew in importance. The rejection of the two sides led to the proposal of a ‘third party’ as a possible way out of the struggle. The newspapers characterized as ‘Frenchified’ by their opponents (because they were founded by former followers of the king appointed to the Spanish court by Napoleon) insisted upon the need to avoid political extremes. El Censor, for instance, rejected both exaltados and realistas who only sought employments and distinctions from the king, seeing both sides as fundamentally intolerant. According to one of the newspaper’s articles, political labelling made it more difficult to overcome civil unrest and pursue reconciliation: ‘the first who invented words to designate civil factions gave the mankind a diabolic gift.’54

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However, not all those who sought to overcome conceptual asymmetries in Spanish politics in that period were against new labels. In particular, the term moderado, still a moral reference rather than a political one, aroused increasing interest: it designated those who tried to restrain the drift to democracy while also seeking agreement with the traditional powers. El Universal openly expressed its moderate stance in July 1820.55 This conceptual approach clearly tried to break free of the asymmetrical dynamics established by the earlier political labels discussed above. The historical frame that facilitated this shift at the beginning of the 1820s was the unceasing struggle between serviles and liberales, on one hand, and the strife between the radical and the conservative wings of the liberals on the other. This proliferation of conflicts led to the reclaiming of the intermediate space between serviles and liberal radicals.56 As has been stated before, this perspective opened the door to the possibility of moving on from the binary asymmetrical system to the ternary one, with the new concept holding the previous pair together as a seemingly indispensable and central middle ground. On the left, the promoters and defenders of this conceptual innovation saw themselves as the only rightful liberals around and consequently defined the party located to their left as reckless advocates of unlimited freedom, variously branded as extremists, Jacobins or anarchists. Along with serviles, this group constituted, for the self-appointed ‘true’ liberals, a political fringe, whereas their own position was presented as the ‘true virtue that is between those two vicious extremes’.57 From this perspective, the keystone of the constitutional system consisted of educated middle-class citizens that did not belong to any party, were moderate by nature and harboured no political ambitions. Only such people were seen as capable of being a national party in the proper sense. In contrast to the previously discussed ternary set of counter-concepts, the one generated within the liberal camp not only paved the way for the overcoming of a strong counter-conceptual asymmetry, but also proposed decisive changes to the concept of party (despite the liberals’ reluctance to use the term). In place of the well-entrenched tradition of questioning the opponents’ legitimacy by tying them to the negative, non-consensual poles of counter-conceptual binaries, the coexistence of different political groups was no longer deemed impossible. But this respect for partisanship remained quite limited and the recognition of the legitimacy of the other groups remained partial and inconsistent. This novel approach to political divisions turned out to be more promising that its alternatives, but it also exposed some problems that were not easy to solve as they required deep changes to the understanding of political struggle and its legitimate agents, aims and values. Instead of channelling all their energy

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into the absorption or dilution of other groups over time, the emphasis was placed on ways of interacting with the opponent. This last feature and the emergence of a third perspective suggest a transitional phase to the more sophisticated models of political conflict. The heightened awareness of two qualitatively different binary subsystems, whose use was contingent upon the circumstances of respective conflicts (for example, war or peace), replaced, in the 1830s, the general allegiance to the single immutable asymmetrical system, whose differences did not go beyond the valuations of the poles in accordance with the speakers’ political affiliations. The ternary system, in which the middle term is perched atop the triangle with two ‘extreme’ terms below, could, as has been shown before, easily switch to the single binary with one of them as a negative pole, reducing (or amplifying) the intensity of the asymmetry in question. At the same time, the bottom of the triangle, representing the old-fashioned conflict scenario, aimed at the elimination of the opponent, could still function on its own without the mediation of the third term. But this flexibility did not obtain in the Spanish conceptual context until the 1830s. It has been said before that the transition from moral qualifications to political identities was an important step in the development of counterconcepts within the Spanish public sphere. Perhaps this semantic development could be seen as the most crucial step in the development of political parties in the modern sense, which also lowered the temperature of the conceptual asymmetries involved: the crushing moral disqualification of the opponent is replaced by a more neutral pejorative term with a clearer political meaning, related to the current political project of the country and allowing for a wider common ground between the adversaries. In this conjunction, it is worth looking at the new labels proposed in the 1830s to differentiate adepts of different tempos in the implementation of political reforms among liberals, such as progresista (progressives) instead of exaltado (enraged), or conservatives, parliamentaries or monarchists-constitutionalists instead of moderados (moderates).58 Another means of creating a discursive frame for political coexistence consisted in semantic alterations of the concept ‘party’ itself. In the late eighteenth century, it meant a set of political principles and this understanding remained in force in the following decades across the political spectrum. This consensus effectively paved the way for the shared understanding of political divisions, based on mutually recognized semantic mutations of the word in question. For instance, in order to make the presence of parties in politics more palatable, the weak meaning of the term was separated from the strong one: as soon as disagreements no longer concerned alternative models of legitimacy, but addressed issues

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of secondary importance, such as the content of future legislation and the speed of its implementation, the coexistence of parties was possible.59 Of course, this semantic shift could not but lower the asymmetrical potential of the labels, without deactivating it completely: any further reduction of conceptual asymmetries in political discourse would probably mean the end of political struggle and politics altogether. Although it was not universal (or universally shared), the transition from strong to weak conceptual asymmetries was nevertheless noticeable and widespread. It might be fitting to supplement this analysis with a brief contextualization of the conceptual pair liberal vs servil after the period discussed in the chapter. As new ideologies led to an increase in the number of political groups throughout the nineteenth century, the original asymmetrical structure was constantly forced to assume (and dispose of) changing parameters of exclusion and inclusion. The Spanish repertoire of asymmetrical concepts was enriched by the emergence of anarchism, republicanism, socialism, communism and the cluster of separatist movements, which all produced new and appropriated old counter-conceptual pairs, changing degrees of asymmetry in the process. In a way, the constant oscillation between mutually recognized symmetries and unilateral asymmetries within conceptual pairs reflects ever-changing boundaries of legitimacy in partisan politics, which makes it unavoidable, if not constitutive for the political process as a whole. Interestingly, the denial of conflict as the essence of politics can lead to the escalation of asymmetries, culminating in demands for the non-political (and illegal) annihilation of the opponents – the absolute enemies, as evident in the successive Spanish civil wars of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In this sense, the apparently insurmountable existence of political asymmetrical counter-concepts can be seen as one of the foundations of political liberalism, unthinkable without accepting, branding and in some ways contesting political differences. Luis Fernández Torres is a researcher in the Department of the History of Political Thought at the University of the Basque Country, where he completed his PhD after graduating in Political Science at Complutense University (Madrid). His main research interests lie in the area of conceptual history and political metaphors. He has published several articles on these topics, including ‘Evolución del concepto de partido en el tránsito del siglo XVIII al XIX en España (1780–1814)’, in Historia Constitucional. He has also translated texts from German into Spanish: Reinhart Koselleck, Historias de conceptos. Estudios sobre semántica y pragmática del lenguaje político y social (Trotta, 2012).

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Notes  1. For instance, the Correo de Madrid (o de los ciegos), described divisions within the theatre world in negative terms: ‘the statement that people always follow not reason but a party is always true’ (‘Que el pueblo jamás sigue la razón sino el partido, es una proposición aeterne veritatis’), no. 109 (7 November 1787).  2. The Spanish War of Independence (1808–14) partially overlapped with the Peninsular War (1807–14).  3. Ignacio Fernández Sarasola, Los partidos políticos en el pensamiento español. De la Ilustración a nuestros días (Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2009), 31.  4. Record of Proceedings, 24 January 1838; Francisco Martínez de la Rosa, El espíritu del siglo (Madrid: Imprenta de Don Tomás Jordán, 1835), 24–25; ‘Paz y transacción’, El Piloto, no. 202, in Fruto de la prensa periódica IV (1839), 201–6.  5. Javier Fernández Sebastián, La Ilustración política: las ‘Reflexiones sobre las formas de gobierno’ de José A. Ibáñez de la Rentería y otros discursos conexos (1767–1790) (Bilbao: Universidad del País Vasco, 1994), 126.  6. Victorian de Villava [1784], quoted in Ignacio Fernández Sarasola, La idea de partido en España: de la Ilustración a las Cortes de Cádiz (1783–1814) (Alicante: Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, 2004) (retrieved 20 May 2017 from http://www.cervantesvirtual. com/nd/ark:/59851/bmcnv9t1).  7. León de Arroyal, Cartas económico-políticas [1789], quoted in Sarasola, La idea de partido en España.  8. The prevailing understanding on these matters in the territories ruled by Spanish monarchy has its roots in the Aristotelian tradition: in this vein, each constitution is valued according to the temporal and spatial coordinates of its validity (that is, the specific sociopolitical structure of each particular country). See Sarasola, Los partidos politicos en el pensamiento español, 25.  9. El Mercurio de España, July 1787. 10. Pedro Rodríguez Campomanes, Segundas Observaciones sobre el sistema general de Europa y Quartas Observaciones, in Inéditos politicos (Oviedo: Junta General del Principado de Asturias, 1996 [1792]), 189–238; 265–78, 272. 11. Manuel Benavides and Cristina Rollán (eds), Valentín de Foronda. Los sueños de la razón (Madrid: Editora Nacional, 1984), 436–37. 12. Joaquín Varela Suanzes, La teoría del Estado en los orígenes del constitucionalismo hispánico (Las Cortes de Cádiz) (Madrid: Centro de Estudio constitucionales, 1983), 24. 13. Reinhart Koselleck, ‘Begriffsgeschichte and Social History’, in Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time, trans. Keith Tribe (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), 86. 14. Reinhart Koselleck, ‘The Historical-Political Semantics of Asymmetric Counterconcepts’, in Futures Past, 161. 15. João Feres Júnior criticizes the scarcity of historical examples given, as well as their teleological ordering culminating in the Nazi-era pair Übermensch–Untermensch, which puts Germany in a privileged historical position at the end of the chain. See João Feres Júnior, ‘Building a Typology of Forms of Misrecognition: Beyond the Republican-Hegelian Paradigm’, Contemporary Political Theory 5 (2006), 259–77, 269. Peter Stroschneider also highlights the temporal gaps in the survey: ‘Fremde in der Vormoderne. Über Negierbarkeitsverluste und Unbekanntheitsgewinne’, in Anja Becker and Jan Mohr (eds), Alterität als Leitkonzept für historisches Interpretieren (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 2012), 392–93. 16. Reinhart Koselleck, ‘Feindbegriffe’, in Begriffsgeschichten, 278–79, quoted in Peter Strohschneider, ‘Fremde in der Vormoderne’, 392–93.

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17. Reinhart Koselleck, ‘The Historical-Political Semantics of Asymmetric Counterconcepts’, in Futures Past, 160. 18. Peter Strohschneider, ‘Fremde in der Vormoderne’, 387, 389, 394. 19. See Kirill Postoutenko, ‘Asymmetrical Concepts and Political Asymmetries: A Comparative Glance at 20th Century Democracies and Totalitarisms from a Discursive Standpoint’, in Kay Junge and Kirill Postoutenko (eds), Asymmetrical Concepts after Reinhart Koselleck. Historical Semantics and Beyond (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2011), 90–98. In the place of Koselleck’s tripartite classification, Postoutenko proposes four subcategories subdivided into antagonist asymmetries (where the chances of symmetrical equilibration between the concepts and their users are nil) and agonistic ones (where the speaker’s recognition of the target group’s communicative competence makes shared semantics possible at least in theory). 20. Reinhart Koselleck, ‘The Historical-Political Semantics of Asymmetric Counterconcepts’, in Futures Past, 159. Among the three kinds of counter-concepts described by Kay Junge, the last one defines the negative pole of conceptual asymmetrically through the lack of a quality (such as reason) in the speaker’s self-referring positive pole. See Kay Junge: ‘Self-concepts, Counter-Concepts: Some Aspects of a Multi-Faceted Agenda’, in Kay Junge and Kirill Postoutenko (eds), Asymmetrical Concepts after Reinhart Koselleck, 41. 21. ‘In the case of the Hellene and the Barbarian, we have, in the first place, mutually exclusive concepts, the groups to which they refer (also in the realm of reality) being spatially separable. The alien other is negatively marked off but (and this represented a historical achievement) also recognized as being so. The territorialization of the concepts is followed by their spiritualization. . . . The relation of reciprocity is subject to a temporal loading, which determines a future displacement that can go as far as abolishing the Other’; ‘Notwithstanding the temporal interpretive framework . . . the concepts were at the same time subject to an increasing territorialization which had as an apparently surprising consequence the concept that the Heathen could be revalued.’ Koselleck, ‘The Historical-Political Semantics of Asymmetric Counterconcepts’, 160, 177. 22. This feature is not dissimilar to the ‘claims to universality’ attributed by Reinhart Koselleck to his key examples of conceptual asymmetries. Ibid., 156–57. 23. Maria Cruz Seoane, El primer lenguaje Constitucional (las Cortes de Cádiz) (Madrid: Editorial Moneda y Crédito, 1968), 158. 24. As Vicente Llorens emphasized: ‘the emergence of two new political labels was not simultaneous.’ ‘Sobre la aparición de liberal’, in Literatura, historia, política (Madrid: Publicaciones de la Revista de Occidente, 1967), 45–56. 25. ‘Se toma tambien por baxo, humilde, y de poca estimacion.’ 26. ‘Se llama en la República el mechánico, ò baxo, à distincion de los liberales, ò nobles. Llámase assi, porque sirven como criados al Público’; ‘respecto de que tiene algo de servíl el ganar la vida con el trabajo mechánico del cuerpo’. 27. Esteban de Terreros y Pando, Diccionario Castellano, vol. III (Madrid: Imp. de la viuda de Ibarra, 1788), 479. 28. ‘secta de prevaricadores políticos’; ‘partidas de bárbaros’; ‘porque combaten por la servidumbre’; ‘gente inculta’; ‘caníbales’. 29. Alejandro B. [full name not known], Las armas de la nación triunfan del vil servilismo (Barcelona: Torras Hermanos 1822). 30. Semanario Patriótico, 29 August 1811. 31. See Kirill Postotutenko, ‘Asymmetrical Concepts and Political Asymmetries’, 84–86. 32. Luis Fernández Torres, ‘La imprenta reaccionaria: ariete contra el liberalismo (1810– 1814)’, Historia Autónoma (2014); Víctor Manuel Arbeloa, Clericalismo y anticlericalismo en España (1767–1930) (Madrid: Ediciones Encuentro, 2004), 63; Pedro Carlos González

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33.

34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43.

44. 45. 46.

47. 48.

49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55.

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Cuevas, Historia de las derechas españolas. De la ilustración a nuestros días (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 2000), 67–68. Javier Fernández Sebastián, ‘Cádiz y el primer liberalismo español. Sinopsis historiográfica y reflexiones sobre el centenario’, in José Álvarez Junco and Javier Moreno Luzón (eds), La Constitución de Cádiz: historiografía y conmemoración. Homenaje a Francisco Tomás y Valiente (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales, 2006), 27–28. ‘Liberal y francés por lo mismo si no son sinónimos, son a lo menos cosas muy parecidas.’ ‘Introducción de la voz liberal en España, según la acepción o significado que tiene en el día’, El Procurador General de la Nación y del Rey, 18 August 1813, no. 322. El Procurador, 28 April 1814. Atalaya de la Mancha, 3 October 1814. El Procurador, 5 May 1814. El Procurador, 4 February 1814. El Procurador, 17 December 1812. El Procurador, 4 May 1813. Rafael de Vélez, Apología del Altar y del Trono, t. I (Madrid: en la Imprenta de Repullés, 1818), 170–71. Juan de la Reguera y Valdelomar, El Español en defensa del Rey, de las leyes y religion (Madrid: Imp. Vda. e Hijo. de Aznar, 1814). ‘Siervos de la razón ilustrada por la fe; los que desean la felicidad de la nación . . . Este es el lenguaje de los filósofos: serviles llaman a los verdaderos españoles.’ Diccionario razonado, manual para inteligencia de ciertos escritores que por equivocación han nacido en España (Cadiz: en la Imprenta de la Junta Superior, 1811), 66–67. ‘Lo peor es que sólo conseguimos el hacernos cada día más odiosos a los pueblos los cuales tienen ya por la injuria más horrorosa la palabra Servil.’ Diario de Cádiz, 8 August 1813, no. 8. See El Censor 1, no. 5 (2 September 1820) and III, no. 18 (2 December 1820); El Universal, no. 68 (18 July 1820); La Ley, no. 3 (3 June 1836). ‘Me he admirado mucho de oír al Sr. Moreno llamar partido a los liberales: los serviles son un partido; los afrancesados son un partido, pero los liberales es toda la Nación; los liberales no son, ni han sido nunca un partido; son, lo repito, toda la Nación.’ Record of Proceedings, 16 July 1820. Reinhart Koselleck, ‘Interesse’, in Otto Brunner, Werner Conze and Reinhart Koselleck (eds), Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe: historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland, vol. 3 (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1982), 349. ‘Los que discrepan en materias opinables son partidarios; la verdad y el error no lo son nunca . . . la verdad dejaría de ser en el momento en que entrare en negociación con su contrario, y he aquí la distancia inmensa que separa al realista del constitucional, al liberal del servil.’ El Restaurador, no. 144, 9 December 1823. El Restaurador, no. 4, 4 July 1823. El Restaurador, no. 56, 30 August 1823. Los ingleses en España, no. 9 (Sevilla, 1813). ‘Todo extremo es vicioso, y los liberales y serviles los tocan opuestamente.’ Catecismo liberal y servil con la deducción de estas doctrinas en la juiciosa que conviene a la felicidad española (Segovia: C. N. S. y V, 1814), 29. Ramón Solís, El Cádiz de las Cortes: la vida en la ciudad en los años de 1810 a 1813 (Madrid: Sílex, 2000), 286–88. ‘El primero que inventó palabras para designar facciones civiles, hizo un regalo infernal al género humano.’ El Censor I, no. 5, 2 February 1820. Antonio Elorza, ‘La ideología moderada en el Trienio Liberal’, Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, no. 288 (1974), 592–93.

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56. El Universal, no. 68 (18 July 1820). 57. La ‘verdadera virtud que está entre aquellos dos extremos viciosos’. ‘Sobre el espíritu público’, El Censor III, no. 13 (28 October 1820). 58. Francisco Cánovas Sánchez, ‘Los partidos políticos’, in José María Jover et al., La era isabelina y el sexenio democrático, 1834–1874 (Madrid: Espasa Calpe, 1981), 373–74. 59. See Luis Fernández Torres, ‘Evolución del concepto de partido en el tránsito del siglo XVIII al XIX en España (1780–1814)’, Historia Constitucional, no. 13 (2012), 433–75.

References Arbeloa, Víctor Manuel, Clericalismo y anticlericalismo en España (1767–1930) (Madrid: Ediciones Encuentro, 2004). B. [full name unknown], Alejandro, Las armas de la nación triunfan del vil servilismo (Barcelona: Torras Hermanos 1822). Benavides, Manuel, and Cristina Rollán (eds), Valentín de Foronda. Los sueños de la razón (Madrid: Editora Nacional, 1984). Campomanes, Pedro Rodríguez, Segundas Observaciones sobre el sistema general de Europa y Quartas Observaciones, in Inéditos politicos (Oviedo: Junta General del Principado de Asturias, 1996 [1792]). Catecismo liberal y servil con la deducción de estas doctrinas en la juiciosa que conviene a la felicidad española (Segovia: C. N. S. y V, 1814). Cuevas, Pedro Carlos González, Historia de las derechas españolas. De la ilustración a nuestros días (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 2000). Diccionario razonado, manual para inteligencia de ciertos escritores que por equivocación han nacido en España (Cadiz: en la Imprenta de la Junta Superior, 1811). Elorza, Antonio, ‘La ideología moderada en el Trienio Liberal’, Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, no. 288 (1974), 584–650. Feres Júnior, João, ‘Building a Typology of Forms of Misrecognition: Beyond the Republican-Hegelian Paradigm’, Contemporary Political Theory 5 (2006), 259–77. Junge, Kay, ‘Self-concepts, Counter-Concepts: Some Aspects of a Multi-Faceted Agenda’, in Kay Junge and Kirill Postoutenko (eds), Asymmetrical Concepts after Reinhart Koselleck. Historical Semantics and Beyond (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2011), 9–50. Koselleck, Reinhart, Futures Past: On the Semantics of historical Time, trans. Keith Tribe (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004). –––, ‘Interesse’, in Otto Brunner, Werner Conze and Reinhart Koselleck (eds), Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe: historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland, vol. 3 (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1982), 305–66. Llorens, Vicente, Literatura, historia, política (Madrid: Publicaciones de la Revista de Occidente, 1967). Martínez de la Rosa, Francisco, El espíritu del siglo (Madrid: Imprenta de Don Tomás Jordán, 1835). Postoutenko, Kirill, ‘Asymmetrical Concepts and Political Asymmetries: A Comparative Glance at 20th Century Democracies and Totalitarisms from a Discursive Standpoint’, in Kay Junge and Kirill Postoutenko (eds), Asymmetrical

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Concepts after Reinhart Koselleck. Historical Semantics and Beyond (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2011), 81–115. Reguera y Valdelomar, Juan de la, El Español en defensa del Rey, de las leyes y religion (Madrid: Imp. Vda. e Hijo. de Aznar, 1814). Sánchez, Francisco Cánovas, ‘Los partidos políticos’, in José María Jover et al., La era isabelina y el sexenio democrático, 1834–1874 (Madrid: Espasa Calpe, 1981). Sarasola, Ignacio Fernández, La idea de partido en España: de la Ilustración a las Cortes de Cádiz (1783–1814) (Alicante: Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, 2004) (retrieved 20 May 2017 from http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/nd/ark:/59851/ bmcnv9t1). –––, Los partidos políticos en el pensamiento español. De la Ilustración a nuestros días (Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2009). Sebastián, Javier Fernández, ‘Cádiz y el primer liberalismo español. Sinopsis historiográfica y reflexiones sobre el centenario’, in José Álvarez Junco and Javier Moreno Luzón (eds), La Constitución de Cádiz: historiografía y conmemoración. Homenaje a Francisco Tomás y Valiente (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales, 2006). –––, La Ilustración política: las ‘Reflexiones sobre las formas de gobierno’ de José A. Ibáñez de la Rentería y otros discursos conexos (1767–1790) (Bilbao: Universidad del País Vasco, 1994). Seoane, Maria Cruz, El primer lenguaje Constitucional (las Cortes de Cádiz) (Madrid: Editorial Moneda y Crédito, 1968). Solís, Ramón, El Cádiz de las Cortes: la vida en la ciudad en los años de 1810 a 1813 (Madrid: Sílex, 2000). Stroschneider, Peter, ‘Fremde in der Vormoderne: Über Negierbarkeitsverluste und Unbekanntheitsgewinne’, in Anja Becker and Jan Mohr (eds), Alterität als Leitkonzept für historisches Interpretieren (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 2012), 387–416. Suanzes, Joaquín Varela, La teoría del Estado en los orígenes del constitucionalismo hispánico (Las Cortes de Cádiz) (Madrid: Centro de Estudio constitucionales, 1983). Terreros y Pando, Esteban de, Diccionario Castellano, vol. III (Madrid: Imp. de la viuda de Ibarra, 1788). Torres, Luis Fernández, ‘Evolución del concepto de partido en el tránsito del siglo XVIII al XIX en España (1780–1814)’, Historia Constitucional, no. 13 (2012), 433–75. –––, ‘La imprenta reaccionaria: ariete contra el liberalismo (1810–1814)’, Historia Autónoma (2014). Vélez, Rafael de, Apología del Altar y del Trono, t. I (Madrid: en la Imprenta de Repullés, 1818).

Chapter 6

‘Hellenes’ Revisited

Asymmetrical Concepts in the Language of the Greek Revolution Alexandra Sfoini

T

he Greek Revolution brought two cultural and national groups into an open and acute conflict: the Greeks and the Turks, who had been living together for four centuries in a conqueror–conquered relation within the multinational Ottoman Empire. At the same time, the revolution constituted a point of turbulence in conservative, post-Napoleonic Europe, where the Holy Alliance reigned supreme.1 During that period and up to the foundation of the Greek state (1821–33), European public opinion about the revolution began taking shape, resulting in the publication of numerous pamphlets on the topic. Many of these pamphlets were philhellenic, clearly siding with the Greeks against the Turks and discussing possible European strategies in relation to the rebelling Greeks and their Turkish conquerors.2 The titles of the pamphlets say a lot about their authors’ attitudes towards the nations in question: Cruautés exercées par les Turcs sur la Nation grecque; Point de paix avec les Turcs, ou Nécessité de les expulser de l’Europe; Discours sur les services que les Grecs ont rendus à la civilisation; Antiturque, ou Exposé des motifs pour lesquels les Grecs désirent être secourus; Barbarie et Civilisation, ou Plaidoyer pour les Grecs; La Guerre sacrée, ou Hommage à l’héroisme des Grecs; Griechenland unter der Tyrannei der Türken; Europa’s Pflicht, die Türken wieder nach Asien zu treiben; Die Rettung Griechenland’s die Sache des dankbaren Europa; Greece Vindicated; An Appeal to Europe on Behalf of Greece; An Invocation to Greece to Assert Her Freedom. In this chapter, we will investigate the production of these attitudes and their crystallization in unequal oppositions from the historical perspective. According to Reinhart Koselleck, the structure of asymmetrical

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argumentation passes from one historical epoch to another and its significance goes far beyond the specific moments in which opposing qualities are attributed to human groups that are designated as units of action on the basis of particular concepts that determine their identities.3 The Hellenic nation is indeed one such group that functioned as a collective agency during the Greek Revolution in accordance with the semantics acquired by the term ‘Hellenes’ in relation to its opposites (such as ‘Turks’ or ‘barbarians’).

Ancient and Modern Greeks In the European consciousness, ancient Greece was the matrix of European civilization.4 Since the fifteenth century, comparing ancient and modern Greeks had been a widespread practice among European travellers and scholars, which usually resulted in the idealization of the former and a damning verdict on the latter.5 The Enlightenment and classicism led Europe to turn its attention to modern Greeks, taking as a starting point the glorious name of their ancestors – which entailed obligations for the modern bearers of the noble name and therefore caused additional anguish among Europeans in response to their plight. In writings on the subject, ancient and modern Greece constitute an antithetical pair, with their qualitative dissociation determined by the historical time that brought about degeneration and especially the Turkish conquest.6 Voltaire, in his Essai sur les mœurs, maintains that ‘the motherland of Miltiades, Leonidas, Alexander, Sophocles, Plato became quickly barbaric’ under the Turkish yoke.7 During the Russo-Turkish War (1768–74), after he was informed of the victories of the Orloffs, he wrote to Catherine the Great: ‘this gives me hopes for Athens to which I always feel related because of Sophocles, Euripides, Menander and my favorite, the old Anacreon, even though the Athenians have become the poorest cowards of the continent.’ However, he does not give up hope that ‘the barbaric Turks should soon be driven out of the homeland of Xenophon, Socrates, Plato, Sophocles and Euripides’, as he writes to Frederic II of Prussia.8 The French ambassador in Constantinople, the count ChoiseulGouffier, expresses these mixed feelings vividly in the introduction to his book Voyage pittoresque, which was widely read by Greek scholars: If the matter concerned some other people, my feelings would be a sorrow for those enslaved by violence and subjected to the heavy yoke. These people, however, were not just slaves; they were the offspring of the Greeks, and my respect for their name made their dishonor look even more serious in my eyes.

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The fact that such a beautiful name was disgraced, such glory humiliated, aside from the sympathy that an undeserved evil produces, made me rebel even more intensely against their cowardice and humiliation. Thus, the same thing that aroused my interest in them made me criticize them very strictly. I was not thinking very much about all the reasons, the chain of all the devastating circumstances which brought them on their knees and which could have annihilated them irrevocably.9

Choiseul-Gouffier is a passionate admirer of ancient Greece, which was ‘the cradle of freedom and the homeland of virtues and the arts’, a country between the ‘civilized but enslaved Asia and free but barbaric Europe’, a nation that ‘raised human dignity to the highest degree’. Influenced by such admiration, he strives to discover the legacy of the ancient Greeks’ character in their descendants as if he were looking for ‘the stamp on an ancient coin corroded by rust’.10 His indignation is evident as he sees the ‘idiot Muslim, leaning undisturbed on the ruins of Sparta or Athens, only to impose the taxes of slavery on the lands where the knives against tyranny had so many times been sharpened’.11 He believes that the degeneration of the Greeks, which began in Byzantium, is reversible, insofar as the Greeks have retained their valuable qualities and have not mixed with their rulers, with whom they differ in religion, culture and customs. Climate is also a crucial factor, in addition to the integration of Greece into the Europe of Enlightenment: ‘Those climates are still able to produce the acts of patriotism and virtues that could surprise even the most civilized nations of Europe . . . The Greeks, under a favorable sky, with the perfect climate, surrounded by the lights of Europe, can find themselves again.’ From a political perspective, the existence of a free Greek state in the Peloponnese would be beneficial for French trade as well as weakening the Turks.12 The title page of Voyage pittoresque features a chained woman representing Greece under the Ottoman yoke. She is surrounded by funereal monuments, built in memory of the great men that devoted themselves to freedom. The verse from Virgil’s Aeneid ‘exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor’ is engraved on the rock: Greece is apparently calling upon an avenger to emancipate it from slavery. The English ambassador offered a copy of Voyage pittoresque to the grand vizier, drawing his attention to the anti-Ottoman introduction, in which Turkish despotism, fatalism and the indifference of that barbaric people is condemned, and Europe is called upon to rise up against it.13 Other European travellers share the same feelings. On his way to Jerusalem in 1807–8, the Romantic François-René de Chateaubriand, while staring at the Acropolis, cannot help feeling overwhelmed by his

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aversion to the Turkish conquerors, who appear to have desecrated the sacred monument: Attica, even though it shows signs of less misery, does not display less slavery. Athens is under the direct protection of the leader of the black eunuchs of the saray. The Disdar or Commander pretends to be the protective monster in the temple of Solon. This Disdar lives in the Acropolis, full of the masterpieces of Pheidias and Iktinos, without asking which people are left behind these remains and without agreeing to get out of the shabby building built under the ruins of Pericles’ monuments. Only a few times the tyrant-automaton has crawled to the door of his hovel. Seated cross-legged on a dirty rug while the smoke from his pipe rises among the columns of Athena’s temple, he gazes foolishly at the shores of Salamina and the sea of Epidauros.14

However, not all Europeans share the same view. The Prussian diplomat Jacob Ludwig Salomon Bartholdy, travelling in the Greek lands in 1803–4, reproduces the views presented above regarding the degeneration of the Greeks, but disapproves of the recurrent rhetorical scheme that attributes their decline to the tyranny of the Turks. For Bartholdy, Greece looks like a beautiful forest that has withered and cannot be revegetated. Its decline had started before the conquest of Constantinople; it was a slow process, as was the decay of the Byzantine Empire more generally, in contrast to the West, where the flame of the spirit grew brighter. Bartholdy is especially poignant in his description of the Greek notables, whom he finds repulsive because of the ‘unbearable monotony of their discussions’, in addition to the ‘infinite arrogance, foolish vanity with which they vaunt about their ancestors without knowing their names or their history, as well as the ridiculous sophistication with which they imitate the habits of the Europeans’.15 The Greeks’ awareness of belonging to the birthplace of European civilization and their shallow references to their ancestors, reproached by Bartholdy, coincide with the expansion of education in Greece and the reception of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution in the last decades of the eighteenth century. Those seeking to liberate the Greek nation and create a free Greek state associated the modern Hellenes more with ancient Greece than with imperial ideals and Byzantium. The term ‘nation’ begins to replace older religious self-characterizations, such as ‘the genus of Romaioi’, one of the millet of the Ottoman Empire, with the Orthodox Church as the main unifying institution.16 Their selfidentification as Hellenes instead of ‘Romaioi’/‘Romioi’ (the subjects of Byzantium – the East Roman Empire) or Graeci (the Greeks’ Latin name) indicates their new consciousness, which, however, does not contradict their Christian consciousness, but rather coexists with it.17 The Phanariote

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scholar Demetrios Katartzis writes in 1774 that the Romioi Christians are citizens of a nation that ought to have ideas of its own.18 In 1803, the scholar Adamantios Korais announces in his Mémoire, addressed to ‘the whole of enlightened Europe’, that the Greeks are preparing themselves to become a nation, that is, to be governed by laws, as France is, to partake again in the light of civilization of their ancestors and, finally, to relinquish the state of barbarity in which they existed.19 The French Revolution brings the Greeks into contact with the French and transforms their image: degenerate modern Greece cannot be conceived independently of the enlightened Greece that constituted the golden period of human history.20 The need to liberate this historic country from foreign occupation and from any oppression becomes urgent and takes the form of a holy pursuit of a new utopia, as expressed by the democratic French liberators of the Ionian Islands in 1797: ‘To you alone, generous heroes, to you alone belongs the glory of reviving the most beautiful nation of Antiquity, to revenge humanity for so many insults it suffered from the great tyrant.’21 The introduction of new concepts as a result of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, such as motherland, revolution, freedom, civilization and nomarchy (the state of law), creates a horizon of expectations that later contributes to the outbreak of the Greek Revolution of 1821.22

The Turkish Conqueror The positive concepts listed above contrast with their opposites (slavery, tyranny, barbarity, monarchy), attributed to the Turks who represent, for Europeans, the abusers of the Christian territories and the Greek Antiquity that Europe inherited. Since the fifteenth century, Europeans’ religious, cultural and political imagination has painted a picture of Turks as infidels, barbarians, despots.23 The so-called Turcica – the texts revealing Europeans’ interest in the Turks (shared, among others, by Erasmus and Martin Luther) – is replete with negative epithets implying, for instance, ruthlessness, bloodthirst and even the killing of children.24 During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, travellers, simultaneously criticizing the decline and decadence of the territories under Turkish occupation, wanted to familiarize themselves with the Turks in order to fight them more successfully.25 The many representations of the Turks as the ‘common enemy’ of Europe definitely affected international relations from the fifteenth century onwards.26 During the period of the Turkish occupation, the conqueror was naturally subject to negative portrayals by the conquered. These

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characterizations, however, related more to religion than politics or culture, especially in popular texts: the conqueror was a wild beast, the incarnation of the devil, the Antichrist – in other words, a form of divine punishment for the sins of Christians in the Byzantine Empire. Liberation could only have come about by the will of god, as in the case of slavery, so plenty of prophecies27 predicted the coming of the ‘desideratum’,28 which the Christians of the Ottoman Empire entrusted to kings of the same religion (Venetians, Spanish, Austrians) and particularly the Orthodox Russian rulers who aspired to replace the Ottomans on the throne in Constantinople.29 The antithetical asymmetrical pair Greeks–barbarians (in which the latter are portrayed as impious, unjust, vulgar and immoral plunderers) is not uncommon in scholarly texts that describe the sultan as a ‘tyrant’ to whom certain virtues can nevertheless be attributed, as in the case of Mehmet II.30 The Turks, both as individuals and as a group, are not always described negatively.31 From the middle of the seventeenth century onwards, the Phanariote elites of Constantinople, who participated in the Ottoman administration as interpreters and rulers of the Danubian countries, praise Ottoman officials by attributing to them virtues associated with Muslim ethics, such as wisdom, experience, sobriety, veraciousness, fairness, generosity and impartiality.32 But the despotic political system of the Ottoman Empire was severely criticized by Enlightenment authors.33 For Greeks at the end of the eighteenth century, the values of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution constitute the basis of the criticism levelled at the Ottoman tyrant; however, at the same time, they acknowledged the Ottoman people’s right to exist. In 1797, the patriot Rigas Velestinlis included in his pamphlet Νέα Πολιτική Διοίκησις (New Political Administration) a non-literal translation of the French constitution of 179334 and placed the Turks among the peoples of the Ottoman Empire who are called upon to rebel, while the sultan was labelled a tyrant with ‘filthy desires for women’, someone who ‘disdained humanity’ – a phrase recalling one of Voltaire’s poems.35 The Athenian scholar Panagiotis Kodrikas, who excelled in the bureaucratic environment of Constantinople and accompanied the Ottoman ambassador as an interpreter on his trip to Paris in 1798, successively underwent a change in attitude from sympathy for the affable and good-hearted master to aversion to the religious bigot and superstitious ‘guardian of all his national customs’ in Europe: welcoming the ambassador’s visit as an exotic spectacle, he described the Turks as a barbaric, fatalist and uneducated nation.36 For the radically critical anonymous author of the Hellenic Nomarchy (1806), the ‘Ottoman tyrant’ is ‘a statue of idiocy, of prodigality, an uneducated monster’, and ‘the contemptible and vile throne of the

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Ottomans, the most disgusting dominance of the barbarians, must be forced out to Africa’,37 a view shared by Voltaire.38

The Greek Revolution After the outbreak of the Greek Revolution in 1821, Europe turned its gaze, with concern and interest, to contemporary Greeks. Public opinion could be divided into three main groups: the supporters of the status quo, who felt threatened by and condemned the Greek Revolution; the preachers of Christian ideals; and the champions of liberal values who supported the Greek fight and attempted to sway public opinion towards steadily growing philhellenic enthusiasm.39 The Christian Middle Ages (for the second group) and classical Antiquity (for the third group) constituted reference points – the ideal places of ancestral virtue and sources of inspiration for the young generation. (Of course, the pool of arguments in each case was not the exclusive domain of the group in question and both schools of thought borrowed freely from one another.)40 The Greek Revolution was regarded by the Holy Alliance as an offshoot of the French Revolution that threatened the legitimate Ottoman government. The royalist Count of Salaberry expresses this view in an essay written in June 1821, in which he condemns the rebel’s leader Alexandros Ypsilantis and calls the Revolution of Moldovlachia a ‘sister of all the revolutions called liberal, all of them daughters of the same mother, the French Revolution’, and urges Europe, represented by the Holy Alliance, to protect legal order wherever it is threatened.41 The ultraroyalist Achille de Jouffroy published articles in the Gazette de France directed against contemporary Greece (which, he claims, is imbued with the spirit of the Encyclopaedists and Jacobins) but also against ancient Greece, which produced philosophy and atheism. In a characteristic twist of meaning, he compares liberals with the Turks as far as fanaticism, bigotry, the persecution of rivals and the hatred of the Christian religion are concerned: ‘the Koran incurred as many sufferings to humanity as the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen . . . Now they demand a crusade of Christian Europe against the Muslims, whereas for one hundred years various philosophers fought fiercely during the crusades.’42 Even though the revolution was condemned by the Holy Alliance at the Laibach conference (January–May 1821), philhellenism was gaining ground among conservatives, including royalists.43 As a result, the antithetical pair Greeks–Turks became totally polarized in philhellenic discourse – a development that was echoed and reinforced by the bipolar opposition Europe–Asia and related binaries, such as Christians vs

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Muslims, civilization vs barbarism, freedom vs despotism, all of which purported to express universal values through their positive terms. In these asymmetrical conceptual pairs, the collective bodies associated with negative and positive poles could alternate, but the structure of the argumentation remained the same, enriched with new phrases and arguments depending on the authors, the purposefulness of their rhetoric and their political affiliations (conservative or liberal).44 In general terms, this passionate rhetoric adhered to the Manichean model of dividing the world into opposing powers of good and evil.45

Christians vs Muslims For the arguments associated with religion, it is not difficult to create asymmetrical oppositions, especially when they are accompanied by the usual asymmetrical terms, such as ‘infidel’ or ‘impious’, and by negative values, such as ‘barbarity’ or ‘fanaticism’. In the context discussed, the  antithetical pair Christians–Muslims and religious arguments in general are mainly used by the royalist opponents of the revolution, who refer to the persistent mistakes of the Orthodox anti-unionist Christians, while also denouncing the anti-Christian Enlightenment. The use of Christian argumentation by liberals occasionally leads to unexpected amalgamations of the two opposed doctrines (for example, ‘Christians, avenge your brothers, avenge the laws of the nations!’).46 The moderate conservative Louis de Bonald writes in the monarchical newspaper Journal des Débats that the Turks are not legitimate sovereigns but conquerors manu militari who ‘have camped in Europe’, from which they must be driven out with a new crusade.47 Another conservative, Conrad Malte-Brun, who, in 1808, concurrently with Bartholdy, wrote an article on the moral degeneration of the Greeks,48 maintains that Greece, the mother of institutions and religions, was not recognized as a nation by contemporary treaties and does not formally have the right to ask for the help of the Christian kings who have signed peace treaties with their barbaric conquerors. However, because the Greeks were not a rebellious people, he argued, the defeated and enslaved nation, which had never been legitimately integrated into the Ottoman Empire and where human rights were never guaranteed, should have been granted independence on Christian and humanist grounds.49 The emphasis is placed on religion and humanity, which constitute the opposite of barbarity and slavery. In the extensive pamphlet written by Eugène de Genoude, who designates himself a knight,50 we can observe the unfolding of the arguments of the pro-monarchist philhellenes. For him, the opposition Christians– Muslims is paramount, but the values of the liberals are not dismissed

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out of hand: ‘It is said that the liberals are in favor of the Greeks: if they speak about justice and humanity, then do we have to delete these words from our vocabulary? I am against the Turks because I favor legality. I hope that they will not question my right to love God and the king.’51 In the pamphlet, the Greeks are, in general, conceptualized positively. They are the offspring of ancient Greeks, people struggling to regain their freedom. Even if the anti-unionist Byzantine emperors, who coalesced with the Turks against the West, are considered responsible, the enslavement of Greeks by Turks is not considered legitimate and is portrayed as vastly crueller than slavery in the Roman Empire or the serfdom in the colonies. However, despite that unbearable yoke, the Greeks did preserve their religion, even if they did neglect their culture. Now it seems that they are waking up from a deep lethargy, becoming active and starting to believe that the time of liberation has come. The stability in their Christian faith makes them worthy of freedom, Genoude notes, referring to de Bonald and recognizing the primary role of religion. The Greek Revolution is defined as a war between two peoples, a Christian people that defends its freedom, religion and existence, and a Muslim people that wishes to maintain a detestable tyranny upheld by ignorance and swords. Europe is mainly understood as a Respublica Christiana, harking back to the idealized past of Christian unity: In times called barbaric, before the Reformation and philosophy divided Europe, the united Christianity justified the war. The sacred words religion, humanity, freedom had one and only definition each whereas today they have been desecrated to the point that the war of the Greeks is called a riot and the dominance of the Turks is called legitimacy. The hatred of the Greeks against the Turks grew big, and only religion can explain this.52

According to Genoude, the reason for the subjugation of Byzantium was not so much the barbarian invasion as the arrogance of the patriarch towards the Pope in Rome, superstition, internal disagreements and anarchy. When Europe, threatened by Asia and Africa, undertook the Crusades, the Greeks joined the Turks against the knights. Hence, the barbaric Turks who came from Tartary were the divine punishment of the Greeks. For his arguments, Genoude uses traditional religious representations, supplementing them with cultural and political images.53 His main target is Muhammadanism: the Koran is portrayed as ignorance and tyranny codified – a mixture of Judaism, Christianity and paganism violently forced upon people. God is turned into a tyrant by the dogmatic fatalism, the sultan is his image, the family is a copy of the state and woman is man’s slave. The royalist Genoude compares the Turkish government

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with a democracy in which the sultan is a dictator and the janissaries are his representatives; there are no nobles and all the subjects are equal. War is their natural state, as is usually the case in democracies in which everything is subordinated to the military rule. They fight without a system, in a disorderly manner, without principles or methods; they attack furiously, retreat easily and destroy everything in their way. As with savage peoples, a conquest, for the Turks, means destruction: wherever they prevail, they obliterate arts, sciences and humanity. Their morals are corrupt, p ­ olygamy augments their wickedness, and opium increases the mental stupor of fatalism. Their religion leaves their natural  condition undisturbed; they do not fight against their flaws and, as a result,  embody all thinkable negative qualities, being effeminate (despite  their manly  appearance), cruel and weak, arrogant and abject, avaricious and profligate, merciful and ruthless; they look down on calamities, but tremble when faced with a bad omen; they exterminate people, but protect animals. In order to consolidate the barrage of negative features derived mainly from religion but also from politics and culture, Genoude quotes Comte de Volney, Antoine-Laurent Castellan and Chateaubriand.54 As far as the legality of the Greek war is concerned, Genoude tries to disprove it by quoting Matthew 22:21 (‘Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s’), which, in his opinion, casts loyalty to kings – even unjust ones – as a moral duty, underscoring the sinfulness of uprisings. At the same time, he admits that the Greeks never recognized the sovereignty of the Turks, but merely gave in to the power of their conquerors – an act that does not grant Turks the right to govern over them. However, he differentiates between the Greek Revolution and European ones. In Greece, citizens are not turning against other citizens and subjects are not fighting legitimate rulers; the entire country is struggling against barbarians who have deprived them of their freedom. Whereas in European revolutions the word ‘freedom’ is opposed to religion, in the Greek Revolution the two sacred terms are linked and the Greeks are actually supported by their faith. Another reason why the war in Greece defies comparison with the contemporary revolutions in Spain, Neapolis, Portugal and Piemonte is the fact that Turks are ex lege out of the civilized world: if the Greeks lose, Turks will kill them off. That is why European intervention – a worthy goal for the Holy Alliance – is necessary.55 As in other philhellenic texts, Europe appears divided in the pamphlet. Genoude believes that it is threatened by democracy, irreverent philosophy and revolutions.56 France, in particular, lost its pre-eminence not only because of the corruption in the court of Louis XV, but also

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as a result of divine punishment for allying with Turks and American rebels. Trade, with the exception of English domination in the Levant, did not justify, in Genoude’s eyes, an alliance with the Turks. Rather than making such a scandalous pact or maintaining despicable neutrality, the white flag has to be united with the cross; it is under this symbol and in the name of its values that Europe must prevail. The values to be fought for are, in Genoude’s opinion, mainly Christian. The Near East is considered the cradle of the Christian religion and is part of the sacred space from which people of other religions should be banned. Little wonder that the Christians of the East, threatened by the Seljuks, asked the West for help, whereas Pope Urban, when the Turks reached the Hellespont and Constantinople and began threatening the West, presented the nations participating in the synod with the binary opposition Europe vs Asia, with the first pole standing for holy unity: ‘You will free Europe and Asia, save the city of Christ, Jerusalem . . ., fight against the barbarians for the liberation of the holy land . . . Dieux le veut!’57 The idealizing hint about the Crusades, which, for the conservatives, represented Europe’s golden century, symbolizing the dominance of the cross over the crescent moon, revived, for Genoude, the celebrated time when the Popes guided Christianity, saving Europe from barbarity and leading it to the prosperity of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.58 It is this comparison with the glorious past that leads Genoude to the condemnation of the Europe of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution: Those were the times called barbaric. Our ancestors would not leave so many crimes unpunished. Today, instead of the influence of the Popes, we hear about the dominance of the people. Philosophers did not stop criticizing the crusades. The Turks have the philosophers as allies. Without philosophy, the Greeks would find allies in Christian hearts and their enemies would be expelled from Europe.59

For Genoude, Christianity alone is in a position to regenerate Europe and restore its lost unity. This, of course, is another name for a return to the Ancien Régime and fighting against liberalism. For conservatives such as Joseph de Maistre, Europe should return to the past that the Enlightenment had renounced.60

Civilization vs Barbarism, Liberty vs Despotism The language of liberals with Enlightenment values,61 who were all philhellenes,62 was dominated by both the cultural antinomy between  civilization  and barbarity and the political antinomy

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between freedom and despotism, although this did not preclude them from resorting to religious discourse at times.63 The aforementioned binary oppositions were adapted to the Greek case by Ambroise Firmin Didot: What did Muslims do after the conquest so that one should forget that the abuse of power is the only right they acquired in those happy lands? For over three centuries they force on the Greek nation a regime of oppression unprecedented among the civilized peoples; today it seems that they decided to exterminate their adversaries. The case of the Greeks is the case of humanity, letters, Christianity and freedom: it is the case of civilization against barbarity.64

Ancient Greece as the cradle of civilization to which the whole of Europe was indebted is frequently invoked in philhellenic pamphlets. European civilization acknowledges its debts to the empire of the East for the knowledge that crusaders and then Byzantine scholars transferred to the West; the Greek antiquities relocated to Western museums greatly improved Europeans’ aesthetic taste.65 But, after five centuries, Europe changed its attitude, as European arts and sciences seemed to reach the peak of perfection and the Turks alone remained strangers to progress. While liberals portray themselves as struggling for freedom, political equality and tolerance, Turks are shown to strangle Christians and Jews in accordance with the law of the Prophet and threaten the whole of Europe with their monstrous fanaticism and despotism.66 By contrast, the Greeks are said to have their place in the ‘large European family’ and the liberated Greece ‘would open a path to civilization’.67 They are the people who must be supported because they are likely to partake in the civilization and political life of Europe.68 The English wrote less about the Greeks than the French,69 but their writings had a great impact, as the examples of Percy Shelley and Lord Byron illustrate.70 In relation to the debt to the ancient culture that leads Europe to identify itself with the Greeks, Shelley writes in the preface to his lyrical drama Hellas: We are all Greeks. Our laws, our religion, our arts have their root in Greece. But for Greece . . . we might still have been savages and idolaters . . . The human form and mind attained to a perfection in Greece, which has impressed its image on those faultless productions whose very fragments are the despair of modern art, and has propagated impulses which cannot cease, through a thousand channels working explicitly or implicitly, to ennoble and delight mankind until the extinction of its race. The modern Greek is the descendant of those glorious beings whom the imagination almost refuses to categorize as belonging to our kind, and it inherits much of their sensibility, quick wits, enthusiasm and courage.71

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In Germany, the enthusiasm of the liberals for the ancient spirit and the classical legacy follows in the steps of the Romantics, Johan Joachim Winckelmann, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Hölderlin.72 In the German academic environment, the Greeks are positively viewed as the descendants of glorious people. The anonymous German editor of the pamphlet ‘The Case of the Greeks Is Europe’s Case’ (who happens to be H.G. Tzchirner, a professor of theology)73 writes that the Turks live in Europe but have remained barbaric Asians. The customs, education, art and sciences of Europe have remained foreign to them; all they have imported from Europe are weapons and gunpowder. Their domestic life, characterized by polygamy, eunuchs and the denigration of women, their habits and their dress are all Asian, as are their faith, language, despotism and their contempt for foreigners. On the contrary, the Greeks remained European: they speak the language of their ancestors, albeit in a corrupted form, have the same faith as Europeans, respect the second sex and are monogamous; they also trade and engage in spiritual exchanges with Europeans, translate French, English and German books, and study in Paris, Vienna and London. How can Europe remain indifferent to their struggle to remove the barbaric yoke and become a free state?74 Wilhelm Traugott Krug, a professor of philosophy in Leipzig and one of the first philhellenes,75 suggests that the power of the Turks who made Europe tremble belongs to the past. The sultans do not go on military campaigns anymore but spend their days in the harem; their dominance is not legitimate, being a clear case of usurpation. What kind of legitimacy can the sultan have as the illegitimate offspring of illegitimate ancestors? Krug refers to the excerpt from Chateaubriand’s Itinéraire, in which the author describes the desolation of the Peloponnese (published in the newspaper Mercure de France on 4 July 1807),76 and an article by MalteBrun in the newspaper Journal de Débats (31 August 1821), in which the Peloponnese and its inhabitants are described as follows: ‘this race of the authentic people of Morea, with physical strength, beauty, simple customs, virtuous habits, religious and patriotic feelings – what more would you want in a regenerated nation?’77 The concept of ‘regeneration’, which has Christian origins and was frequently deployed during the French Revolution to signify the revival of man and society on a healthier basis,78 frequently appears in philhellenic pamphlets, indicating – in opposition to ‘degeneration’ – political emancipation and cultural progress. Refuting anti-Greek arguments, the liberal philhellenic writers contend that the Greeks are not degenerate because of slavery, as is widely believed. Even if that were the case, their liberation would be necessary for another reason: the concept of ‘regeneration’ was incorporated into national Greek ideology and the Greeks would attempt to live up to this

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idea of regeneration in Europe, fulfilling European expectations. As early as 1803, Korais, in his Mémoire, associated regeneration with the Greek Revolution: he conceptualized the latter as the moral and political transformation of the nation, which had become barbaric but was also looking for its ancient civilizational foundations.79 In the manifesto addressed to the French by Ypsilantis in 1821, the phoenix was used to symbolize the political regeneration of the Greeks.80 It was a German – Karl Benedict Hase – who created, in Paris, the myth of the Greeks as young, spontaneous and authentic people, the creators of poetry rich in natural imagery, whose energy is supposed to prove not only the continuity between modern and ancient Greeks, but also the capability of this youthful nation to contribute to the renewal of the ageing European civilization.81 Here is one of the reproductions of this myth that appeared in a philhellenic pamphlet: Greece will again take its position in the order of the nations . . . Thus reborn, Greece will present to its allies the blossoms of a new youth, which will be united with the fruits of the mature experience acquired after significant misfortunes, unparalleled in history.82

Greek folk songs were translated into French by Claude Fauriel (Chants populaires de la Grèce moderne, 1824–25) and Népomucène Lemercier (Chants héroiques des montagnards et matelots grecs, 1825), bringing modern Greek to fifth place in the list of languages most frequently translated into French.83 The conviction that Europe is a family in which modern Greeks have a place, whereas the Turks should be excluded on the basis that they are harmful to European civilization, is put forward by Jean Joseph Paris, the chief secretary of the French governmental committee of the Ionian Islands:84 The level of civilization among European nations today is approximately equal and the spirit of tolerance is everywhere, allowing for the fusion of different Christian dogmas. The noble part of the world where these nations live must be considered to be the wider heritage of a huge family divided into many branches, whose sovereigns are leaders. In this blissful regime of Europe, the Ottoman nation is absolutely heterogeneous . . . Is it not evident that, by contrast, the leader of the European family has both a duty and an interest in relieving it of such a damaging presence and in distancing his offspring from such an example of negligence, fanaticism and barbarity.85

Paris, who had lived in the Ottoman Empire, asserts that Europe must help repressed people in the name of humanism, civilization and Christianity. The conquerors, he opines, cannot oppress others, claiming

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the right to domination; on the contrary, they would have legitimated their domination if they had governed in a human way – something the Ottoman government does not do, insofar as it combines despotism, anarchy, fanaticism, terrorism, corruption and injustice in a horrendous manner. If Turks are pushed back into Asia, devastation and barbarity will be replaced by a sensible freedom, authentic philosophy, religion, ownership, diligence – in short, all the genuine interests of humanity neglected by the Sublime Porte. Trade will spread across a region that despotism has made barren and its inhabitants will engage in work. Love for humanity is the motivation for this support, while indignation towards the Turks is due to the offences and crimes to which they are driven by theocratic despotism.86 However, according to Paris, the European coalition is held back by England, which does not want the Turks to be pushed back to Asia because it is afraid that it will lose its primacy in trade and its monopoly on Indian products. Quoting Montesquieu, Paris reiterates that the Ottoman Empire is weak but will last for a long time because the European powers do not want it to be pushed back to Asia for political and financial reasons: ‘the friends of humanity still do not know whether the civilized nations will support the case for civilization or whether barbaric politics will allow barbarity to triumph.’87 The theocratic-military constitution of the Ottoman Empire enabled many victories and conquests, but today, in Paris’s words, it is the cause of its weakness, due to the superiority of European civilization. Paris does not exclude the possibility that the hordes of barbarians might attack again, as their military camp is like a resting lion, the awakening of which can be terrible indeed.88

Philhellenism vs Mishellenism In general, the old fear of the barbaric Muhammadanist hordes89 returns in many philhellenic texts, sometimes in the form of the time-honoured conceptual pair. H.G. Tzschirner writes: ‘the Asian hordes may defeat our disciplined troops, as they once defeated the Romans.’90 Benjamin Constant shares the same belief and already intervened in favour of the independence of Greece in a speech as a liberal Member of Parliament in March 1821.91 In his appeal to Christian nations in 1825, he takes it upon himself to defend modern Greeks. According to Constant, divine providence created people with two qualities that civilized Europe has lost, namely faith and self-sacrifice: ‘this people, located at the entrance of Europe, is admirable for its courage, faith, enthusiasm and heroic contempt for death. Our interest and our duty to God and humans, to the dignity of the human race, dictate that we should not allow this people

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to disappear.’92 The Greeks must be supported in their role as a political and religious barrier against the onward march of Asia: ‘the case of the Greeks is ours’, he emphasizes, thus reiterating a commonplace of the philhellenic pamphlets.93 Chateaubriand, taking the Greek side in his famous Note sur la Grèce, written on the occasion of the dramatic exodus of the revolutionaries from the beleaguered Messolonghi in 1825, puts forward a similar argument, framed in stereotypical binary oppositions: Our century will see the hordes of the savages stifle the culture that is being reborn at the grave of the people who civilized the world. Will Christianity let the Turks strangle the Christians as they wish? And will European legitimacy accept the fact, without being offended, that its sacred name is given to a tyranny that would make Tiberius blush?94

Chateaubriand repeats the arguments about despotism and the arbitrary system of government of the Ottomans, the slavery of the Greeks and the violation of their privileges. However, what concerns him most at this phase of the revolution is the duty of Europe to put an end to the ‘war of extermination that crushes Christianity’ and damages the economy. He proposes a peaceful solution involving the recognition of the independence of Greece by all powers so the Sublime Porte would be obliged to accept that situation without war. Besides, the Sublime Porte would not drag itself into a war, as is apparent from Egypt, where ‘the renowned Mamluks were destroyed by a handful of French soldiers’. The myth of an omnipotent Turkey seems to belong to the past and so a new myth emerges in its stead: Chateaubriand foresees an independent Greece, which, despite its small size, would turn into a naval power and be governed in the same way as other civilized and Christian countries, which, in the place of the vast Turkey, would produce a unified Eastern Europe, contributing to the balance between nations. Greece, in his view, has paid with its blood for independence, proving that it is worthy of its ancestral glory, the values of humankind, civilization and the Christian religion. Thus, the Greek case transcends the boundaries of Europe and becomes an issue for the whole world: Greece comes heroically out of its ashes: in order to confirm its triumph, it needs nothing else but a benevolent gaze from the Christian princes . . . they will recognize that the men who live in Greece deserve to reside in that glorious land. Men like Kanaris and Miaoulis were acknowledged as authentic Greeks in Mykali and Salamis . . . If philanthropy raises its voice to the benefit of mankind, if the world of scholarship and politics looks forward to seeing the rebirth of the mother of sciences and laws, religion also claims back its

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shrines in the city where Apostle Paul preached about the unknown God . . . Regardless of any political decisions, the case of Greece has become an issue of the people. The immortal names of Sparta and Athens seem to have touched the whole world: companies were established in all parts of Europe in order to help Greeks: their misfortunes and bravery connected all hearts with their freedom. Wishes and offers reach even from the shores of India, even from the depths of the deserts of America: this gratitude of humankind puts a stamp on the glory of Greece.95

Liberal and conservative philhellenes see independent Greece as a step on the way to driving barbarians back and creating a balanced Europe: It is now that Christian Europe could safely expel the barbarians that burden it and jeopardize its existence without violating the rights of justice and humanity . . . European balance will be ensured by the declaration of the ­independence of Greece, which would have constitutional monarchy as its political system and be governed by Alexandros Ypsilantis, a victim of his devotion to his motherland. Freedom, independence, order, safety and balance will be ensured in this way.96

The dissemination of the Greek case and its popularity made it a contentious issue in the press. French columnists sometimes associate their philhellenism with the political expediency of the moment and political rivals are judged based on their attitudes towards Greece. In particular, the liberals tended to praise the heroism of Greeks and condemned the European governments they held responsible for the tragic exit from Messolonghi.97 The popular liberal newspaper Constitutionnel even added religious arguments to its effusive rhetoric: ‘Be merry, thus, friends of the Turks, defectors of the Cross; thousands of Christians have made the cradle of Christianity red with their blood; but you, in turn, should also tremble in fear; the slaughter at Messolonghi is of your own making  . . . The blood of the martyrs of Messolonghi will be haunting those who let it flow because of their cowardice.’ 98 During the naval battle of Navarino in 1827, the newspaper seized the opportunity to attack the French governors, comparing them to Ibrahim Pasha: ‘our freedoms have been crushed by the beatings of the barbarians of the West.’ In a similar vein, the newspaper Courrier français describes the measures that the French government took in favour of Navarino before the elections as ‘shop-window democracy’, scolding the former close friends of the Turks posing now as philhellenes and castigating the ‘bribed orators’ linked to the governmental ministers who portray Greeks as ‘contaminated people who unite the frenzy of a turbulent freedom with the defects of slavery’.99 Conversely, in the columns of the monarchist and pro-Turkish newspapers, Greeks are identified as the negative pole of the same antinomy.

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The anti-Hellenic arguments deployed include the internal strife among Greeks, piracy and violence against the Turks. At the same time, the persecution of religion in the Ottoman Empire is staunchly denied and the alleged privileges, wealth, education and progress brought by the Ottomans to the Greeks purport to prove that the armed struggle for independence was not a just war but an illegal uprising. The Turks are depicted here as victims, whereas the Greeks are considered to be responsible for all kinds of violence against the Turks and are characterized as tough, cowardly and incompetent enemies of the foreign volunteers who wish to help them.100 (In truth, as most of the German memoirs demonstrate, the European volunteers rarely speak highly of Greeks who fail to confirm their idealistic or utilitarian expectations.)101 One can sometimes find in the columns of liberal magazines a picture of Greeks that persist in their deficiencies, which are considered to be as unique as the Greek nation itself: Modern Greeks are a nation that cannot be compared with any other which has achieved such a high degree of culture, and which has been forced by great misfortunes to withdraw to such an extent: we do not find anywhere else a similar mixture of ignorance, degradation and pride. Filled with the memory of the old glory of their land, they are glorified so as if they had preserved it . . . The Greeks are convinced that they surpass in intelligence all other nations taught by their ancient homeland. Other more harmful shortcomings are added to this vanity; it makes people unruly, almost ungovernable.102

A more balanced view, treating the Greeks’ fight against the Turks as an example of a struggle between the oppressed and their oppressors, and comparing it with the less tumultuous rebellions in the colonies, is not unknown, although it is rather uncommon in the press.103 However, at that point in time, the positive image of the Greeks as symbols of the European battle against Muhammadanism, barbarity and despotism could not yet be easily ruined. On the one hand, it revived the neoclassical revolutionary utopia and transformed it according to the political needs of the day; on the other hand, it functioned as a discursive bridge over the political divide separating liberals and conservatives, who, despite frequently crossing their swords, were united by the common goal of overcoming the European crisis of the 1820s.104 In the decades that followed, the positive image of Greeks was gradually reversed and philhellenism became a mixture of philanthropy and solidarity, liberalism and Romanticism, exoticism and classicism.105 The unusual term ‘mishellenism’, coined in opposition to ‘philhellenism’ (semantically analogous to but morphologically different from standard negations, such as ‘Anglophobia’ or ‘Germanophobia’, etc.), was widely

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used in the literature of the late nineteenth century, although it has never made it into dictionaries.106 The dissociation of the two concepts, unusually marked by their antinomian prefixes, generated an uncommonly complex asymmetry based on the projection of cultural values: pointing towards a critical attitude vis-à-vis modern Greek society, mishellenism is as emotionally charged as similarly produced pejorative terms, such as ‘misanthropy’ or ‘misogyny’, expressing the disappointment of all the high expectations invested in ancient Greece as the ‘mother of civilization’.107 Alexandra Sfoini is currently Senior Researcher at the Institute for Historical Research, in the Section for Neohellenic Research, which is part of the National Hellenic Research Foundation in Athens (Greece). Her research interests are focused on social and cultural history, the history of ideologies and mentalities, the history of acculturation and cultural transfers from the East and West in Greek lands in modern times. She is in charge of the research project ‘Translations, Concepts, Symbols, ­15th–19th centuries’. She has published (in Greek) Foreign Authors Translated into Modern Greek, 15th–17th Centuries (N.H.R.F., 2003), History of Concepts. Itineraries of the European Historiography (EMNE-Mnemon, 2006) and Foreign Authors Translated into Modern Greek, 1700–1832 (N.H.R.F., 2019).

Notes 1. On the Greek Revolution, see, among others, Georges Finlay, History of the Greek Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2014 [1861]; Christopher M. Woodhouse, The Greek War of Independence: Its Historical Settings (London: Hutchinson’s University Library, 1952); Douglas Dakin, The Greek Struggle for Independence 1821–1833 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973); Paschalis M. Kitromilides, Constantinos Tsoukalas (eds), The Greek Revolution. A Critical Dictionary (London: Harvard University Press, 2021); Mark Mazower, The Greek Revolution. 1821 and the Making of Modern Europe (London: Random House, 2021). 2. There are more than a hundred pamphlets, most of them in French. For a detailed list of these works, see Loukia Droulia, Philhellénisme. Ouvrages inspirés par la guerre de l’indépendance grecque 1821–1833. Répertoire bibliographique. Seconde édition revue et augmentée (Athens: Institut de recherches historiques de la Fondation nationale de la recherche scientifique, 2017). 3. Reinhart Koselleck, ‘Zur historish-politischen Semantik asymmetrischer Gegen­ begriffe’, in Harald Weinrich (ed.), Positionen der Negativität (Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1975), 65–104. 4. See, for instance, Pierre Vidal-Naquet, La démocratie grecque vue d’ailleurs (Paris: Flammarion, 1990). However, there were also critical views of Greek Antiquity; see

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6. 7.

8. 9.

10.

11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

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Chrissanthi Avlami (ed.), L’Antiquité grecque au XIXème siècle. Un exemplum contesté?, preface by Pierre Vidal-Naquet (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2000). On the travel literature, see Olga Augustinos, French Odysseys. Greece in French Travel Literature from the Renaissance to the Romantic Era (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 1994); Ilia Chatzipanagioti-Sangmeister, Graecia Mendax, Das Bild der Griechen in der französischen Reiseliteratur des 18. Jahrhunderts (Vienna: WUVUniversitätsverlag, 2002). For the dissociation of concepts in a debate, see Chaïm Perelman and Lucie OlbrechtsTyteca, Traité de l’argumentation (Brussels: Université de Bruxelles, 2008), 550–609; Chaïm Perelman, L’empire rhétorique: rhétorique et argumentation (Paris: J. Vrin, 1977). Nasia Yiakovaki, Ευρώπη μέσω Ελλάδας. Μια καμπή στην ευρωπαϊκή αυτοσυν­ είδηση 17ος–18ος αιώνας [Europe through Greece. A Turning Point of the European Consciousness, 17th–18th centuries] (Athens: Βιβλιοπωλείον της Εστίας, 2006), 409. The Essai sur les mœurs et l’esprit des nations (1756) was translated into Greek in 1787 by a Phanariote ruler. Costas Kérofilas, Voltaire philhellène (Athens: Messager d’Athènes, 1929), 8, 13. Discours préliminaire du voyage pittoresque de la Grèce (Paris: De l’Imprimerie de Ph.-D. Pierres, 1783), 25–26. See Aikaterini Koumarianou, ‘Το ταξίδι του Choiseul-Gouffier (ιη’ αιώνας)’ [The Journey of Choiseul-Gouffier (18th century)], in Περιηγήσεις στον ελληνικό χώρο [Travelling in the Greek Territory], selected by Κonstantinos Th. Dimaras (Athens: Ο.Μ.Ε.Δ, 1968), 27–48; Odile Cavalier (ed.), Le voyage en Grèce du comte de Choiseul-Gouffier (Paris: Fondation Calvet & Les éditions A. Barthélemy, 2007). Discours préliminaire, 23–24. In a similar way, the French diplomat Pierre Augustin Guys states that the residents of the lands decorated with ancient monuments ‘still deserve our attention’; see Pierre Augustin Guys, Voyage littéraire de la Grèce ou lettres sur les Grecs, anciens et modernes, avec un parallèle de leurs mœurs, tome premier (Paris: Duchesne, 1771), 2–3. Discours préliminaire, 17–24. Ibid., 36, 48, 67. Aikaterini Koumarianou, ‘Το ταξίδι του Choiseul-Gouffier (ιη’ αιώνας)’, 30–31. Panayiotis Moullas, ‘Ρομαντικoί προσκυνητές: Chateaubriand (1806) και Lamartine (1832)’ [Romantic Pilgrims: Chateaubriand (1806) and Lamartine (1832)], in Περιηγήσεις στον ελληνικό χώρο [Travelling in the Greek Territory], 69–87. Jacob Bartholdy, Voyage en Grèce, fait dans les années 1803 et 1804, (. . .) traduit de l’allemand par A. du C., vol. 2 (Paris, 1807), 55, 156–57. See Emm. Ν. Frangiskos, ‘Δύο “κατήγοροι του γένους”: C. De Pauw (1788) and J.S. Bartholdy (1805)’ [Two ‘Accusers of the Race’: C. De Pauw (1788) and J.S. Bartholdy (1805), in Περιηγήσεις στον ελληνικό χώρο [Travelling in the Greek Territory], 51–66. Nikos G. Svoronos, Το ελληνικό έθνος. Γένεση και διαμόρφωση του Νέου Ελληνισμού [The Greek Nation. Genesis and Formation of Modern Greece], preface by Sp. Ι. Asdrachas (Athens: Πόλις, 2004). Κonstantinos Th. Dimaras, Νεοελληνικός Διαφωτισμός [Neo-Hellenic Enlighten­ment] (Athens: Hermes, 1985), 80–86; Loukia Droulia, ‘Towards Modern Greek Consciousness’, The Historical Review/La Revue Historique I (2004), 51–67. Κonstantinos Th. Dimaras, Δημήτριος Καταρτζής. Δοκίμια [Demetrios Katartzis. Essays] (Athens: Ερμής, 1974), 44–47. Mémoire sur l’état de la civilisation dans la Grèce, lu à la Société des Observateurs de l’homme le 16 Nivôse, an XI (6 janvier 1803). Par Coray, Docteur en médecine, et membre de ladite Société. Dimitri Nicolaïdis, D’une Grèce à l’autre. Représentation des Grecs modernes par la France révolutionnaire (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1992).

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21. Ibid., 186. 22. Roxane D. Argyropoulos, ‘Patriotisme et sentiment national en Grèce au temps des Lumières’, Folia Neohellenica VI (1984), 7–14; Alexandra Sfoini, ‘Loyaume and Nomarchie: keywords of the French Revolution in the Greek Vocabulary’, The Historical Review/La Revue Historique XI (2014), 121–32. 23. Lucette Valensi, Venise et la Sublime Porte. La naissance du despote (Paris: Hachette, 1987); Mustafa Soykut, Image of the ‘Turk’ in Italy. A History of the ‘Other’ in Early Modern Europe: 1453–1683 (Berlin: K. Schwarz, 2001); Mustafa Soykut (ed.), Historical Image of the Turk in Europe: 15th Century to the Present. Political and Civilisational Aspects (Istanbul: Isis, 2003); Mustafa Soykut, Italian Perceptions of the Ottomans. Conflict and Politics through Pontifical and Venetian Sources (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2011). 24. In an authentic testimony by one of their captives in the fifteenth century, Turks are presented as servants of the Antichrist and beasts of the Revelation who presage the end of the world; at the same time, their military virtues and their piety are properly acknowledged. See Georges de Hongrie, Des Turcs. Traité sur les mœurs, les coutumes et la perfidie des Turcs, trans. Joël Schnapp (Toulouse: Anacharsis, 2003). 25. Stéphane Yerasimos, Les voyageurs dans l’Empire ottoman (XVIe–XVIe siècles) (Ankara: TTK, 1991). 26. Géraud Poumarède, Pour en finir avec la Croisade. Mythes et réalités de la lutte contre les Turcs au XVIe et XVIIe siècles (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2004), 50ff. However, in the eighteenth century, the Ottoman Empire’s relations with Europe improved – especially with France, which was declared the most significant ally of the sultan. After 1760, the rivalry with Russia, protector of the orthodox Greeks, became apparent when the Napoleonic Wars ruined the traditional alliance with France; see Molly Greene, ‘Islam and Europe’, in Peter H. Wilson (ed.), A Companion to Eighteenth-Century Europe (Oxford: Blackwell, 2008), 387–401. For the relations between Islam, the Turks and Europe, see also the articles by Bernard Lewis, ‘Europe and the Turks: The Civilization of the Ottoman Empire’; ‘Europe and Islam: Muslim Perceptions and Experience’; ‘Islam and the West’, reprinted in From Babel to Dragomans. Interpreting the Middle East (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2004), 142–66; 255–70. 27. Asterios Argyriou, Les exégèses grecques de l’Apocalypse à l’époque turque (1453–1821): Esquisse d’une histoire des courants idéologiques au sein du peuple grec asservi (Thessaloniki: Εταιρεία Μακεδονικών Σπουδών, 1982). 28. Spyros Asdrachas, Ιστορικά Απεικάσματα [Historical Simularca] (Athens: Θεμέλιο, 1995), 105–11. 29. Nikos B. Rotzokos, Εθναφύπνιση και εθνογένεση. Ορλωφικά και ελληνική ιστοριογραφία [National Awakening and Ethnogenesis. The Orlov Revolt and Greek Historiography] (Athens: Βιβλιόραμα, 2007). 30. Kritoboulos mentions that, when he visits Athens, he praises the city as ‘a wise man and a philhellene’;·see Anastasios Zografos, ‘Η παράσταση του Τούρκου στους ιστορικούς της άλωσης. Σημειωτική περιήγηση’ [The Representation of the Turk by the Historians of the Fall. A Semiotic Journey], Τα Ιστορικά 14–15 (1991), 17–44. 31. Thévenot refers to the shortcomings of the Turks (arrogance, superstition, absence of sciences, sodomy, avarice) after having listed their virtues (piety, faith and obedience to their ruler, honesty, prudence, temperance, austerity, compassion); see Jean Thévenot, Voyage du Levant, ed. Stéphane Yerasimos (Paris: François Maspero, 1980), 128–31. 32. Alexandra Sphini, Langue et mentalités au Phanar (XVIIe–XVIIIe siècles). D’après les ‘Ephémérides’ de P. Codrica et d’autres textes du milieu phanariote (Paris: Université de Paris I; Panthéon-Sorbonne, 1991), 267–69.

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33. Nicolas-Antoine Boulanger, Recherches sur l’origine du despotisme oriental (Paris, 1761); see Raymonde Monnier, Républicanisme, Patriotisme et Révolution française (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2005), 197–221. Compare also the work of the Romanian prince Dimitrie Cantemir, The History of the Growth and Decay of the Ottoman Empire , transl. N. Tindal (London: Printed for James, John and Paul Knapton, 1734–35), which was translated into French (1743) and German (1745) and read by Voltaire, Edward Gibbon and Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall; see Alexandru Duțu, ‘Dimitrie Cantemir, a Historian of South-East European and Oriental Civilizations’, Revue Roumaine d’Histoire XII, no. 1 (1974), 31–42; Hugh Trevor-Roper, ‘Dimitrie Cantemir’s Ottoman History and Its Reception in England’, Revue Roumaine d’Histoire XXIV(no 1–2) (1985), 51–66. 34. The two texts are included in Ap. B. Daskalakis, Tο πολίτευμα του Pήγα Bελεστινλή [The Constitution of Rigas Velestinlis] (Athens: Βαγιονάκης, 1976), 74–111. For the last critical edition of the Greek text, see Ρήγα Βελεστινλή άπαντα τα σωζόμενα, τ. 5, Νέα Πολιτική Διοίκησις [The Complete Works of Rigas Velestinlis, vol. 5, New Political Administration], ed. Paschalis Μ. Kitromilides (Athens: Βουλή των Ελλήνων, 2000). For the French text, see Jacques Godechot, Les Constitutions de la France depuis 1789 (Paris: Flammarion, 1995), 79–92. 35. ‘Le Sardanapale de Stambul, endormi dans la molesse et dans la barbarie’; see Antonis Liakos, ‘Ο Ηρακλής, οι Αμαζόνες και οι “τραγανιστές βουκίτσες”. Αναπαραστάσεις του φύλου και της εξουσίας στο έργο του Ρήγα’ [Hercules, the Amazons and the ‘Crunchy Bites’: Representations of Gender and Power in Rigas’ Work], Μνήμων 23 (2001), 99–112. 36. Alexandra Sfoini, ‘Από τη “βάρβαρη” Ασία στη “φωτισμένη” Ευρώπη: το οδοιπορικό του Π. Κοδρικά’ [From ‘Barbarous’ Asia to Enlightened Europe: the Travelogue of P. Kodrikas], Τοπικές κοινωνίες στον θαλάσσιο και ορεινό χώρο στα νότια Βαλκάνια, 18ος-19ος αι [Local Societies in Sea and Mountain Territories in Southern Balkans, 18th–19th Centuries], Symposium Proceedings, ed. Sophia Laîou Corfu, 24–26 May 2012 (Corfu: Ionian University, History Department, 2014), 277–92. 37. Ελληνική Νομαρχία ήτοι Λόγος περί ελευθερίας (. . .) Παρά Ανωνίμου του Έλληνος, [Hellenic Nomarchy or Discourse on Liberty . . . by Anonymous Hellene] (Italy, 1806). 38. Augustinos, French Odesseys, 142. 39. The bibliography on philhellenism is extensive. Among other works, see William St Clair, That Greece Might Still Be Free. The Philhellenes in the War of Independence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972); Nina M. Athanassoglou-Kallmyer, French Images from the Greek War of Independence 1821–1830 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989); David Roessel, In Byron’s Shadow. Modern Greece in the English and American Imagination (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002); Cléopâtre Montadon (ed.), Regards sur le philhellénisme (Geneva: Permanent Mission of Greece to the United Nations, 2008); Denys Barau, La cause des Grecs. Une histoire du mouvement philhellène (1821–1829) (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2009). 40. A French pamphlet reads: ‘Hey! you . . . really generous and free people, do not abandon the case of religion and humanity; on the contrary, support with all your powers the defenders of the Cross and you will prove to the hypocrites that one can be both a philosopher and a good Christian!’; see Barbarie et civilisation ou Plaidoyer pour les Grecs par M. Peysson avocat (Paris: Librairie universelle, 1827), 7–8. 41. [Charles Marie, comte de Salaberry], Essais sur la Valachie et la Moldavie, théâtre de l’insurrection dite Ypsilanti (Paris: Guiraudet, 1821), 1–2, 8, 27. 42. Jean Dimakis, La guerre de l’indépendance grecque vue par la presse française (période de 1821 à 1824). Contribution à l’étude de l’opinion publique et du mouvement philhellénique en France (Thessaloniki: Institute for Balkan Studies, 1968), 141–49.

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43. In French royalist newspapers, there are various opinions, from extreme philhellenism to the condemnation of the revolution; see Dimakis, La guerre de l’indépendance grecque, 150. 44. Alexandra Sfoini, ‘Η ρητορική του φιλελληνισμού στην Επανάσταση του 1821: τα γαλλικά φυλλάδια’ [The Rhetoric of Philhellenism in the Revolution of 1821: The French Pamphlets], Διεθνές Συνέδριο Το ενδιαφέρον για την Ελλάδα και τους Έλληνες από το 1821 ως σήμερα [International Conference: The Interest in Greece and the Greeks from 1821 to the Present], Anna Mandylara, George Nikolaou, Lambros Flitouris, and Nikolaos Anastasopoulos (eds), Arta 5–7 July 2013 (Arta: Municipality of Nikolaos Skoufas and the University of Ioannina, 2015), 45–67. 45. Marc Angenot, La parole pamphlétaire. Typologie des discours modernes (Paris: Payot, 1982), 117–21. 46. Fréderique Tabaki-Iona, ‘Philhellénisme religieux et mobilisation des Français pendant la révolution grecque de 1821–1827’, Mots 79 (2005), 47–60. 47. Dimakis, La guerre de l’indépendance grecque, 124–27. 48. Georges Tolias, La médaille et la rouille. L’image de la Grèce moderne dans la presse littéraire parisienne (1794–1815) (Athens: Hatier, 1997), 458ff. 49. Conrad Malte-Brun, Traité de la légitimité considérée comme base du droit public de l’Europe (Paris: Charles Cosselin, 1824), 276ff. 50. Antoine-Eugène de Genoude (1792–1849) was a publicist who had studied law and an instructor at Lycée Bonaparte. Although he was a royalist, he was openly in favour of the law that the sovereigns were supposed to obey (see his pamphlet Réflexions sur quelques questions politiques, 1814). He and Chateaubriand, his acquaintance, founded the newspaper Le Conservateur (1818). In 1821, he became the owner of the newspaper L’Étoile and Louis XVII granted him the titles of nobility. In 1823, de Genoude worked as director of the newspaper Gazette de France, which supported the monarchy and the Catholic religion; however, from 1830, he spoke out in favour of universal suffrage. In 1835, de Genoude became a priest. He published many writings on war, theology and history. During 1821–24, he completed a translation of the Bible that was praised for its finesse. 51. Considérations sur les Grecs et les Turcs, suivies de Mélanges religieux, politiques et littéraires. Par M. Eugène de Genoude, chevalier de Saint-Maurice et de Saint-Lazare (Paris: Méquignon fils ainé, 1821), I–II. 52. Ibid., 1–2. 53. Let us note that Luther’s pamphlet Vom Krieg wider die Türken (1529), which is the earliest Reformation response to Islam, was recirculated during the Greek Revolution, along with other writings against the Turks,: Luthers Schriften wider die Türken (Ronneburg: Friedrich Weber, 1821); Dr. Martin Luthers Buchlein wider die Türken (Leipzig: Industrie-Comptoir, 1826). See also the German pamphlet Auch eine Heer predigt wider den Türken, oder: Auf, auf, ihr Christen! Das ist eine bewegliche Auffrischung der christlichen Waffen wider den türkischen Erbfeind, in Eil ohne Weil, zusammen getragen durch P. Abraham S. Clara . . . (Frankfurt am Main: Johann David Sauerländer, 1827). 54. Considérations sur les Grecs et les Turcs, 15–22. 55. Ibid., 34–43. 56. On the contrary, in the pamphlet of the moderate French literary writer Alexandre Barginet (1797–1843), ‘the individual interest, this horrible shortcoming of the civilized societies’ is criticized; see Alexandre Barginet, Dieu le veut! Considérations politiques et religieuses sur l’émancipation des Grecs (Paris: October 1821), 30. 57. Considérations sur les Grecs et les Turcs, 45–48. Urban’s words are documented in an anonymous chronicle of the First Crusade, which was one of the main sources of information about these events; see Chronique anonyme de la première croisade, traduit du latin par Aude Matignon (Paris: Arléa, 1998), 35–36.

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58. Denys Hay, Europe: The Emergence of an Idea (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1957). See also Alphonse Dupront, Le mythe de croisade (Paris: Gallimard, 1997). 59. Considérations sur les Grecs et les Turcs, 60. 60. C.-J. Gignoux, Joseph de Maistre. Prophète du passé historien de l’avenir (Paris: Nouvelles Éditions Latines, 1963). 61. See, for instance, Georges Gusdorf, Les principes de la pensée au siècle des Lumières (Paris: Payot, 1971); Michel Delon (ed.), Dictionnaire européen des Lumières (Paris: Payot, 1997). 62. Aristide G. Dimopoulos, L’opinion publique française et la révolution grecque (1821–1827) (Nancy: Idoux, 1962), 69. 63. The reference to Christianity is generalized in philhellenic literature; see Barau, La cause des Grecs, 706. 64. Ambroise Firmin Didot, Souscription française en faveur des Grecs par A.F.D. (Paris, 1821), 1. 65. Discours sur les services que les Grecs ont rendus à la civilisation; prononcé à la séance publique de la Société des Sciences, Agriculture et Arts de Strasbourg, le 30 juillet 1821, par J.G. Schweighäuser fils, professeur de littérature grecque (Paris: de l’imprimerie de Firmin Didot, 1821). 66. Point de paix avec les Turcs, ou Nécessité de les expulser de l’Europe. Par B.N. (Paris: Delaunai et Corréard, 1821). 67. Missolonghi n’est plus! Appel aux amis des Grecs; par Camille Paganel (Paris: A. Désauges, 1826), 20–21. 68. De la Grèce dans ses rapports avec l’Europe, par M. de Pradt, ancien archevêque de Malines (Paris: Aug. Wahlen et Compe, 1822). 69. Between 1821 and 1827, one hundred twelve French pamphlets, fifty-seven German pamphlets and thirty-one English pamphlets were published; see Gunnar Hering, ‘Der griechische Unabhängigkeitskrieg und der Philhellenismus’, in Alfred Noe (ed.), Der Philhellenismus in der west europäischen Literatur 1780–1830 (Amsterdam; Atlanta: Rodopi, 1994), 17–72, 59. The anaemic presence of the English is severely criticized by an anonymous French pamphlet in 1821: ‘You, Englishmen, are you not worried that people will say that you surrendered the Greeks to blood for the gold of the Turks? . . . You, Englishmen, who fought in our Revolution . . . who are proud of being the first to abolish the slave trade . . . Oh God! How can one reconcile such generosity with such infamy!’; see Adresse au peuple anglais par un ami des Grecs (Paris: impr. De Bailleul, 1821), 4–6. In another anonymous French pamphlet of 1825, which included the motto libertas, justitia, humanitas, the author expresses fear regarding the dominance of England in Europe at the moment when England has also undertaken the protection of the Greeks: ‘Constitutional France is called to play an important role  in  Europe . . . The dangerous England, which extends its sceptre to all the seas coveting the empire of the ocean and land; its growth threatens the quiet of the nations . . . If England acquires Greece under the pretence of protection, what will happen to political balance?’; see La Grèce deviendra-t-elle anglaise? (Paris, 1825), 12–14. 70. Hering, ‘Der griechische Unabhängigkeitskrieg und der Philhellenismus’, 68–69. 71. Hellas. A lyrical drama (London: Charles and James Ollier, 1822), VIII–IX. 72. The statistical data about German philhellenist writers is indicative: they wrote more poetry than prose; two-thirds of them had an academic education (law, philology, theology) and were, at the same time, involved in writing; a quarter were of noble  origin; see Hering, ‘Der griechische Unabhängigkeitskrieg und der Philhellenismus’, 66. 73. Regine Quack-Eustathiades, Der deutsche Philhellenismus während des griechischen Freiheitskampfes 1821–1827 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1984), 43.

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74. Die Sache der Griechen die Sache Europa’s (Leipzig: Fr. Chr. Wilh. Vogel, 1821), 3–7. 75. Quack-Eustathiades, Der deutsche Philhellenismus, 21ff. 76. Wilhelm Traugott Krug, Griechenlands Wiedergeburt. Ein Programm zum Ausserstehungfeste (Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1821), 19–23. 77. Wilhelm Traugott Krug, Letztes Wort über die griechische Sache (Frankfurt am Main: Friedrich Wolckmar und Comp., 1821), 14ff. 78. Mona Ozouf, L’homme régénéré. Essais sur la Révolution française (Paris: Gallimard, 1989). 79. Mémoire sur l’état de la civilisation dans la Grèce.  80. Σάλπισμα πολεμιστήριον. Appel aux Grecs. Traduit du grec moderne d’Atromète, natif de Marathon; avec la Proclamation d’Ypsilanti aux Français (Paris: Baudoin frères, 1821), 59. 81. Sandrine Maufroy, Le philhellénisme franco-allemand (1815–1848) (Paris: Springer, 2011), 239–46. 82. Des Grecs, des Turcs, et de l’esprit public Européen, opuscule de 1821, par M.L.C.D.B. (Paris: Jules Renouard, 1828), XXVII–XXVIII. 83. Christine Lombez, ‘Traduire la poésie européenne en France au XIXe siècle. Quelques propositions en vue d’élaboration d’un dictionnaire des traducteurs de poésie en français’, in Christine Lombez and Rotraud von Kulessa (eds), De la traduction et des transferts culturels (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2007), 157–67. 84. Jean Joseph Paris was a prefect and a member of the Academies. In 1821, he published a Mémoire, which won the award of the Société d’agriculture, commerce, sciences et arts. From this pamphlet, we can learn about Paris’s ideas about the East, which reflect Enlightenment views. He admitted that the East was the cradle of civilization, but stated that superstition and religious bigotry had prevailed over reason due to the climate that was making the body weak and degrading the soul, giving excessive power to the priests and inhibiting progress. Paris thus unfavourably contrasted ancient Egypt with ancient Greece, which, thanks to its temperate climate, was receptive to the development of all positive qualities and produced plenty of wise men and artists. Paris continued with a historical flashback of the Romans imitating the Greeks, hailing the empire of the East (Byzantium) as the only refuge of arts and letters after the fall of Rome, when the West was flooded by barbarians and broken up. The Crusades, in Paris’s view, were the West’s first contact with the civilization of the East, while Asia Minor and Egypt were at that time subjected to the Arabs, who knew nothing but the Koran and the sword. The narrative continues with the description of an anomaly: under the dynasty of the Abbasids, arts and letters flourished, at variance with the nature of Muhammadanism; however, all culture died after the fall of the dynasty. Ultimately, the barbarous Turks forced civilization out to the West and Italy welcomed all the remarkable men of Byzantium; see Jean Joseph Paris, Mémoire sur cette question quelle est dans l’état actuel de la France et dans ses rapports avec les nations étrangères, l’extension que l’industrie, dirigée vers l’intérêt national, doit donner aux différens genres d’invention qui suppléent le travail des hommes par le travail des machines? (Paris: Mme Huzard et Delaunay, 1821). 85. Considérations sur la crise actuelle de l’Empire Ottoman, les causes qui l’ont amenée, et les effets qui doivent la suivre. Par J.-J. Paris, Ancien Secrétaire en chef de la Commission du Gouvernement dans les départemens formant aujourd’hui la République Sept-Insulaire; ex-Sous-Préfet, et membre de plusieurs Sociétés savantes et littéraires (Paris: Bobée, 1821), 37–38. 86. Ibid., 77–89. 87. Ibid., xxi–xxii. 88. Ibid., 56–65. 89. Jean Delumeau, La peur en Occident (XIVe–XVIIIe siècles) (Paris: Fayard, 1978), 342–55.

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90. Die Sache der Griechen die Sache Europa’s, 13. 91. Nikolaos Μ. Tsangas, Μπενζαμέν Κονστάν, Benjamin Constant (1767–1830). Ο πολιτικός, ο μυθιστοριογράφος, ο φιλέλληνας [Benjamin Constant (1767–1830). Politician, Novelist, Philhellene] (Athens: Έλευσις, 2002), 91. 92. Benjamin Constant, Appel aux nations chrétiens en faveur des Grecs (Paris: Treuttel et Würtz, 1825), 15. 93. Ibid., 15. 94. François-René de Chateaubriand, Note sur la Grèce par Mr le vicomte de Chateaubriand (Paris: Le Normant Père, 1825), 5. 95. Ibid., 21–24. 96. Un mot sur l’Europe ou le Congrès bienfaisant par A.B.M, Au profit des Grecs (Paris: A. Leroux – Constant-Chantepie, 1826), 9–10. 97. The exit of Messolonghi functioned as a meeting place for different forms of representing the exit of Messolongi, literary and artistic works, imaginary and symbols representations, classical and Romantic, political and religious, archaic and utopian; see Gilbert Hess, ‘Missolonghi. Genèse, transformations multimédiales et fonctions d’un lieu idéntitaire du philhellénisme’, Philhellénismes et transfers cultures dans l’Europe au XIX siècle, Revue germanique internationale 1–2 (2005), 77–107. 98. On the circulation of the French newspapers, see Dimopoulos, L’opinion publique française et la révolution grecque, 71. 99. Jean Dimakis, Φιλελληνικά. Μελέτες για τον Φιλελληνισμό κατά την Ελληνική Επανάσταση του 1821 / Philhelléniques. Études sur le philhellénisme pendant l’insurrection hellénique de 1821 (Athens: Καρδαμίτσα, 1992), 75–99. 100. Jean Dimakis, Ο Österreichische Beobachter της Βιέννης και η Ελληνική Επανάσταση. Συμβολή στη μελέτη του ευρωπαϊκού φιλελληνισμού [The Österreichische Beobachter of Vienna and the Greek Revolution. Contribution to the Study of European Philhellenism] (Athens: Παπαζήσης, 1978). 101. Germans produced the bulk of volunteer memoirs (thirty-one), followed by English (twelve), French (ten), Italians (four) and Swiss (four); see Gunnar Hering, ‘Der griechische Unabhängigkeitskrieg und der Philhellenismus’, 60. 102. [M.A.J.], ‘Coup d’œil sur l’état actuel des affaires des Grecs’, extrait de la Revue Encyclopédique 38 (1828), 4. 103. See the pamphlet Réponse d’un Turc à la Note sur la Grèce de M. Le Vte de Chateaubriand, membre de la Société en faveur des Grecs (Brussels: Baudouin, 1825). Undoubtedly, under the cloak of the Turk, one could recognize a French liberal who does not conceal his animosity towards the monarchist Chateaubriand. 104. Georges Prevelakis, ‘Géopolitique du philhellénisme’, in Cléopâtre Montadon (ed.), Regards sur le philhellénisme. 105. Denys Barau, La Cause des Grecs, 717. 106. Philhellenism entered French dictionaries as a term denoting support for the Greek Revolution (Trésor de la langue française, 1823) and admiration of ancient Greek civilization (Littré, 1863). The word ‘philhellene’ is as old as the term ‘mishellene’. 107. Gilles Grivaud, ‘Introduction au(x) mishellénisme(s)’, in Gilles Grivaud (ed.), Le(s) Mishellénisme(s). Actes du séminaire organise à l’École française d’Athènes (16–18 mars 1998) (Athens: École française d’Athènes, 2001), 1–5. See also Sophie Basch, Le mirage grec. La Grèce modern devant l’opinion française (1846–1946) (Athens: Hatier, 1995).

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the Amazons and the ‘Crunchy Bites’: Representations of Gender and Power in Rigas’ Work], Μνήμων 23 (2001), 99–112. Lombez, Christine, ‘Traduire la poésie européenne en France au XIXe siècle. Quelques propositions en vue d’élaboration d’un dictionnaire des traducteurs de poésie en français’, in Christine Lombez and Rotraud von Kulessa (eds), De la traduction et des transferts culturels (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2007), 157–67. Luthers Schriften wider die Türken (Ronneburg: Friedrich Weber, 1821). Malte-Brun, Conrad, Traité de la légitimité considérée comme base du droit public de l’Europe (Paris: Charles Cosselin, 1824). Maufroy, Sandrine, Le philhellénisme franco-allemand (1815–1848) (Paris: Springer, 2011). Mazower, Mark, The Greek Revolution. 1821 and the Making of Modern Europe (London: Random House, 2021). M.L.C.D.B., Des Grecs, des Turcs, et de l’esprit public Européen, opuscule de 1821 (Paris: Jules Renouard, 1828). Monnier, Raymonde, Républicanisme, Patriotisme et Révolution française (Paris: L’Harmattan 2005). Montadon, Cléopâtre (ed.), Regards sur le philhellénisme (Geneva: Permanent Mission of Greece to the United Nations, 2008). Moullas, Panayiotis, ‘Ρομαντικoί προσκυνητές: Chateaubriand (1806) και Lamartine (1832)’ [Romantic Pilgrims: Chateaubriand (1806) and Lamartine (1832)], in Περιηγήσεις στον ελληνικό χώρο [Travelling in the Greek Territory], selected by Κ. Th. Dimaras (Athens: Ο.Μ.Ε.Δ, 1968). Nicolaïdis, Dimitri, D’une Grèce à l’autre. Représentation des Grecs modernes par la France révolutionnaire (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1992). Ozouf, Mona, L’homme régénéré. Essais sur la Révolution française (Paris: Gallimard, 1989). Paganel, Camille, Missolonghi n’est plus! Appel aux amis des Grecs (Paris: A. Désauges, 1826). Paris, Jean Joseph, Considérations sur la crise actuelle de l’Empire Ottoman, les causes qui l’ont amenée, et les effets qui doivent la suivre (Paris: Bobée, 1821) –––, Mémoire sur cette question : Quelle est, dans l’état actuel de la France et dans ses rapports avec les nations étrangères, l’extension que l’industrie, dirigée vers l’intérêt national, doit donner aux différens genres d’invention qui suppléent le travail des hommes par le travail des machines? (Paris: Mme Huzard et Delaunay, 1821). Perelman, Chaïm, L’empire rhétorique: rhétorique et argumentation (Paris: J. Vrin, 1977). Perelman, Chaïm, and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca, Traité de l’argumentation (Brussels: Université de Bruxelles, 2008). Poumarède, Géraud, Pour en finir avec la Croisade. Mythes et réalités de la lutte contre les Turcs aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2004). Pradt, M. de, De la Grèce dans ses rapports avec l’Europe (Paris: Bechet, 1822). Prevelakis, Georges, ‘Géopolitique du philhellénisme’, in Cléopâtre Montadon (ed.), Regards sur le philhellénisme (Geneva: Permanent Mission of Greece to the United Nations, 2008). Quack-Eustathiades, Regine, Der deutsche Philhellenismus während des griechischen Freiheitskampfes 1821–1827 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1984).

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Réponse d’un Turc à la Note sur la Grèce de M. Le Vte de Chateaubriand, membre de la Société en faveur des Grecs (Brussels: Baudouin, 1825). Roessel, David, In Byron’s Shadow. Modern Greece in the English and American Imagination (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). Rotzokos, Nikos B., Εθναφύπνιση και εθνογένεση. Ορλωφικά και ελληνική ιστοριογραφία [National Awakening and Ethnogenesis. The Orlov Revolt and Greek Historiography] (Athens: Βιβλιόραμα, 2007). Salaberry, Charles Marie, comte de, Essais sur la Valachie et la Moldavie, théâtre de l’insurrection dite Ypsilanti (Paris: Guiraudet, 1821). Schweighäuser, Jean-Geoffroy, Discours sur les services que les Grecs ont rendus à la civilisation; prononcé à la séance publique de la Société des Sciences, Agriculture et Arts de Strasbourg, le 30 juillet 1821 (Paris: de l’imprimerie de Firmin Didot, 1821). Sfoini, Alexandra, ‘Loyaume and Nomarchie: Keywords of the French Revolution in the Greek Vocabulary’, The Historical Review/La Revue Historique XI (2014), 121–32. –––, ‘Από τη “βάρβαρη” Ασία στη “φωτισμένη” Ευρώπη: το οδοιπορικό του Π. Κοδρικά’ [From ‘Barbarous’ Asia to ‘Enlightened’ Europe: The Travelogue of P. Kodrikas], in Τοπικές κοινωνίες στον θαλάσσιο και ορεινό χώρο στα νότια Βαλκάνια, 18ος–19ος αι [Local Societies in Sea and Mountain Territories in the Southern Balkans, 18th–19th Centuries], Symposium Proceedings, ed. Sophia Laïou, Corfu, 24–26 May 2012 (Corfu: Ionian University, History Department, 2014) 277–92. –––, ‘Η ρητορική του φιλελληνισμού στην Επανάσταση του 1821: τα γαλλικά φυλλάδια’ [The Rhetoric of Philhellenism in the Revolution of 1821: The French Pamphlets], in Διεθνές Συνέδριο Το ενδιαφέρον για την Ελλάδα και τους Έλληνες από το 1821 ως σήμερα [International Conference: The Interest in Greece and the Greeks from 1821 to the Present], Arta 5–7 July 2013 ed. A. Mandylara – G. Nikolaou – L. Flitouris – N. Anastasopoulos (Arta: Municipality of Nikolaos Skoufas and the University of Ioannina, 2015), 45–67. Shelley, Percy, Hellas: A Lyrical Drama (London: Charles and James Ollier, 1822) Soykut, Mustafa, Image of the ‘Turk’ in Italy. A History of the ‘Other’ in Early Modern Europe: 1453–1683 (Berlin: K. Schwarz, 2001). –––, Italian Perceptions of the Ottomans. Conflict and Politics through Pontifical and Venetian Sources (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2011). ––– (ed.), Historical Image of the Turk in Europe: 15th Century to the Present. Political and Civilizational Aspects (Istanbul: Isis, 2003). Sphini, Alexandra, Langue et mentalités au Phanar (XVIIe–XVIIIe siècles). D’après les ‘Ephémérides’ de P. Codrica et d’autres textes du milieu phanariote (Paris: Université de Paris I; Panthéon-Sorbonne, 1991). St Clair, William, That Greece Might Still Be Free. The Philhellenes in the War of Independence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972). Svoronos, Nikos G., Το ελληνικό έθνος. Γένεση και διαμόρφωση του Νέου Ελληνισμού [The Greek Nation. Genesis and Formation of Modern Greece], preface by Sp. Ι. Asdrachas (Athens: Πόλις, 2004). Tabaki-Iona, Fréderique, ‘Philhellénisme religieux et mobilisation des Français pendant la révolution grecque de 1821–1827’, Mots 79 (2005), 47–60.

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Thévenot, Jean, Voyage du Levant, ed. Stéphane Yerasimos (Paris: François Maspero, 1980), 128–31. Tolias, Georges, La médaille et la rouille. L’image de la Grèce moderne dans la presse littéraire parisienne (1794–1815) (Athens: Hatier, 1997). Trevor-Roper, Hugh, ‘Dimitrie Cantemir’s Ottoman History and Its Reception in England’, Revue Roumaine d’Histoire XXIV, no. 1–2 (1985), 51–66. Tsangas, Nikolaos Μ., Μπενζαμέν Κονστάν, Benjamin Constant (1767–1830). Ο πολιτικός, ο μυθιστοριογράφος, ο φιλέλληνας [Benjamin Constant (1767–1830). Politician, Novelist, Philhellene] (Athens: Έλευσις, 2002). Tzschirner, H.G., Die Sache der Griechen die Sache Europa’s (Leipzig: Fr. Chr. Wilh. Vogel, 1821). Valensi, Lucette, Venise et la Sublime Porte. La naissance du despote (Paris: Hachette, 1987). Vidal-Naquet, Pierre, La démocratie grecque vue d’ailleurs (Paris: Flammarion, 1990). Woodhouse, Christopher M., The Greek War of Independence: Its Historical Settings (London: Hutchinson’s University Library, 1952). Yerasimos, Stéphane, Les voyageurs dans l’Empire ottoman (XVIe–XVIe siècles) (Ankara: TTK, 1991). Yiakovaki, Nasia, Ευρώπη μέσω Ελλάδας. Μια καμπή στην ευρωπαϊκή αυτοσυνείδηση 17ος–18ος αιώνας [Europe through Greece. A Turning Point in the European Consciousness, 17th–18th Centuries] (Athens: Βιβλιοπωλείον της Εστίας, 2006). Zografos, Anastasios, ‘Η παράσταση του Τούρκου στους ιστορικούς της άλωσης. Σημειωτική περιήγηση’ [The Representation of the Turk by the Historians of the Fall. A Semiotic Journey], Τα Ιστορικά 14–15 (1991), 17–44. Ελληνική Νομαρχία ήτοι Λόγος περί ελευθερίας (. . .) Παρά Ανωνίμου του Έλληνος, [Hellenic Nomarchy or Discourse on Liberty . . . by Anonymous Hellene] (Italy: [place and publisher unknown], 1806). Ρήγα Βελεστινλή άπαντα τα σωζόμενα, τ. 5, Νέα Πολιτική Διοίκησις [The Complete Works of Rigas Velestinlis, vol. 5, New Political Administration], ed. Paschalis Μ. Kitromilides (Athens: Βουλή των Ελλήνων, 2000).

Chapter 7

‘Civilization’ and ‘Barbarity’ in French Liberal Discourse during the Conquest and Colonization of Algeria Nere Basabe and María Luisa Sánchez-Mejía

I

n the early stages of the conquest and colonization of Algeria, France did not have a clear and consistent feuille de route. Within this process, which began with the punitive expedition of 1830 aimed at vindicating the reputation of France, the last government of the Restoration never intended to transform a militarily occupied territory into a permanent settlement, let alone a colony with its own population; it did not, however, abandon the region either. The July Monarchy was equally hesitant in its stance when the French, eager to find a better life as settlers, started acquiring Algerian lands. In 1834, through a fait accompli policy and in view of the confusion and arbitrariness that prevailed in the territory, a government for the Possessions françaises dans le nord de l’Afrique was established. New laws, based on ordinances, were enacted, with the appointment of a general governor, accountable to the Ministry of War, and a council of civil servants and military authorities as advisors. The plain acknowledgement of the fact that France was to take control of the occupied enclaves, under what was to be called the Algiers Regency, soon sparked controversy concerning the policies that should have been implemented in the new overseas territories. The core issue in the discussion was the dichotomy between populating a colony and merely controlling a selection of strategic spots in the region. While the new settlers kept arriving in the old Regency, the debate arose among politicians, travellers, military personnel and publicists. The policy of colonization, carried out with the tacit acceptance of the successive July Monarchy governments, entailed new and bitter controversies about the actual size of the colony, the character of the

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settlers’ government and, above all, the perpetual war waged against the original dwellers. This last issue involved deciding upon what to do with the natives, how to relate to them and what roles they were to be assigned in the blueprint for the development of the territory. Up to a certain point, this was a secondary problem as the main concerns, as the abundant literature of the time shows, related to the costs of the war, the expectations of the settlers and the most appropriate policy for strengthening the presence of France in North Africa. Algerians were ‘the natives’, ‘the enemies’ or the main hindrance to the development of the colony. However, it is this secondary issue that enables us to analyse and assess the dichotomy barbarian/civilized in the colonial context. This setting, where we find the classical counter-conceptual pair ‘Hellenes’ vs ‘Barbarians’ studied by Reinhart Koselleck, will provide us with arguments for amending the formulation of the pair. Indeed, as Koselleck used to point out, there may be different wording for counter-concepts throughout history, but the asymmetrical structure remains.1 Thus, the conflict between civilization and barbarity, whether we are talking about Antiquity or modern times, remains a valid description of the world, as highlighted by the French Romantic Alfred de Vigny: ‘This payback of civilization that chases barbarians away everywhere is, in my own opinion and in the face of history, one of the defining traits of our century.’2 On the liberal side, the views expressed by Alexis de Tocqueville in his Algerian Discourse stand out. This work would be developed in its basic form between 1834 and 1847 (the time of Abd El-Kader’s3 final defeat and the resignation of a controversial central Governor, Marshal Thomas Bugeaud). Tocqueville favoured the settlement of a colony and visited Algeria between 1841 and 1846 as a member of a committee of MPs from the French assembly.4 Amedée Dèsjobert, also an MP from the assembly and a moderate republican, was his intellectual opponent, arguing for limited control of the territory.5 Of special significance is the leading role played in Algeria by relevant members of the Saint-Simonian school, who, having participated in the initial invasion as army officers, remained there as settlers, made mining investments and tried to make the Algerian issue known among the French public.6 We should begin with ‘Father’ Prosper Enfantin, a follower of Saint-Simon and the leader of the utopian socialist school of thought, who visited Algeria between 1839 and 1842 as a member of the Scientific Commission, and Edmond Pellissier de Reynaud, a military officer and director of the Bureau of Arab Affairs, who became a key figure in the publication of the Annales algériennes. One should also recall Captain Charles Richard, who, like most Saint-Simonians, was a graduate of the École polytechnique and arrived in Algeria in 1836, playing

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a key role in the development of the colonial legislation and the compulsory sedentarization policies, and Captain Juchault de Lamoricière, future Minister of War during the Second Republic, present in Algeria from 1830.7 But besides the followers of Saint-Simon, there were many others who commented on the life of the natives under the Regency, such as Jean-Jacques Baude, a national MP and commissioner in Algeria, Edouard Lapène, a commander in Bougie and a pioneering ethnographer, Honoré Fisquet, a historian, Eugène Bodichon, a civilian doctor in Algeria, and Dureau de la Malle, a historian and geographer. In their approach, both liberals and utopian socialists shared a belief in the distance between European civilization and the native character and traditions, which, in the nineteenth century, was conceptualized as a time lag between civilization and its absence. However, non-civilization incorporates, as we will try to show, many differences and nuances that obfuscate the clarity of the opposition between ‘barbarity’ and ‘civilization’.

The Complex Characterization of Natives When the French arrived in Algeria, they found a land inhabited by three million Muslims, who were described as an ‘amorphous’ and barbarian society, ‘three million souls living in the utmost chaos of every conceivable abomination’.8 The cultural background of the conquerors afforded them, however, a better understanding of the situation: it was the old land of the Numidians, tyrannized by Carthage and later by Romans, who civilized the region until the arrival of the Arabs. Now it was time to pick up the torch left by the Romans and finish the job. France viewed itself as the unquestionable heir of the Roman Empire, the new universal standard-bearer of civilization, and its mission in North Africa was to be a modern pax romana on behalf of all the Mediterranean nations. That is, for instance, the interpretation proposed by Prosper Enfantin, who makes a meticulous study of the history of the colonization of North Africa in his work De la colonisation de l’Algérie. The main purpose of the book, however, is to define the substantial differences between Ancien Roman possession and how a similar enterprise should have been undertaken in the nineteenth century.9 The Middle Ages myth of the crusade – the True Cross directed against the crescent10 – was also present at the time, but classical writers were more in demand than works such as Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso.11 Sallust and The Jugurthine War, Strabo, Polybius and Livy were among the most quoted in France. However, it was Tacitus’ Germania that supplied the classical profile of a barbarian: a lover of freedom with

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a deeply ingrained sense of honour who revered family life and lived in some sort of primitive egalitarian society. Barbarians were children who required Roman – now French – mentorship to become grown-ups.12 The division between Berbers and Arabs matched that past characterization old memory perfectly: the ‘natives’ were too diverse to be pigeonholed into a single concept. The Berbers were the original dwellers of the territory and the descendants of the aforementioned Numidians, who had already enjoyed a taste of Roman civilization. They were called the Kabyles because they lived in the mountainous region of Kabylia. During the years of the conquest, the French always thought they could get on better with the Berbers than with the Arabs. ‘The tribes that were allies of the Turks . . . are less barbaric and fanatical today than their neighbours’, remarked Captain Lamorcière.13 Even before the region’s military occupation, the inhabitants of Kabylia were said to be sedentary farmers and merchants, as Tocqueville’s words purport to show (‘they build houses; they mine iron . . . and weave rough cloths’).14 The first philologists that studied their tongue hinted at Berbers’ strong, nationally coloured attachment to their land, as opposed to the tribal characteristics of the Arab tongue and behaviour. Naturally, the French were more drawn to the former,15 which made them even dream of some kind of coexistence in the future: Enfantin prophesized that ‘these native tribes are the ones that will most easily adapt to our civilization and live like the closest neighbours to our civil colonies’.16 This survey could give rise to the impression that the French considered Kabyles to be more civilized than Arabs. But, generally speaking, this was not the case, at least as far as their current state was concerned. Toqueville’s description (‘they are still divided into small tribes, just like at the dawn of time’) aligned the Kabyles with the noble savage so closely that Rousseau would have been truly delighted: free and solitary individuals who enjoyed their primitive independence were portrayed to be neither rich nor poor, neither slaves nor masters, choosing their own leaders and happy with their lot.17 Dèsjobert also subscribes to this image of essential primitivism: ‘In their quest for independence, they have been wise enough to reduce their needs to a bare minimum, and are industrious enough to fulfil them without the aid of anyone else.’18 However, at the end of the day, that natural state is shown to have its dark side (‘among them, strength is the only law that prevails’) and the Kabyles’ utter isolation means, among other things, that they could behead a foreigner who just wanted to talk to them without thinking twice.19 The Kabyles resisted for fifteen years; in fact, conquering them required a greater effort than controlling the plains where the Arabs lived. Nonetheless, the French remained fond of these mountain dwellers,

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believed to be rough and simple, long after that, as they admired their proud and staunch defence of their agricultural lands and dwelling places. This made them seem closer to the Europeans than the constant nomadism that the Arabs were thought to practice. As we will see further on, the communal ownership of the land by these tribes would be one of the staples of the Saint-Simonian colonization project, hailed as nothing less than a case ‘from which the French should learn’.20 The Kabyles also exercised their religion in a more down-to-earth fashion, which looked ‘less fanatical’ to the French than the Arabs’ way of practising their religion. And some commentators even linked their cross-shaped tattoos to the memory of the Christian religion professed by the Numidians before the arrival of Islam.21 All of these elements conspired to create the ‘Kabylian myth’ that divided the Algerian population, from an early stage, into two distinct factions: Kabylians, sedentary and good, and Arabs, nomadic and bad.22 The negative connotations of nomadic life can essentially be traced back to the obstacles nomadism created for the French army: it was pointless to occupy a territory without taking control of its population. But the Arabs always retreated when the enemy approached: abandoning their land, cities or crops, they would just flee to the wilderness and return after the army had left. Obviously, not every Algerian Arab was a nomad and the classic ensemble of camels and tents could only be found in the south. Many observers followed Tocqueville in acknowledging that a substantial amount of land in Algeria did have owners and title deeds legalized by the civil service, but the image of a wandering life without a proper home or everyday occupation was far more dominant: ‘they have not become sedentary at all. A small number of them own houses, but the majority continues living in tents.’ Each tribe was shown to have its own plot of land, which was usually barren or cultivated with little skill. Still in transit between the nomadic and the sedentary ways of life, the Arabs of the south had no boundaries, milestones or title deeds, possessing little more than their solitary wilderness. Unsurprisingly, this view led Tocqueville to a rather bleak conclusion: ‘Having little regard for human life, and despising arts and trade . . ., they love war, pageantry and bustle.’23 The biggest shock for the French, nevertheless, was the religious radicalism of the Arabs, branded as fetishism and idolatry. Each tribe was led by a religious, rather than military, aristocracy (as, for instance, in the case of Abd El-Kader) and the ensuing fanaticism transformed the resistance to the Europeans into a holy war, with the Arabs remaining impervious to any change, agreement or advantage that the French could provide. Pierre Genty de Bussy, the civil Governor of Algeria, maintained

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that little could be done with these fanatical and riotous warriors,24 and Prosper Enfantin, the ‘Father’ of Saint-Simonians, arrived at more or less the same pessimistic conclusion, despite all his missionary zeal: ‘my experience in Africa shows that civilizing the Muslim peoples of the Atlas may be an unfeasible and utopian dream’; unlike the Romans, who found in Algeria gentle, industrious and trade-loving peoples with a certain degree of culture, the French, in his opinion, have stumbled upon a warwaging race, ‘perpetually hostile and with unchanging religious beliefs’. In Enfantin’s view, Islam was lazy by nature and even the substitution of the indigenous population with European settlers was not ruled out if ‘the barbarism of the former, their fanaticism and their view of freedom [would] make the institutions of our social order unbearable to them’.25 Overall, the descriptions applied by the French to Algerian Arabs shed little light on their civilizational status compared to Kabyles or the former Turkish occupational force: the most common labels were savages, semisavages, barbarians, semi-barbarians or semi-civilized, used interchangeably, as was the habit at that time. ‘The black race [of Algeria] is Rousseau’s savage world; but, lacking its barbarism, it did not replace but coexisted with the civilized world’ – this was the conclusion reached by Gustave D’Eichthal and Ismayl Urbain, the two Saint-Simonians most keen on building bridges between both societies.26 Although Muslim and Asian peoples were generally believed to be almost civilized, in contrast to Amerindians or sub-Saharans, a point was still made of drawing a line between them and Europeans. In spite of the efforts made by the first Orientalists to praise the cultures in India when the British first became acquainted with them, publicists and theorists kept using social and political indicators that proved the savage and barbarian character of non-Westerners, such as their different relationship to the land, property, law, social structures and religion.27 Despite these simplifications, the question of whether civilization is a non-gradable pole of a dichotomy, a matter of degree or even a generic term applicable to different cultural systems potentially coexisting in spite of their differences remains open in the texts under consideration. The theories of progress that developed during the nineteenth century focus on one single identifying trait of non-civilized people – their social and cultural stagnation: while savage or barbarian societies are presented as static and monolithic, civilized societies are dynamic and progress in a dialectic way. This idea is the starting point of the Histoire générale de la civilization en Europe by François Guizot, published in 1828, which was the main influence for all the civilization theories of the period. Guizot saw ‘progress and development’ as ‘the concepts carried by the word civilization’: no amount of wealth, degree of organization or

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reasonability of governance would, for him, constitute a civilized society in the absence of progress, change or improvement.28 Unlike the largely ontological opposition between ‘Hellenes’ and ‘Barbarians’, the distinction between civilization and barbarism was primarily seen in this tradition as a temporal gap. Unsurprisingly, Arabs and Berbers are viewed by early nineteenthcentury French observers as peoples stuck in the past, in its traditions and customs, ‘in prejudice, the influence of religion and the terror of a ruthless authority’,29 as if their time was standing still. ‘The coastal Africans are nowadays divided into small populations, almost independent from each other, as they were twelve centuries ago in Arabia, when their religious zeal drove them to the West’,30 Tocqueville opined in his first description of Algeria. Dèsjobert believed that the main trait of the Arabs was ‘the preservation of the customs of their ancestors’31 and some critics went as far as presenting ancient rituals from the heart of Africa as proof of the persistence of a primitive fetishist religion among some local groups.32 The tribalism itself was seen as tangible proof of a link to the ancient past of humankind, something that not even the Turks were able to stamp out. It relegated Kabyles and Arabs to the stage prior to the Oriental despotism practised by Turks and perpetually derided by Europeans. Stagnation does not have to be final, however: as Captain Charles Richard observed, each civilization was following its own pace and Arab society was no exception to this rule; what exogenous stimuli – such as the presence of the French – could do was speed up this evolution. Tocqueville frequently compares the situation of the Arab tribes with the European Middle Ages, when the feudal lords possessed the land and its dwellers and spent their lives waging war against their neighbours. However, he hastens to add, Abd El-Kader, seeking to make the war against France more efficient, was removing the powerful tribal lords and unifying all forces under his command, just like the European kings did in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.33 Evolution was still considered possible in Algeria and isolation could serve as an explanation for its sluggishness. Captain Richard also makes this sort of historical comparison between Africa and Europe, following Saint-Simon’s stadial theory of humankind, which, at some point, was ‘torn away . . . from the peaceful and fraternal regime where it was born’. Building upon that, he proceeds to thoroughly describe the current state of the Algerians and the stages they must go through ‘until the moment when, accepting our law, they will finally belong to the great civilized family’.34 Contrary to Tocqueville, Richard believed that the state of the Algerian tribes he was witnessing

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was some kind of ‘muddled barbarism’ – a perpetual state of war and tyranny that even predated feudalism, which would have been the next stage. Richard thus comes to describe the seven historic stages through which the Bureaux Arabes must lead the native population. He remarked that it should have been a slow and gentle transformation of certain successive elements, which had taken Europe eighteen hundred years to accomplish, and that it could not be imposed overnight in Algeria, because imposing equality before the law on Algerians in their current state and without those previous social transformations would have been a sure path to disaster.35 The progress of civilization would therefore develop teleologically. However, in contrast to liberals such as Guizot or Tocqueville, this is reversed for Saint-Simonians, according to whom history begins with a ‘primordial error’ and the ideal state of reconciliation for humankind could be found at the dawn of time. Michel Chevalier, editor-in-chief of Le Globe, the official newspaper of the socialist school, was a leading Saint-Simonian who, in 1832, was already advocating the final reconciliation between the East and the West, and therefore described the course of civilization as a kind of boomerang and a debt that had to be honoured: ‘New Amphions! . . . Return the deposit of civilization to the lands from where Europe had received it: . . . the ruins of Palmyra, the terrace of the Pyramids.’36 Similar to the societies in question, the individuals populating them were seen as undeveloped and immature, having passionate and irrational characters. The defining traits of the Algerians in the literature of the time boil down to their lack of self-restraint and their inability to defer gratification. ‘Brave in battle, they are ferocious after claiming victory’; ‘abandoned to their natural state, their passions guide the whole of their personality: avenging offence is above them all’, Dèsjobert stresses.37 And Tocqueville describes the Arabs in the following way: A vivacious and sensual imagination, a shrewd and perceptive spirit, the bravery and fickleness found in their parents. Just like them, they belong to that shifting and untameable race that worships physical pleasure . . . Defiant and gullible, swinging from an irrational enthusiasm to an extreme despondency, they fall and rise without regret, frequently out of proportion in their acts and always placing feeling above thought.38

Even their natural masters, Tocqueville adds in another of his works, are unable to achieve the upper hand over their passions and must give in to them, lacking any other means to retain their power; in contrast, European kings rule over their subjects and can restrain them with their social power.39

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This preference for feelings over reason controlled the barbaric life of Algerian tribes. The European ideals of freedom and individual autonomy, or the principle of equality before the law, were seen throughout Europe (for example, by John Stuart Mill) as the triumph of civilization over nature inside and outside human beings, with virtue towering above crude propensities.40 Hence, the requirements of civilization, in his opinion, were ‘meant to apply only to human beings in the maturity of their faculties’ and not to minors or ‘those backward states of society in which the race itself may be considered as in its nonage’.41 The French attitudes to Arabs in Algeria by and large conformed to this general European trend.

Assimilation or Association? The ‘Mission of Civilization’ Even though they were enemies, barbarians or non-civilized peoples, the dwellers of Algeria remained there and could not be ignored during the occupation of Northern Africa being undertaken by France. The discussion about how to deal with them – in which everyone, Captain Richard complained, seemed to have an opinion, regardless of their knowledge of the subject – became really heated when confronted with the choice between expelling or exterminating the natives and governing them, like any other people, through assimilative policies. ‘So be it, let us rule and redouble our rule over Muslim and French in perfect equality’, Richard remarked ironically. In this sense, he equates the ‘civilizing mind-set’ to the ‘conqueror mind-set’, which frequently turns into a ‘pitiful rusty nail’ that prevents the machinery from working.42 The republican Amedée Dèsjobert held one of the most critical positions. His staunch opposition to the creation of a colony in North Africa led him to condemn the French authorities’ despicable plans to exterminate the Algerian population: ‘the only reasonable thing to do when seizing control of the country to introduce a European population was to destroy the natives. It is just plain extermination, regardless of the wording or the veil used to cover it.’43 Even if the local population were not to be completely exterminated, maintaining the colony would mean perpetual war, enormous financial and human losses. Dèsjobert rejected not only the integration of the Algerian population but even the very idea of a colony: for him, the control of the Mediterranean could have been achieved by the occupation of two or three strategic ports, which would have been feasible in military terms and bearable in financial terms. The ‘Arab system’, as he called his plan, would have allowed Algerians to rule themselves and send to France the offspring of their leaders, such

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as Abd El-Kader. Then, returning to Africa with a European education, this new civilized elite could transform the laws and customs of their communities: ‘these young people, when returning to their countries, will bring new ideas; it is the head and not the lower classes which brings progress to nations.’44 Inversely, and in spite of his experience with the difficult integration of different races in America, Tocqueville initially cherished the hope of a fusion between the Algerian and the French.45 Criticizing the racist theories of his former secretary, Arthur de Gobineau, Tocqueville did not believe that race could shape the destiny of people.46 However, the reality he witnessed during his trip to Algeria in 1841 differed greatly from his expectations and, in subsequent texts, he acknowledged the need for two distinct communities that would never blend. From then on, his main concern was the development and administration of the French colony, where Algerians were excluded from government at least until full military control over the territory was achieved and the colony could operate smoothly. For Tocqueville, the matter at hand was not the destiny of the population but the control of the region. However, once the ‘great violence’ of the conquest was over, it would have made sense to exercise restraint: ‘in the interest of our own settlement, it is extremely important, whenever possible, to have the rule of law, or at least some degree of humanity, on our side and in the eyes of the natives.’47 Alternatively, other analysts cherished the idea that the mere presence of civilization and its representatives in a certain territory would be enough for the voluntary transformation of the Algerian tribes. In a distinctly Saint-Simonian vein, Genty de Bussy believed in the efficiency of the railway, ‘the single view’ of which ‘would subdue the natives overwhelmed with admiration’.48 In its turn, the Moniteur algérien proposed setting up a theatre where ‘civilization would find a powerful lever that would accelerate the fall of barbarism’.49 Perhaps the most naïve and ignorant point of view was the one expressed by the General Trézel, who addressed his soldiers departing from the port of Toulon to Algeria in 1831 with the following words (earning the scorn of his comrade Pellissier de Reynaud): ‘the mission of our troops is destined to be more agricultural than warlike. They will have to use the pick and shovel more than the rifle. We will bring them on board by sharing with the Kabyles the benefits of our civilization and teaching them to dress properly and to have proper accommodation.’50 Even Alexis de Tocqueville himself fell, to a certain extent, under the spell of the delusion of the instant exemplary influence of the French upon Algerians: ‘a powerful and civilized nation such as ours exerts, by virtue of its own superior knowledge, an almost irresistible influence

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on small, almost barbaric, populations. An enduring relationship is all that is needed to make them forcibly a part of us.’51 And his correspondent, Captain Lamoricière, deep in his Saint-Simonian dream of industrial and commercial development, subscribed to the same illusion: ‘Due to the increasingly frequent contacts with us these populations, formerly hostile, would soon be drawn to sharing the essentials of our civilization, and, far from bearing our presence painfully, they would actually yearn for it. Like everywhere else, material considerations would silence fanaticism.’52 Such naïve trust in the superiority of their own customs was not confined in France to liberal imperialism or the most utopian socialism. Diderot, a fierce critic of the colonialism practised during the Enlightenment, had nevertheless believed that a community of civilized Europeans on the border of the Russian Empire would suffice to liberate its population from barbarism: ‘the dwellers of the neighbouring villages will see the prosperity of the settlers; that mere vision will preach the freedom that they will embrace effortlessly and inadvertently. We must behave with slaves just like we do with savages: convert them through example.’53 However, countering these optimistic prognoses, other writers, such as the aforementioned Dèsjobert, reminded their readers that the French were ‘not good settlers’ and the best course of action would be to abandon such enterprises: France’s geopolitical interests would remain safe and so would its moral interests. Its government, built upon the sovereignty of the nation, Dèsjobert reasoned, and its representative system did not sit well with an endless war and a colonial policy that placed the raison d’état above an open parliamentary discussion.54 Saint-Simonian Michel Chevalier anticipated this argument in 1831 in an article published in Le Globe regarding the uncertain (at that point) future of the Algerian territory. Dismissing Tocqueville’s concerns regarding the role of France in the imperial race and the geostrategic necessity of standing up to Brits, Chevalier even advocated handing the colony over to the arch-rival on the grounds that, if each nation had an area of expertise, or, in SaintSimon’s words, a ‘skill’, Britain was, without doubt, a ‘colonizing nation’: ‘[England] has provided immense progress to backward civilizations. They have left milestones across the seas and along the coasts of both continents where the universal association network may be moored.’55 The views of the Saint-Simonian leader would soon change, however, and become more aligned with the views of Enfantin, his successor. Against those who reasoned that France, unlike England or Spain, lacked a true colonial spirit, the ‘Father’ of the utopian school justified conquest with reference to the new character of the imperial enterprise:

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Let us thank God for our former lack of skill in those barbaric enterprises. That past failure proves our current and future ability. Because it is not a matter of exterminating or exploiting peoples anymore, nor offering them chains, but elevating them to the awareness of civilization, of association, where we always were generous exponents or, I would dare to say, the most tenacious.56

Undoubtedly, in contrast to many vague and chaotic proposals, the Saint-Simonian school of thought provided the most specific project for Algeria, despite its own utopian and even mystical background. The ‘ideologizing influence’ of Saint-Simonianism shaped the behaviour of the army officers and French administrators in the colony for no less than four decades (particularly during the Second Empire, when it left its mark on the policies of Napoleon III) and played a key role in the conceptual determination of the imperial policies in North Africa.57 Such a Saint-Simonian project was a self-styled ‘civilizing mission’ – a term that was first introduced by Michel Chevalier in the pages of Le Globe newspaper and later became widespread in public discourse of the Third Republic.58 Chevalier used the term in opposition to the idea of conquest: ‘one day colonization, that is to say, the imposition of civilization upon barbarian peoples, will undeniably become a moral, industrial and scientific endeavour, whereby colonizers will also furnish backward people with religious feelings of association, illustriousness and abundance.’59 The following year, Chevalier’s idea of a universal association matured in the form of the ‘Mediterranean System’ – a project of economic integration in which military expenditure was replaced by industrial spending, together with infrastructural investment in channels and railways; the change was aimed at bridging the East–West gap and achieving the eagerly awaited universal perpetual peace.60 In step with this Orientalist ideal, many members of the socialist Ménilmontant commune, following its disbandment in 1832, left for Africa, heading first to Egypt (following Napoleon’s example in searching for the ‘female Messiah’) and later to Algeria, where they tried to put a new colonial policy into place in accordance with the ideals of the ‘Mediterranean system’. This was true, for instance, of Captain Ferdinand Durand, an army officer with pacifist inclinations and a SaintSimonian background. Convinced as he was of the peaceful future of nations, he advocated the industrial reorganization of armies, which, in his view, should have been redirected to public works. According to Durand, this experiment should have started in Algeria, because ‘France must return that country to civilization’.61 This was also the opinion of Captain Richard, whose previously mentioned work De la civilization du peuple arabe included a plan for agricultural reform geared towards

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transforming communal land into private property. According to the Saint-Simonian doctrine, this would lead the colonized society straight to the last historical stage (the ‘democratic’ one), which would enable the acknowledgement of private interest by the state and assimilate barbaric peoples, converting them to the colonizer’s interests, customs and traditions.62 Nevertheless, it was Prosper Enfantin who would more precisely and ambitiously develop this idea of the ‘highly civilizing influence’ as the ‘honour of the missionaries of civilization’63 – the accolade perpetually claimed by the Saint-Simonians for themselves. ‘In our century, the legitimacy of our conquest or at least our occupation of Algeria cannot be supported unless we behave there as powerful agents for the civilization of Africa’,64 Enfantin reasoned. To that end, he continued, a truly colonial policy must move away from waging war, because, in the nineteenth century, conciliation and association should be assigned greater value than domination. The means of achieving these goals could be the progressive transformation of the customs and institutions of both the natives and the French settlers, with the aim of preparing both populations for cohabitation in line with commonly shared principles. Such a transformation would have to be effected by indirect means, with the help of the southern Arabs and mutual respect between neighbours: In spite of ourselves, in spite of our own magnificent courage and our brave soldiers, these nomad Berbers, pugnacious looters, driven by their natural inclinations, will fall upon us sooner or later, just like they did with all the victors that came before us in Africa. And that will happen unless we attach these nomads to the land they once ravaged, unless we imbue these looters with a concern for the safety of their coveted riches . . .; they will ultimately remain barbarians unless we, the French, have crossed the sea to civilize Africa.65

If Plato thought that the Greek race would degenerate when mixed with the barbarians,66 many Saint-Simonians actually believed the opposite: the arrival of a new mixed race, in their view, would regenerate mankind. The utopian outlook of these delusions is well summed up in the words of Pellissier: ‘In my own opinion, our presence in Africa is bound to higher aspirations for the future of the peoples and the social palingenesy. . . . the grand fusion between East and West . . . As in the time of Christ or Muhammad, it is from here that a new splendour, a new transformation of the human society, must be born.’67 At the end of the day, the whole enterprise was justified by the idea that the French had a right to occupy Algeria because the indigenous peoples were primitive and vicious barbarians in need of a French ‘civilizing mission’.68 In spite

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of the typically Saint-Simonian oscillations between material interests and spiritual ideals, a sense of superiority and philanthropic inclinations, the plan made a deep impression on the emperor, who readily styled himself as the ‘Emperor of the Arabs’ and referred to his rule as the ‘Arab Reign’.69 In fact, Napoleon III was the first head of state to visit the colony. After the welcome dinner he was offered in Algiers in 1860, he addressed the settlers with the following words, upgrading the SaintSimonian discourse to the official level: Our conquest can only be redemption. Our first duty is to take care of the three million Arabs, who, by military means, have come under our control. Providence demands that we confer on this land the benefits of civilization. But, what is civilization? It is taking into account the life and wellbeing of man, and his moral perfection as the highest good. Thus we must raise the Arabs to dignity of free men, offer them education while respecting their religion, improve their situation by digging up all the treasures that Providence has buried in this land and which a failed government would leave to waste. This is our mission.70

What If We Were the Barbarians? After his journey to Algeria, Tocqueville expressed bitter regret: ‘I have arrived from Africa carrying the painful feeling that we are waging war in a more barbaric fashion than the Arabs themselves. Currently, civilization is on their side.’71 Both advocates and critics of the colonial settlement demanded that France remain within the boundaries imposed by its own customs, principles and, ultimately, civilization. Even if the French could not to convince by example, as Genty de Bussy wished, it was important that the French not deter the locals either. The Europeans in the colonies should have been wary of adopting what Edmund Burke used to call ‘geographical morality’, which allowed them to behave like barbarians outside of their own continent.72 In the words of the despairing Dèsjobert, who denounced the system of refoulement (repression) as a cover for the hidden extermination agenda, France could not ‘keep on doing what [was] being done in Africa’. He accused those who cited the case of North America as an endorsement73 of confusing the different stages of civilization: whereas the attacked hunters retreat, an agricultural society would not be able to do so: [Such a system is] untenable in the current state of our societies, abhorred by our customs and contrary to our faith. Adopting it would leave us out of Europe and create a sense of outrage. The modern French would descend from

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the North, just like the Vandals and the Huns did in the past, to slaughter thousands of families! No, there would not be enough curses under the heavens for us if we behave in such a manner.74

Even Tocqueville believed that the French had behaved wrongly from the start: the first mistake was to expel all the Turks when the French arrived in Algeria, leaving the land bereft of authorities and administrators and destroying their archives – without documents, tax collection was made impossible. Money had to be requested from France, ‘extorting our poor oppressed in a worse way than the Turks ever did. Our ignorance turned the French government into an arbitrary oppressor.’75 Tocqueville concludes: ‘If our only goal is to equal the Turks, we will be well below them: among barbarians, the Turks will always have the advantage of being Muslim barbarians’.76 This critique was even harsher when it came from the Saint-Simonians, who sought reconciliation with the East. Enfantin, in a similar way to Tocqueville, extolled some of the policies of the Turkish government as a model that should bring shame to the ‘pretended civilization’ of the colonizers. He also warned against excessive punishments and the general bloodbath that risked making the French just like the colonized: ‘We must remember that our duty is to free the Arabs from this barbaric justice that was theirs, not ours, and that we must hurry to free ourselves from it.’77 He was an advocate of organizing, governing and protecting the conquered tribes, while advocating that those that remained beyond their control should only be monitored and punished when they attacked the colonizers: ‘let us force them to civilize themselves, but not up to the point where we participate in their own barbarism, following them in the sacrifices to fetishes and the idolatry of crosses and swords.’78 Two years later, in the newspaper L’Algérie, he inquired furiously: ‘Will the government understand at last that the labour of France in Algeria must be a labour of civilization, and not an act of barbarism?’79 Dèsjobert’s fury, Tocqueville’s complaints and Saint-Simonians’ protests seemed to prove that the frontier between civilization and barbarity could as easily be breached as at the time of Michel Montaigne.80 However, as in the case of Montaigne two and a half centuries previous, these fulminations prove to be more rhetoric than genuine self-criticism: Dèsjobert did not believe for a second that the French were just like the Vandals, nor did Tocqueville honestly think that they resembled the Turks. Mock self-ascriptions of barbarism were merely a way of highlighting some of the excesses of the Algerian policies, such as the razzias and enfumades perpetrated by Bugeaud, the smoke of which still pursued the

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French army ‘like remorse sent by barbarians to civilization’.81 Because, in spite of everything, the difference between ‘us’ and ‘them’ remained insurmountable.

Conclusion: The Horizon of Diverging Expectations in an Asymmetrical Counter-Concept Reinhart Koselleck describes asymmetrical counter-concepts as binary concepts aiming at universality but working one way, denying reciprocity, mutual acknowledgement, and, therefore, establishing inequality. In the process of forming a sense of belonging to a community, asymmetrical counter-concepts mark collective identities through pairs consisting of a positive term and a negative term, with the Other constructed as a negation of positive qualities ascribed to Self. Such binaries are used to identify and define the differences between ‘us’ and ‘them’ in the long term, shaping experiences, forming expectations and determining operative capacities of historic agents, sometimes going as far as creating new realities.82 The barbarism/civilization dichotomy, so frequently used throughout history in widely diverging fields, clearly fulfills all those features that we have just described and that characterize the asymmetrical counterconcept according to Koselleck. And it becomes particularly relevant when applied to the colonial domain to express the contrast between the absolute Other and its familiar opposite. In a certain way, it also recovers its original meaning: as when they were opposed to the ‘Hellenes’, the barbarians are again those that speak another tongue and are radically different in terms of their religion, culture, customs, laws, social organization and ways of exercising political authority. The opposition thus seems to retain the original semantics of the view from within the Greek polis of its summary adversary – Oriental despotism. However, any attempt to simply transfer this understanding to liberal imperialism vis-à-vis indigenous populationsis fraught with contradictions: in the nineteenth century, it was no longer easy to split an increasingly complex world in two. The case study of the French political rhetoric developed on the occasion of the conquest of Algeria between 1830 and 1847 reveals that asymmetrical counter-concepts may preclude not only recognition of the other, but also self-recognition: even the ‘us’ perspective is hotly contested because its boundless diversity results in its members, who are seemingly in charge of the asymmetrical discourse, being unrecognizable to one another. These conceptual difficulties not only created a terminological ambiguity, riddled with contradictions and

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relapses, but also prevented simultaneous action, or at least coordinated policies, by the agents that claimed to represent civilization, as liberals and socialists tried to impose their respective understandings of the dichotomy and act in accordance with them. Establishing a radical otherness like the one we have tried to describe ultimately served several purposes: on the one hand, it was a justification of territorial conquest that protected its agents, lending the guise of fairness and indispensability to the victory of civilization over savages and barbarians. On the other hand, it was used as a mirror through which ‘civilized people’ could look at themselves and their culture, identifying their spatial (Europe/the West) or temporal (modernity/Sattelzeit) location. Finally, the opposition between ‘civilization’ and ‘barbarism’ could also have a prognostic purpose, forming, in Koselleck’s words, ‘the horizon of expectations’ where the energies of a society or a nation would be best focused. For Tocqueville, who feared the dissolution of the system of liberties and the nascent French democracy because of the predominance of individualism and the lack of interest in public affairs,83 the great colonizing enterprise was the means of restoring the nation’s strength and securing the transition from the Ancien Régime to the liberal order. In its turn, the civilizing mission of the Saint-Simonians was directed at nothing less than fulfilment of their utopian dreams: the advent of an industrial society and the final reconciliation between the East and the West in the universal association. Nere Basabe is Associate professor at Universidad Autónoma of Madrid. She has a PhD in the History of Political Thought and has worked as researcher at the Basque Country University and Sciences-Po Paris. Her major research interests include eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European history (France and Spain), intellectual and constitutional history, the history of political concepts and the history of the idea of Europe. She is a founding member of Concepta Board (International Research School in Conceptual History and Political Thought). María Luisa Sánchez-Mejía is a professor at Complutense University of Madrid and Chair of the History of Social Movements and Political Thought. Her main area of research is European liberalism and imperialism in the nineteenth century. She is the author of Benjamin Constant y la construcción del liberalismo posrevolucionario (Alianza, 1992) and has edited several works by Benjamin Constant, Alexis de Tocqueville, Madame de Staël and the Ideologues. She is head of the Complutense University Research Group ‘Politics and Society in 19th Century Europe’.

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Notes  1. Reinhart Koselleck, ‘The Historical-Political Semantics of Asymmetric CounterConcepts’, in Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), 159.  2. Alfred de Vigny, ‘Lettre à Victor de Laprade’ (30 June 1847), in Correspondance, vol. 1 (Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2012), 196.  3. Abd El-Kader (1808–83) was the leader of the Algerian resistance, both admired and hated by the French. He was barely twenty-four years old when he claimed the religious title of emir and managed to unite all the tribes and provide them with a certain administrative and military organization. Defeated in the Battle of Isly by the troops of Marshal Bugeaud, he was imprisoned in France until he was released, with honours, in 1852.  4. In 1837, Alexis de Tocqueville published ‘Deux lettres sur l’Algérie’, which featured, unsigned, in the La Presse de Seine-et-Oise newspaper. In 1841, he wrote Travail sur l’Algérie, a first draft or a collection of early thoughts that would remain unpublished (there is a Spanish translation in Alexis de Tocqueville, Escritos sobre la esclavitud y el colonialismo, trans. Ana Portuondo, ed. Maria L. Sánchez-Mejía (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales, 2009)). And, in 1847, as a speaker in the commission headed by Jules Dufaure, he presented a Rapport sur le projet de loi relatif aux crédits extraordinaires demandés pour l’Algérie to the chamber. The bibliography on Tocqueville and Algeria is rather scarce, but we can highlight the following works: Mary Lawlor, Alexis de Tocqueville in the Chamber of Deputies. His Views on Foreign and Colonial Policy (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1959); Melvin Richter, ‘Tocqueville on Algeria’, The Review of Politics 25, no. 3 (1963), 362–98; Tzvetan Todorov, Présentation de la colonie en Algérie (Paris: Éditions complexe, 1988); Jennifer Pitts, ‘Empire and Democracy: Tocqueville and the Algeria Question’, The Journal of Political Philosophy 8, no. 3 (2000), 295–318; A Turn to Empire. The Rise of Imperial Liberalism in Britain and France (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005), chapter 7; Christian Béguin, ‘Tocqueville et l’Algérie’, The Tocqueville Review/La Revue Tocqueville 30, no. 2 (2009), 179–203; Cheryl B. Welch, ‘Out of Africa: Tocqueville’s Imperial Voyages’, Review of Middle East Studies 45, no. 1 (2011); Françoise Mélonio, ‘Le choc des civilisations: Chassériau et Tocqueville en Algérie’, in Chassériau (1819–1856). Un autre romantisme. Actes du colloque organisé para le Musée du Louvre le 16 mars 2002 (Paris: La Documentation Française-Musée du Louvre, 2002).  5. Amédée Desjobert (1796–1853) published several analyses of the Algerian issue during the conquest: La question d’Alger. Politique, colonisation, commerce (Paris: Capelet, 1837); L’Algérie en 1838 (Paris: Dufart, 1838); L’Algérie en 1844 (Paris: Guillaumin, 1844); and L’Algérie en 1846 (Paris: Guillaumin, 1846).  6. Pamela M. Pilbeam, ‘The Colonization of Algeria: The Role of Saint-Simonians’, French History and Civilisation 6 (2015), 190.  7. Osama W. Abi-Mershed, Apostles of Modernity. Saint-Simonians and the Civilizing Mission in Algeria (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010), 91, 236. A seminal work on Saint-Simonians and their relationship with Algeria is Marcel Émerit, Les Saint-Simoniens en Algérie (Paris: Société d’édition Les Belles Lettres, 1941). See also Michel Levallois and Sarga Moussa (eds), L’Orientalisme des saint-simoniens (Paris: Maisonneuve & Larose, 2006).  8. Charles Richard, Algérie. De la civilisation du peuple arabe (Paris: Dubos, 1850), 7, 23.  9. ‘In our days, the task of colonization is something absolutely new, because we do not exterminate peoples any more nor subdue them into slavery.’ Prosper Enfantin, De la colonisation de l’Algérie (Paris: P. Bertrand, 1843), 31.

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10. Honoré Fisquet, Histoire de l’Algérie depuis les temps anciens jusqu’à nos jours: publié d’après les écrits et les documents les plus officiels (Paris: Baudouin, 1842), 7–8. 11. Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered became, on the contrary, a major reference in the Spanish War of Africa (1859–60), when the Spanish conquered Tetouan. The religious spirit that many tried to bring to that war banished all the references to the ancients. 12. Patricia M.E. Lorcin, Kabyles, arabes, français: identités coloniales (Limoges: Presses de l’Université de Limoges, 2005), 35ff. 13. Juchault de Lamoricière, Réflexions sur l’état actuel d’Alger (Paris: Le Normant, 1836), 22–23. 14. Tocqueville, ‘Première Lettre sur l’Algérie’ (23 June 1837), in Œuvres Complètes. Écrits et Discours Politiques I, André Jardin (ed.), vol. 1 (Paris: Gallimard, 1962), 131. 15. Lorcin, Kabyles, arabes, français, 66. 16. Enfantin, De la colonisation de l’Algérie, 180. 17. Tocqueville, ‘Prémiere Lettre’, 131. 18. Dèsjobert, La question d’Alger. Politique, colonisation, commerce (Paris: Dufart, 1837), 19. The author appropriates here, however, the statements by Lapinsonnière in his ‘Rapport sur la colonisation de l’ex-Régence d’Alger’, in Colonisation de l’ex-Régence: documents officiels déposés sur le bureau de la Chambre des députés (Paris: Delaunay, 1834), 27. 19. Tocqueville, ‘Première lettre’, 132. 20. The reason for the positive reputation of the communal ownership of the land, according to the Saint-Simonians, was the fact that it was well adapted to the local requirements of the land, the climate and, to sum up, ‘a certain degree of civilization’, such as that of the Muslims (Enfantin, De la colonisation de l’Algérie, 85, 146–47). 21. Edouard Lapène, Tableau historique de l’Algérie depuis l’occupation Romaine jusqu’à la conquête par les Français en 1830, quoted by Lorcin, Kabyles, arabes, français, 36. It is quite evident that Lapène is bringing back the classical narrative of Topographía e Historia general de Argel, published by Diego de Haedo, in Valladolid, Spain, in 1612. 22. Lorcin, Kabyles, arabes, français, 12ff. 23. Tocqueville, ‘Première lettre’, 131–33, 135. 24. Pierre Genty de Bussy was a firm supporter of colonization by means of waging a merciless war until the total surrender of the territory was achieved. See De l’établissement des français dans la Régence d’Alger, et des moyens d’en assurer la prospérité (Paris, Firmin Didot, 1835). 25. Enfantin, De la colonisation de l’Algérie, 518. 26. Gustave d’Eichthal and Ismayl Urbain, Lettres sur la race noire et la race blanche (Paris: Pauline, 1839), 45. Ismayl Urbain (1812–84) is an outstanding figure in terms of overcoming the dichotomy between the civilized and the non-civilized world: he was a mestizo born in Guyenne who embarked on the Eastern venture towards Egypt with the Saint-Simonians, seeking the ‘female Messiah’. He settled down in Algeria, became Muslim and married a native woman. He worked as an official translator for the French government and took on a major role in the design of policies for the colonization, even serving as a personal advisor to Napoleon III. 27. See Eric Stokes, The English Utilitarians and India (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959). 28. François Guizot, Cours d’Histoire moderne. Histoire générale de la civilisation en Europe, 2nd edn (Brussels: Société belge de Librairie, 1839), 10–11. 29. Richard, De la civilisation du peuple arabe, 22. 30. Tocqueville, ‘Première Lettre’, 133. 31. Dèsjobert, La question d’Alger, 21. 32. Baron Baude describes a secret pact ritual between women and the devil, the aim of which was ensuring that their husbands would catch good prey among Christians. See L’Algérie, vol. I (Brussels: Méline; Cans & Comp., 1841), 63.

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33. Tocqueville, ‘Travail sur l’Algérie’ (1841), in Œuvres Complètes. Écrits et Discours Politiques I, 223. 34. Richard, De la civilisation du peuple arabe, 20, 59. 35. Ibid., 22–23. 36. Le Globe, 5 February 1832, collected in Michel Chevalier, Religion saint-simonienne. Politique industrielle. Système de la Méditerranée (Paris: Au Bureau du Globe, 1832), 56. 37. Dèsjobert, La question d’Alger, 19. 38. Tocqueville, ‘Première Lettre’, 135. 39. Tocqueville, ‘Travail sur l’Algérie’, 218–19. 40. John Stuart Mill, ‘Three Essays on Religion’, in Collected Works, vol. 10, ed. John Robson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press; Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969), 392–93. 41. John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 3rd edn (London: Longman, Roberts and Green, 1864), 22–23. 42. Richard, De la civilisation du peuple arabe, 9–10. 43. Dèsjobert, L‘Algérie en 1846 (Paris: Guillaumin, 1846), 16. 44. Dèsjobert, La question d’Alger, 325. 45. Tocqueville, ‘Seconde Lettre sur l’Algérie’, in Écrits et Discours politiques I, 151. 46. See Fotini Assimacopoulou, ‘Arthur de Gobineau commenté par Alexis de Tocqueville’, The Tocqueville Revue/La Révue Tocqueville 22, no. 2 (2001), 197–219. 47. Tocqueville, ‘Letter to Lamoricière’ (5 April 1846), quoted by Lucien Jaume, Tocqueville. Les sources aristocratiques de la liberté (Paris: Fayard, 2008), 408. 48. Genty de Bussy, De l’établissement des français dans la Régence d’Alger, vol. 1, 298. 49. Dèsjobert, La question d’Alger, 302. 50. Pellissier de Reynaud, Annales algériennes, 2nd edn, vol. 1 (Paris: J. Dumaine, 1854), 307. 51. Tocqueville, ‘Seconde Lettre sur l’Algérie’, 148. 52. Lamoricière, Réflexions sur l’état actuel d’Alger, 39. 53. Quoted by Ezequiel Adamovsky, ‘Diderot en Rusia, Rusia en Diderot’, Studia Historica 22 (2000), 245–82. 54. Dèsjobert, La question d’Alger, 40–41. 55. Le Globe, 10 November 1831. 56. Enfantin, De la colonisation de l’Algérie, 32. 57. Osama W. Abi-Mershed, Apostles of Modernity, 91. 58. Alice L. Conclin, A Mission to Civilize (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997). 59. Michel Chevalier, Religion saint-simonienne. Politique Européenne (Paris: Au Bureau du Globe, 1831), 126. 60. Michel Chevalier, Système de la Méditerranée (Paris: Aux bureaux du Globe, 1832). 61. Ferdinand Durand, Des tendances pacifiques de la société européenne et du rôle des armées dans l’avenir (Paris: R. Bocquet, 1841), 294–324. 62. Richard, De la civilisation du peuple arabe, 63–66. The project envisioned by Captain Richard also insists, among the social transformations required, on women’s emancipation. 63. Enfantin, De la colonisation de l’Algérie, 418, 426. 64. Ibid., 33. 65. Ibid., 418. 66. Quoted in Koselleck, Futures Past, 162. 67. Pellissier de Reynaud, Annales Algériennes, vol. 1, 6. 68. Pamela M. Pilbeam, ‘The Colonization of Algeria: The Role of Saint-Simonians’, 191. 69. See Annie Rey-Goldzeiguer, Le royaume arabe (Algiers: Office des Publications Universitaires, 1977). 70. Charles-Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, in Histoire populaire contemporaine de la France (Paris: Hachette, 1866), 159.

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71. Tocqueville, ‘Travail sur l’Algérie’, 226. Overcoming the one-sidedness of ascribing barbarism to others has a pedigree in France that goes back as far back as Montaigne’s famous writings on the subject: ‘Each man calls barbarism whatever is not his own practice.’ See ‘On Cannibals’, in The Complete Essays of Montaigne, trans. Donald M. Frame (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1958), 152. See, for instance: Peter Strohschneider, ‘Fremde in der Vormoderne. Über Negierbarkeitsverluste und Unbekanntheitsgewinne’, in Anja Becker (ed.). Alterität als Leitkonzept für historisches Interpretieren (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag 2012), 404–5; David Quint, Montaigne and the Quality of Mercy: Ethical and Political Themes in the ‘Essais’ (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014), 75–101. 72. Edmund Burke, ‘Speech on Opening the Articles of Impeachment’ (15 February 1788), quoted in Francis O’Gorman, Edmund Burke. His Political Philosophy (London: Allen and Unwin University Books, 1973). 73. Eugène Bodichon (1810–85) was a civilian doctor in Algiers who believed that the Arabs would deserve the same destiny met by the Indians in America if they remained impervious to attempts at civilization. He thought that the settlement of a colony that could bring the coastal Berbers back into European civilization required the French to exceed the limits of common morality. Bodichon, paradoxically, was a philanthropist supporter of social reforms aimed at improving the life of the working classes, but his philanthropy was restricted to the area of continental France (see Lorcin, Kabyles, arabes, français, 59). 74. Dèsjobert, La question d’Alger, 91, 94–95. 75. Tocqueville, ‘Seconde lettre’, 141–43. 76. Tocqueville, ‘Travail sur l’Algérie’, 226. 77. Enfantin, De la colonisation de l’Algérie, 78, 398. The officer Pellissier de Reynaud, named Director of Arab Affairs in 1837, also protested against the ‘barbaric customs we too often imitate’, criticizing the manner in which the conquest had been accomplished until then. ‘Perhaps never an occupation had been carried out with such an administrative chaos, not even in the most barbaric ages’ (Annales algériennes, vol. 1, 75, 367). 78. Enfantin, De la colonisation de l’Algérie, 400. 79. Enfantin, L’Algérie. Courrier d’Afrique, d’Orient et de la Méditerranée, 108, 12 July 1845. 80. See the note 71. 81. Pellissier de Reynaud, Annales algériennes, vol. 2, 31. ‘Enfumades’ were a tactic used by the French army during the campaign in Algeria. It consisted in suffocating people sheltered in caves by means of setting a fire that would consume all the oxygen. According to Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison, ‘The whole of some tribes were entirely annihilated in this way’; see Coloniser. Exterminer: Sur la guerre et l’État colonial (Paris: Fayard, 2005, 138–44). Pellissier writes about these tragic events in Annales algériennes, vol. 3, 168ff. 82. See Koselleck, Futures Past, 155–61; João Feres Junior, ‘O conceito de América: conceito básico ou contra-conceito?’, Jahrbuch für Geschichte Lateinamerikas/Anuario de Historia de América Latina (45) (2008), 9–29. 83. See Jennifer Pitts, ‘Empire and Democracy: Tocqueville and the Algeria Question’, 307ff.

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References Abi-Mershed, Osama W., Apostles of Modernity: Saint-Simonians and the Civilizing Mission in Algeria (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010). Adamovsky, Ezequiel, ‘Diderot en Rusia, Rusia en Diderot’, Studia Historica 22 (2000), 245–82. Assimacopoulou, Fotini, ‘Arthur de Gobineau commenté par Alexis de Tocqueville’, The Tocqueville Revue/La Révue Tocqueville 22, no. 2 (2001), 197–219. Baude, Baron, L’Algérie, vol. I (Brussels: Méline; Cans & Comp., 1841). Béguin, Christian, ‘Tocqueville et l’Algérie’, The Tocqueville Review/La Revue Tocqueville 30, no. 2 (2009), 179–203. Bonaparte, Charles-Louis-Napoléon, discourses in Histoire populaire contemporaine de la France (Paris: Hachette, 1866). Bussy, Genty de, De l’établissement des français dans la Régence d’Alger, et des moyens d’en assurer la prospérité (Paris, Firmin Didot, 1835). Chevalier, Michel, Religion saint-simonienne: Politique Européenne (Paris: Au Bureau du Globe, 1831). –––, Religion saint-simonienne: Politique industrielle. Système de la Méditerranée (Paris: Au Bureau du Globe, 1832). Colonisation de l’ex-Régence: documents officiels déposés sur le bureau de la Chambre des députés (Paris: Delaunay, 1834). Conclin, Alice L., A Mission to Civilize (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997). d’Eichthal, Gustave, andUrbain, Ismayl, Lettres sur la race noire et la race blanche (Paris: Pauline, 1839). Desjobert, Amédée, L’Algérie en 1838 (Paris: Dufart, 1838). –––, La question d’Alger. Politique, colonisation, commerce (Paris: Capelet, 1837). –––, L’Algérie en 1844 (Paris: Guillaumin, 1844). –––, L’Algérie en 1846 (Paris, Guillaumin 1846). Durand, Ferdinand, Des tendances pacifiques de la société européenne et du rôle des armées dans l’avenir (Paris: R. Bocquet, 1841). Émerit, Marcel, Les Saint-Simoniens en Algérie (Paris: Société d’édition Les Belles Lettres, 1941). Enfantin, Prosper, De la colonisation de l’Algérie (Paris: P. Bertrand, 1843). Feres Junior, João, ‘O conceito de América: conceito básico ou contra-conceito?’, Jahrbuch für Geschichte Lateinamerikas/Anuario de Historia de América Latina 45 (2008), 9–29. Fisquet, Honoré, Histoire de l’Algérie depuis les temps anciens jusqu’à nos jours:  publié  d’après les écrits et les documents les plus officiels (Paris: Baudouin, 1842). Grandmaison, Olivier Le Cour, Coloniser. Exterminer: Sur la guerre et l’État colonial (Paris: Fayard, 2005). Guizot, François, Cours d’Histoire moderne: Histoire générale de la civilization en Europe, 2nd edn (Brussels: Société belge de Librairie, 1839). Jaume, Lucien, Tocqueville. Les sources aristocratiques de la liberté (Paris: Fayard, 2008).

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Koselleck, Reinhart, ‘The Historical-Political Semantics of Asymmetric CounterConcepts’, in Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time, trans. Keith Tribe (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004). Lamoricière, Juchault de, Réflexions sur l’état actuel d’Alger (Paris: Le Normant, 1836). Lawlor, Mary, Alexis de Tocqueville in the Chamber of Deputies. His Views on Foreign and Colonial Policy (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1959). Levallois, Michel, and Sarga Moussa (eds), L’Orientalisme des saint-simoniens (Paris: Maisonneuve & Larose, 2006). Lorcin, Patricia M.E., Kabyles, arabes, français: identités coloniales (Limoges: Presses de l’Université de Limoges, 2005). Mélonio, Françoise, ‘Le choc des civilizations: Chassériau et Tocqueville en Algérie’, in Chassériau (1819–1856). Un autre romantisme. Actes du colloque organisé para le Musée du Louvre le 16 mars 2002 (Paris: La Documentation Française-Musée du Louvre, 2002), 171–96. Mill, John Stuart, On Liberty, 3rd edn (London: Longman, Roberts and Green, 1864). –––, ‘Three Essays on Religion’, in Collected Works, vol. 10, ed. John Robson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press; Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969), 369–489. O’Gorman, Francis, Edmund Burke. His Political Philosophy (London: Allen and Unwin University Books, 1973). Pilbeam, Pamela M., ‘The Colonization of Algeria: The Role of Saint-Simonians’, French History and Civilization 6 (2015), 89–196. Pitts, Jennifer, ‘Empire and Democracy: Tocqueville and the Algeria Question’, The Journal of Political Philosophy 8, no. 3 (2000), 295–318. –––, A Turn to Empire. The Rise of Imperial Liberalism in Britain and France (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005). Quint, David, Montaigne and the Quality of Mercy: Ethical and Political Themes in the ‘Essais’ (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014). Rey-Goldzeiguer, Annie, Le royaume arabe (Algiers: Office des Publications Universitaires, 1977). Reynaud, Pellissier de, Annales algériennes, 2nd edn, vol. 1 (Paris: J. Dumaine, 1854). Richard, Charles, Algérie. De la civilization du peuple arabe (Paris: Dubos, 1850). Richter, Melvin, ‘Tocqueville on Algeria’, The Review of Politics 25, no. 3 (1963), 362–98. Stokes, Eric, The English Utilitarians and India (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959). Strohschneider, Peter, ‘Fremde in der Vormoderne. Über Negierbarkeitsverluste und Unbekanntheitsgewinne’, in Anja Becker (ed.). Alterität als Leitkonzept für historisches Interpretieren (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag 2012). Tocqueville, Alexis de, Escritos sobre la esclavitud y el colonialismo, trans. Ana Portuondo, ed. Maria L. Sánchez-Mejía (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales, 2009). –––, Œuvres Complètes. Écrits et Discours Politiques, ed. André Jardin, vol. 1 (Paris: Gallimard, 1962).

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Todorov, Tzvetan, Présentation de la colonie en Algérie (Paris: Éditions complexe, 1988). Vigny, Alfred de, ‘Lettre à Victor de Laprade’ (30 June 1847), in Correspondence, vol. 1 (Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2012). Welch, Cheryl B., ‘Out of Africa: Tocqueville’s Imperial Voyages’, Review of Middle East Studies 45, no. 1 (2011), 53–61.

Chapter 8

‘People’, ‘Plebs’ and the Changing Boundaries of the Political

Asymmetrical Conceptualizations in Spanish Liberalism from a Comparative European Perspective Pablo Sánchez León

I

n Western culture, ‘people’ and ‘plebs’ are two concepts with a long pedigree, and the contrasting and opposition of these terms has closely followed the evolution of political discourse since Antiquity.1 Since the Renaissance, the concept of people has usually referred to the average majority of the population, conceived first as a complementary and later as an alternative source of sovereignty to the divine right of kings. In contrast, the term ‘plebs’ has been used to designate the lower strata of society, whose lack of economic, cultural or moral resources for autonomy would endanger the liberty, progress and stability of the social order in case of their incorporation into government. Thus, people and plebs stand out among the asymmetrical counterconcepts instituted in any modern polity based on the recognition of citizenship rights.  However, Reinhart Koselleck did not include this binary opposition in his typology alongside his featured asymmetrical counter-concepts, such as Hellene/Barbarian, Christian/Heathen and Human/Nonhuman.2 My intention is to show that People/Plebs offers a fourth theoretical and historical pair that, in shaping the internal divide between sovereign and non-sovereign individuals, reflects a constitutive tension of citizenship. The kind of asymmetries involved in the semantics of people and plebs are quite distinctive. Whereas pre-modern counter-concepts (such as the ones featuring barbarians or heathens) gave names to groups excluded from communities defined in cultural terms, the modern counter-concept of ‘non-human’ identifies alterity through its biological attributes. In comparison, the contrast between ‘people’ and ‘plebs’ functions both as a

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sign and a factor of exclusion from a self-determined political community, defining ‘non-citizens’ as a non-people and non-sovereign. In this sense, the ‘people’/‘plebs’ asymmetry is related to the political in two respects. According to Koselleck, counter-concepts in general signal the intensification of conflicts; as the determinants of ‘the political’, they express themselves in semantic oppositions between ‘friends’ and ‘enemies’.3 The pair ‘people’/‘plebs’ is particularly significant in shaping the contours of any formally political community. Besides, plebeian otherness entails complex dynamics of self-identification and mutual recognition.4 In contrast to the cases of barbarians and heathens, the plebeians’ belonging in a cultural community allows for their self-definition to be drawn from the same semantic repository as their counter-concept – to the extent that, at variance with non-humans, the plebs can, under certain circumstances, be recognized and included in the people. This possible dissolution of asymmetries shows that the embedded contestability of the antinomy in question depends on a speaker’s performance on behalf of the plebs, swinging back and forth between restating the plebs’ exclusion from the people and, inversely, claiming their inclusion. To fully grasp the shaping and gradation of the asymmetries between people and plebs, a historical approach to the opposition is required. In the ancien régime, both terms were interchangeable and fused in the concept of a Third State comprising the commoners at large, who were subject to taxation and lacked high status in the body politic. In order to become asymmetrical counter-concepts, the concepts of people and plebs underwent semantic dissociation until they formed an opposition. Paradoxically, this process coincided with the substitution of traditional estates with more fluid social hierarchies, following the establishment of representative government in the nineteenth century. There would, in any case, always be limits to an ontological naturalization of the plebs; this allowed for discourse favouring inclusion, which was to play a significant role in the rise of democratic self-identifications within the political culture of liberalism. Whereas the first part of this chapter traces the process of semantic differentiation between ‘people’ and ‘plebs’, mapping the limits of their disposition as asymmetrical counter-concepts, the second focuses on the issue of representing the plebs through tribunes and radical political leaders. Both parts investigate the dynamics of a singular case: Spain from the establishment of liberalism in the 1810s until the adoption of universal suffrage in the 1870s. In contrast, the third and final part widens the geographical scope of the study to Europe and simultaneously reduces its temporal span to discussions of the European Revolutions of 1848 – the

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context that was instrumental in shaping modern democracy, but that was also perceived at that time as a threat of plebeian hegemony.

People/Plebs Differentiation and the Limits to Ontological Asymmetries Initially, there was only one concept expressed by means of two different terms: at the opening session of the first liberal Parliament in 1810, the deputy José Mejía Lequerica spoke of people and plebs without distinguishing between them when underlining the efforts of the ‘heroic plebs of Madrid, queen of all the people’ to defend of the nation’s integrity against the French invaders.5 A few months later, following the establishment of freedom of the press in Spain, an influential pamphlet with the revealing title Eulogy of the Spanish Plebs consecrated plebs as ‘the most useful member among those who compose the great national family of Spain’. This semantic interchange both expressed and contributed to the overcoming of inherited hierarchical cleavages in the body politic. Having abandoned traditional estate-based criteria for the summoning of Parliament, early Spanish liberals committed themselves to removing the barriers that prevented plebeians from accessing military academies. By affirming that ‘the blood and the soul of the nobles cannot be distinguished at all from those of plebeians’, elected national representatives legislated that commoners should all be ‘free . . . to follow the career of honour’, in particular, and entitled to education in general.6 These policies were inscribed into a wider discourse on citizenship granting sovereignty to the all-encompassing ‘Nation of the Catholics’ and supplemented by the mythical reading of history according to which Spain inherited from its imperial setting a sort of ‘democratic monarchy’ that entailed the ‘frequent elevation of the poor plebeian’ to the privileged nobility.7 This self-perception of society and political constituency as already equalized was to loom large in liberal discourse. At the outset of Queen Isabella II’s reign – which began in 1833 – one of the main ideologues among conservatives – or moderados – argued that, although the US and Spanish constitutions were based on opposite principles (republicanism and monarchy, respectively), both were dominated ‘by the interest and influx of democracy’, which, in the case of Spain, meant ‘that of the mob’.8 The democratic character attributed to Spanish society and its constitution set the agenda of conservatives for years to come, leading them to stress the role of balancing institutions and the importance of policies to prevent the hazards of popular excesses.9 Progressive liberals  – the

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so-called progresistas – were not so prejudiced against popular participation in politics but still shared the fear of plebeian prominence. Two long periods of the repression of freedom– between 1814 and 1820 and between 1823 and 1833 – had convinced them that the enduring legacy of reactionary fanaticism could be all too easily reactivated. In the light of this recollection, they were eager to invest in a discourse that distinguished between honest and capable people and the alienated plebs manipulated by traditional powers, such as the loyalist candidate Carlos who aspired to the throne.10 As both conservatives and progressives agreed that a legitimate aristocracy had to be recreated from scratch, they easily found common ground for establishing a limited franchise (enacted by the 1837 Constitution). However, there was still controversy about the conditions for accessing civic institutions such as the National Militia, as well as different perceptions of the role played by popular upheavals: unlike moderados, the progresistas tended to acknowledge such upheavals as indicators of governmental (in)justice, legitimate in their signalling of the representatives’ detachment from public opinion. Conflicts worsened during the short regency by General Baldomero Espartero (1840–43) as progressives gained political ascendancy and passed legislation on local elections that extended the franchise but still failed to curtail urban unrest. The subsequent conservative backlash led to the new constitution, approved in 1845, that further reduced the electoral body and established a non-elective senate in order to provide political accommodation for the traditional social powers. Those struggles and their outcomes shook up the inclusive perception of citizenship; still, the cleavage between the notions of ‘people’ and ‘plebs’ remained rather uncertain, with its asymmetries tending to reflect the ebbs and tides of political life. In the wake of the 1848 uprisings, for example, the Ministry of State represented by the Marquis of Pidal boasted that the overall maintenance of public order had guaranteed that the ‘honest citizen’ could sleep quietly at home without fearing ‘the voices of a tumult or the noise of an insurrectionist plebs’.11 In mostly peaceful periods throughout the second half of the decade, on the other hand, the expansion of business led conservatives to substitute fear of the rampant masses with a view of the plebs as a residue of traditional society to be dispensed with by progress. A starker asymmetry between the concepts of ‘people’ and ‘plebs’ became established only in the wake of the 1854 Revolution, when a military pronunciamiento, followed by a series of successful popular upheavals in several cities including Madrid, resulted from a decade of conservative ascendancy characterized by an escalation towards authoritarian rule and a growing sense of corruption that extended all the way to the royal

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court. In the first post-revolutionary Parliament, efforts to downplay the presence of an important pro-democratic political minority led moderate and progressive orators alike to draw the line between the ‘true people’ – ‘that set of labouring men who with the blood of their veins and the sweat from their foreheads uphold the charges of the State and foster the public wealth’ – and the ‘plebs’, who were said to strive for the ‘restoration of despotism’ (as happened in 1823) or the erection of a ‘hateful fortress of tyranny over the ruins of liberty’ (as in the case of the urban disorders of 1843).12 But the prevailing political discourse prevented the development of full-fledged semantic asymmetry between the two concepts. In reaction to such side effects of capitalist entrepreneurship as speculation and poverty, commoners were habitually associated in radical discourse with industriousness, but this qualification assured the lower ranks a status within the people – together with the middle classes.13 So-called ‘socialist’ republicans were certainly committed to disseminating the image of a ‘Fourth Estate’, composed of that ‘labouring and needy class’ whose ‘absolute disinheritance’ and ‘eternal misery’ cried out for public relief and political recognition.14 The difficulty in defining the plebs by means of pre-existing sociological boundaries prevented the stabilization of semantic asymmetries and the focus on moral standards generated recurrent ambiguities in depictions of the people.15 Mutual recognition between people and plebs also involved serious obstacles. The republican and pro-democratic rhetoric championed and fuelled the naturalization of people. At the same time, none of the radical political groups ever strove to suppress the epistemological or evaluative inferiority of the term ‘plebs’: at the most, when speaking in the name of the people, orators neutralized the political grumpiness of its counterconcept, plebs. In general, referring to the plebs allowed for much ad hoc discursive abuse, as acknowledged by one democratic deputy: In those moments when the intervention of the people becomes necessary, they are considered heroic and there is nothing to fear of it; but whenever we are already in control of the situation, when it is about distributing the booty, then they are seen as a nasty plebs.16

In the long run, the pressure to extend the franchise accounted for the politicization of the people as much as that of the plebs, a process signalled by the spread of the conceptual asymmetry beyond political discourse. Around the middle of the century, pro-democratic and republican discourse developed in the context of expanding historical narratives that enhanced the role of the people in the acquisition and defence of liberties.17 But the most outstanding discipline in which the binary opposition eventually took hold was aesthetics.

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As novel went from being a fashion to a proper genre, the liberal intellectuals and opinion-makers committed themselves to submitting it to the rules of decorum. There were debates in the early 1860s on whether the artist should reproduce the cultural standards of the populace or rather try to increase its knowledge and enhance its morals (avoiding, at the same time, blatant moralization that would endanger the aesthetic value of literature). The binary counter-conceptualization that gathered momentum in this context was ‘popular’ vs ‘vulgar’. According to the moderate ideologue, politician and literary critique Juan Valera, many authors, in trying to be ‘popular’, ended up ‘lowering themselves to understand the vulgar’; by contrast, the true artist should speak in the name of the vulgar without bowing to uncultivated taste (reflected in its jargon and customs). Taste and inspiration, in sum, had to be shaped by high moral outlooks. In Valera’s words, ‘the great popular writers of the world have never lowered themselves down to the vulgar, but have rather elevated people towards themselves’, never ‘humiliating themselves in order to please them’.18 A radical reading of these arguments easily found its way into an ongoing reflection upon the public role of education and culture in the empowerment of citizens. What was more unexpected was the discursive transformation that turned the sociology of the vulgar upside down: as the expanding republican discourse targeted corruption and marginalization, the upper layers of society began to be denounced for lacking the morals and refinement expected of aristocracy.19 An image of civic and dignified people was employed in the discourse surrounding the so-called ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1868, when a coalition of republicans, democrats and progressive liberals succeeded in deposing Isabella II and established a new constitutional settlement founded on universal (male) suffrage. In this context, the pejorative semantics of ‘plebs’ was not overshadowed by the domination of ‘people’ in discourse, but rather cleansed of its derogatory overtones: it now designated those who lacked privileges or inherited status of any kind. Its counter-concept was no longer people (which, under such circumstances, became more of a synonym), but oligarchy, whose power sprang from its exclusive ownership of the state.20 When the shortlived Republic of 1873 demonstrated the success of citizens in achieving self-government, this takeover was attributed to people not plebs.21

Exclusion and the Fear of Democratic Demagogues Debates on the relations between representation and participation touched upon the issue of the tribunes speaking in the name of the people (or the plebs) – a topic that, in turn, was ingrained in the political imagination of

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liberal elites throughout the century. As early as the 1840s, conservatives had diagnosed the Spanish constitution with the hereditary egalitarian bias, evident in the despotic rule of ‘the poor and humble’ whenever ‘their leader, whether under the name of a King, tribune or president, is invested with terribly ample faculties to do whatever pleases the multitude’.22 Throughout the reign of Isabella II, the aim of moderados, who feared a proliferation of orators inflaming and mobilizing the people from the ranks of progressive liberals, was to institute a clear-cut distinction between the ancient civic ideal and the modern citizenship of limited rights and market relations (which turned popular sovereignty into an empty declaration).23 Progressives had a more benign perception of tribunes as intermediaries that were instrumental in governing opinions and channelling popular sovereignty, but as intraparty divisions escalated, they began to dread the split among liberals, which, in their opinion, would give free reign to anarchy and disorder. During this time, parliamentary speeches frequently featured the tribunes of the plebs in Roman Antiquity: whereas progresistas appreciated the efforts of such tribunes to widen liberties and dignify the populace, moderados condemned them as gravediggers of representative government that were nurturing tyranny and despotism. In this context, the development of republican discourse in the second half of the 1840s seemed like a self-fulfilling prophecy. The sharpening of the semantic asymmetry between ‘people’ and ‘plebs’ fuelled the identification of democracy (conventionally described as ‘pure democracy’ – democracia pura – and equated with ‘popular government’) with demagogy (customarily defined as the ‘ambition to dominate in a popular faction’):24 by taking this fusion to the extreme, 1848 became a watershed in the common history of both terms. As a matter of fact, the conceptual innovations in Spanish political discourse, impelled by the popular revolutions, failed to take hold in response to the fall of the July Monarchy in France or even in interpretations of the political crises in Central Europe. It was mostly the events in Italy that accounted for the recurrent references to demagogy in Spanish political discourse: in the heart of the Vatican, popular protests quickly led to the establishment of an ephemeral but novel republic that, among other measures, derogated from the temporal powers of Pope Pious IX, recognized the freedom of confessions and instituted universal male suffrage.25 The establishment of democratic rule in Rome – the city that symbolized, for Catholics, the legacy of Latin civilization – had a chilling effect on liberals in Spain and beyond: instead of relinquishing its power to the moderate and wealthy bourgeoisie, this city, which was the epitome of urban classical Antiquity, surrendered to the minute artisan populace that had been whipped up by democratic tribunes with the help of a radical self-government

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programme. Looked at from Spain, the Roman crisis was nothing short of a disaster considering the historical and constitutional analogies between these two Catholic monarchies. The shock that the crisis caused in Spain helps explain the torrent of negative outbursts against liberalism and the openly anti-liberal overtones of the concept of demagogy in the speeches at the parliamentary sessions devoted to evaluating the revolutions throughout Europe. As the protest cycle in the Vatican gave way to conciliation, a group of deputies led by Juan Donoso Cortés broke the consensus among moderates by branding Pope Pious IX’s attempts to reach an agreement with liberals as self-defeating.26 In explaining the meaning of the political crisis in the Vatican, Cortés sought the origins of revolutions not in liberals being overrun by democrats in a particular case, but in liberalism itself. In his famous discourse of 4 March 1849 – a piece of oratory later referred as ‘the speech on dictatorship’ – revolution was introduced as the natural consequence of modernity, while demagogy occupied a prominent role as the counter-concept of order.27 In Donoso Cortés’s description, the Republic of Rome was a fully fledged plebeian tyranny: ‘the germ of revolutions is in the over-excitement of masses by the tribunes that exploited them and profited from them.’ Observed from the context of its enunciation, though, the discourse offered its ideological opponents two contradictions to be picked apart. First of all, popular Roman leaders such as Giuseppe Mazzini were being labelled demagogues in spite of the fact that many of the civil and political liberties they instituted could be regarded as legitimate by European standards and were already amply present in the Spanish juridical system. Besides, once established, the Roman Republic had not slipped towards anarchy, but, on the contrary, had to be destroyed from outside by the armed forces. An alternative interpretation of the Italian events originated in the progressive party, which was also experiencing internal ideological and political disturbances. In responding to the accusations made by the moderate deputies who claimed that ‘demagogues ha[d] compromised the destiny of Italy’, the deputy José Ordax Avecilla turned the negative connotation of the concept around by arguing that, to his knowledge, ‘whenever popular governments start to establish themselves, the men that head them are always without exception given that nickname’. Accordingly, he continued, ‘we ourselves here’ – starting with the President of the Cabinet ‘and including all of the gentlemen deputies’ – ‘have sometime bore the label of demagogues’. Avecilla concluded by saying that ‘more than an infamous title, it can sometimes be a glorious one’.28 The relevance of this passage is revealed through proper contextualization. Just a few days before giving the speech, Ordax Avecilla himself

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had signed a so-called ‘Progressive Democratic Manifesto’ in which, for the first time in Spanish history, a political establishment openly advocated universal suffrage and urged the creation of a Spanish Democratic Party – an initiative that would eventually transform the Spanish political system as a whole.29 Thus, 1848 served as a crucible for all Spanish liberals, right and left, giving rise to important conceptual implications that gathered momentum a few years later when the 1854 Revolution set democracy as the horizon of expectation for the Spanish representative government.30 Nevertheless, the implantation of democracy into the mainstream political discourse did not doom its counter-concepts; on the contrary, it actually contributed to its differentiation from demagogy  – particularly among democrats. By 1856, the deputy Francisco García López was already arguing that his democratic followers ‘do not want demagogy but democracy’, between which he found ‘a huge distance’. López went on to clarify ‘the democracy we defend’ – ‘the posing of all kinds of rights, of all those collective rights that conform the political right’ – concluding that demagogy could not be said to be represented anymore in the Parliament.31 As democracy was normalized in Spanish political language, a negative definition of demagogy became conventional, too. As early as the 1852 edition of the official dictionary of the Spanish language, the term acquired a second meaning as ‘the predominance of the plebs’, which actually meant a plebeian tyranny. But, in the following decade, thanks to the pressure applied inside and outside the Cortes, republicans and democrats succeeded in sidelining the terms ‘demagogue’ and ‘anarchy’ in favour of the much more agreeable ‘tribune’ and ‘democracy’.32 Yet, even the 1868 Revolution and its sequels did not succeed in totally wiping out the term ‘demagogy’, which continued to be used by both defenders and adversaries of universal suffrage keen to prevent recognition of their opponents. The unresolved semantic tension between democracy and demagogy was finally transferred to the official dictionary of 1884, in which the two earlier definitions of the concept were fused into a brand new one – the ‘tyrannical domination of the plebs’ – that was to remain in later editions until the end of the twentieth century.33

Popular Participation and the Limits to a Self-Concept of Plebs in Modern Politics ‘A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of Communism.’34 The sentence that opens the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, published on the cusp of the 1848 ‘Springtime of the Peoples’,

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remains the prefect expression of the lasting ideological, social and institutional transformations to come. It is widely acknowledged, however, that the impact of that famous pamphlet in particular – and of revolutionary socialism in general – was rather limited in that context of political and constitutional crisis. The case of Spain shows that, instead of the spectre of communism, the fears of many nineteenth-century liberal elites were aroused by another arresting image – an unwelcome combination of popular political participation and factional leadership. ‘Demagogy’ provided a missing link between ‘democracy’ and ‘anarchy’, which was the epitome of the deepest social disorder. The focus on Spain is also pertinent for another reason relating to conceptual change. In the wake of 1848, two definitions of dictatorship exercised an enduring influence upon modern political philosophy: one was coined by Marx and Engels in their aforementioned pamphlet and the other came to life in Juan Donoso Cortés’s parliamentary speech made in 1849. Although they stemmed from opposing ideological standpoints – and partly because of this opposition – they are packed with similes. The discourse of both German and Spanish intellectuals is founded on dichotomies (such as religion/politics), as well as counter-concepts (for instance, ‘bourgeoisie’/‘proletariat’ or ‘revolution’/‘counter-revolution’)  – though the opposition people/plebs is conspicuously absent. The dialectics of revolution and reaction actually shapes both pieces of literature, the difference being in who is bestowed with the authority to embody them. In any case, in both texts, revolution is no longer a contingent event or a short-lived process: it is here to stay, as a stage in historical dynamics and a horizon of expectation. In its turn, this overall framing affects the traditional concept of tyranny: Marx and Engels and Donoso Cortés twist the traditional meaning and scope of the term, rendering its semantics obsolete and calling for change. Indeed, the significant departure from the philosophical heritage is noticeable in both texts. After 1789, revolutions and their sequels (in the form of tyrannies imposed from above or below) were often acknowledged as the extreme manifestation of collective behaviour inspired by the ancient idea of citizenship. From 1848 onwards, tyranny was no longer perceived as an ephemeral or circumstantial event; instead, the term began to signify long historical periods or even whole political regimes and its systemic, processual nature demanded recognition and analysis.35 The stage had been set for the modern concept of dictatorship to appear. Another major semantic innovation in both texts pertains to the semantics of community and order: the authors of the texts move beyond natural law and use their sociological imagination to conceptualize society

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as an instituted reality, the analysis of which requires scholarly tools. In its turn, this brand-new holistic understanding of society affected the traditional concept of people. Both ‘society’ and ‘people’, in the new approach, amalgamated various semantic layers – from economics and morals to psychology and culture – and yet there was a crucial difference between them: ‘people’ was the only concept that incorporated a constitutional dimension – something society, in their view, could never claim for itself. The Communist Manifesto and the Discourse on Dictatorship show that before 1848 neither dictatorship nor society were dominant concepts in social and political discourse, let alone scholarship. What had been at the centre of debates until then was, rather, the distinction between an empowered people capable of sovereign self-command and a part of society lacking the conditions for autonomy. The tension between the two images fusing political and moral connotations together was constitutive for the binary rhetoric that laid the foundations for the counterconceptual asymmetry between ‘people’ and ‘plebs’. The changing boundaries of the political, fostered by the claims made for democracy in 1848, produced a markedly different context in which the meta-concept of society, offering great possibilities for scientific analysis but devoid of constitutional significance, stood in opposition to the idea of people as sovereign subject, increasingly marginalized as an object of observation and analytical reflection. As with the binary opposition between people and plebs, it did not fade away but nor did it flourish, being no doubt affected by the semantic emptying of ‘people’ in favour of ‘society’. This was the outcome of 1848, but not its prequel. What was still under debate in 1848 was the full recognition of the populace in the social order, as well as its participation in representative institutions: this process concerned neither the working class in particular nor ‘the people’ as a generic formula for the legitimization of representative government, but rather the plebs – the group that remained excluded from actual politics despite its politically accomplished self-determination. The Communist Manifesto and the Discourse on Dictatorship were two alternative or even opposing responses to the ongoing discussion about whether people and plebs should have remained counter-concepts or whether they should merge into a single notion – an issue that acquired enormous significance with the rise of democratic political discourse. By entering this debate from radical standpoints, Marx and Engels, on the one hand, and Donoso Cortés, on the other, disposed of the semantic criteria that had been determining the contradistinction since 1789. Whereas the Spanish deputy’s solution was to create a space between the traditional divine-right monarchy and democracy that would concentrate all

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sovereignty in one single person of the people, the founders of Marxism decoupled political democracy from popular sovereignty, envisaging a democratic regime with just one part of the people – the proletariat – as an exclusive sovereign. At this point, however, we should refrain from reading too much teleology into the intellectual currents represented by the two texts in question. Of course, such acute observers of social transformations as Marx and Engels could well consider the organized Fourth Estate for the role of the itinerant revolutionary spectre that they described so vividly in the Manifesto. On the other hand, the ideologues who were as committed to the maintenance of traditional order as Donoso Cortés were capable of anticipating the phantom of disorder in its demagogic quintessence. Yet, for an average politician trying to overcome the resilient ancien régime and consolidate representative government, such lofty associations were of little value: what was at stake was the imminence of plebeian tyranny as opposed to full-fledged popular political participation. Of course, the two possibilities differed in scope and span and were markedly opposed to each other in matters relating to the roles of revolutionary tribunes and political representation; however, for all these differences, both relied on the asymmetrical opposition between democracy and demagogy and assumed ‘people’ and ‘plebs’ to be counter-concepts. Unlike workers or the middle classes, the plebs in 1848 did not speak for themselves. There was no ‘plebeian party’ that sought to organize the plebs in the way Marx and Engels had shown the working class how to organize itself or Spanish democrats had shown the ‘people’; plebs were much spoken about but had no noticeable voice of their own. As a political and discursive agent, plebs simply did not exist in 1848 – or, for that matter, after 1848. They could only be represented by others who resorted to the instituted language of empowerment and emancipation, featuring such constitutive concepts as ‘people’, ‘nation’ or, the distant third, ‘class’. The word ‘plebs’, however, was not on the list. This situation turns plebs into a perfect example of subaltern agency in metropolitan modernity;36 while belonging in the biological and cultural community, the plebs lack the recognition to be admitted into political communication as one of its agencies – the very meaning of the term is at the mercy of those who utter it. The lack of face, individual embodiment or even bare collective integrity in the notion of plebs withstands the changing conditions of inclusion and exclusion in modern politics. Confined to passive otherhood, plebs serve as a backdrop to the circularity of steadily growing democratic discourse, in which every proliferation of tribunes of the people is followed by their rhetorical debasement as demagogues.

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Conclusion In nineteenth-century political culture, the semantic tension between ‘people’ and ‘plebs’ served as a resource for limiting the franchise and dispensing with institutional and social reforms. At the same time, it helped radical positions – especially those advocating universal suffrage – gain respectability in the public sphere. The notion of plebs, however, fell short of a sociological category and could not be defined ontologically; the only choice that remained for its bearers in their struggle for recognition was self-inclusion in the people. This semantic configuration of the pair ‘people’ vs ‘plebs’ may be of interest in current debates on populism. In conventional normative approaches, populism is usually summarized as a political discourse that discards the conventional ideological division between right and left, instead employing the classical distinction between friends and enemies to distinguish the elite from common citizens. Regarded historically, however, any rhetoric that subscribes to the notion of people as a self-determined collective sovereign is incomplete if it does not ascribe a definition to the excluded plebs. The cleavage between people and plebs demonstrates the persistence in modern politics of the distinction between the top and the bottom, which the expansion of universal suffrage tried hard to obscure. Citizenship as a category has no legal room for ­exclusion – and yet exclusion takes place. In modern political discourse, there is always a notion of plebs, the semantics of which is a sort of container filled with all the counter-values of citizenship: it is up to the representatives of the people to decide upon the limits of inclusion and who is excluded in practice. One readily speaks of populism when the upper levels of society are denigrated or excluded, but things becomes less clear when exclusion affects the lower strata of society. Thus regarded, populism is just a single variation of the much more general dynamics that constitutes modern politics. The crucial contribution of conceptual history to the analysis of political movements is the otherwise neglected differentiation between the nineteenth-century idea of demagogy and the twenty-first-century notion of populism, separated by a century-long hegemony of universal suffrage as the guideline in the institutionalization of democracy. Neither the content nor the status of the two concepts is the same, but both reflect the imagination unleashed by the real possibility of popular participation in political and constitutional crises. In this sense, demagogy is the ancestor of populism, at least to the extent that the expansion of the latter has coincided with the decline in usage of the former term.

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According to the interpretation outlined above, the semantic context of the terms ‘demagogy’ and ‘populism’ is not limited to recurring accusations of manipulating the masses in opposition to ambitious leaders, but also has to do with the moral perception of the social body and political subjectivity. The branding of plebs as essentially inferior, or at least degraded, stands in counter-position to the people, and this dual anthropology is used to separate worthy citizens from unworthy ones. Thus regarded, the semantic fields of demagogy and populism are the products of the need (shared by nineteenth-century liberals with twenty-first-century liberal-democrats) to distinguish between the rhetorical construct of people serving as the passive foundation of sovereignty and a dangerous populace meddling in the decision-making processes undertaken by the government for the sake of common good. The concept’s binary and asymmetrical relation with the concept of people makes plebs appear as an inferior and degraded stratum incapable of self-determination. On the other hand, that term ‘people’ does not belong to the set of fundamental concepts on which modern culture has founded the scientific approach to social reality. This lack of analytical status allows ‘plebs’ – its counter-concept – to be stuffed with all kinds of prejudices and cultural conventions before these are subjected to any critical scrutiny. For example, the manipulation of the masses by tribunes is not specifically a feature of populism but can be attributed to any political ideology in the modern public sphere; the road to tyranny cannot be simply deduced from popular participation in politics. It is noteworthy that the barriers erected throughout the nineteenth century against popular inclusion, with the help of property and educational qualifications, have largely been torn down a century later: today, nobody would equate democracy, universal suffrage or a republican political system with disorder or the institutionalization of anarchy. But in the past these semantic links served to discursively underpin the prejudice against popular participation in politics and even today the active role of the people in self-government is a source of many fears and disavowals. That is the true spectre, lurking behind denunciations of populism, that stalks Europe in its third millennium. Pablo Sánchez León is a researcher at the Centro de Humanidades CHAM – Universidade Nova de Lisboa. Trained as a historian of social movements and conflicts, he has extensively investigated the language of political commitment and moral values in Spanish modernity. On this issue and in relation to a history of modern citizenship, he has recently published the monograph Popular Political Participation and the Democratic Imagination in Spain, 1766–1868. From Crowd to People

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(Palgrave-MacMillan, 2020). He has also coedited the book Palabras que atan. Metáforas y conceptos del vínculo social en la historia moderna y contemporánea (Words that Bind. Metaphors and Concepts of the Social Bond in Early Modern and Modern History) (Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2015) and is currently working on ‘mixed constitution’ or mixed government as a grammar for political imagination in the passage to modernity.

Notes This chapter was produced as part of my involvement in the project ‘La nación traducida. Ecologías de la traducción, 1668–1830’, Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, Spain (PGC2018-095007-B-I00).  1. Martin Breaugh, L’expérience plébéienne. Une histoire discontinue de la liberté politique (Paris: Payot, 2007); John S. MacClelland, The Crowd and the Mob: From Plato to Canetti (New York: Routledge, 2011 [1989]).  2. See Reinhart Koselleck, Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004 [1979]), 155–91.  3. According to Carl Schmitt, the definition of an enemy is a political act in itself; yet the content of such enmity is not always expressed in formal political discourse. On the other hand, particularly in modern discourse, binary oppositions tend to depoliticize the enemy by presenting him/her as an outlaw or a nuisance rather than a voluntary enemy. However, Schmitt conceived the overall dynamics of concept formation in a very ideological and politicized manner, which Koselleck tried to tone down. See Niklas Olsen, History in the Plural: An Introduction to the Work of Reinhart Koselleck (New York: Berghahn Books, 2012), 189–90.  4. In pre-modern binary oppositions, the excluded could still produce a self-identification by drawing upon an alternative conceptual repository: ‘The use of asymmetrical counter-concepts entails addressing others in a disparaging way, and the party referred to, despite its awareness of being addressed, does not consider itself properly recognized by this reference. This disapproval, in turn, is likely to result in antonymic substitution.’ Kay Junge, ‘Self-concepts, Counter-Concepts, Asymmetrical Counter-Concepts. Some Aspects of a Multi-Faceted Agenda’, in Kay Junge and Kirill Postoutenko (eds), Asymmetrical Concepts after Reinhart Koselleck. Historical Semantics and Beyond (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2011), 30. The case of humans vs non-humans is different because the latter are not even bestowed with intellectual capacities.  5. Juan Francisko Fuentes, Si no hubiera esclavos no habría tiranos (proclamas, artículos y documentos de la Revolución española (1789–1837)) (Madrid: El Museo Universal, 1988), 38–40. The text was published in the journal El Robespierre español and used the term ‘people’ consistently and more often than ‘plebs’. Deputy Mejia’s speech in Diario de Sesiones de Cortes (hereafter DSC), 29 December 1810, 253.  6. DSC, 12 August 1811, 1627. Maintaining social restrictions for entering military educational institutions was also seen as a mechanism that provoked a dreadful ‘open war among the two classes’ and was a source of ‘irreconcilable hatred and opposition that undermined the unity required for victory over the invader’. DSC, 13 August 1811, 1632.

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 7.

 8.

 9.

10.

11. 12. 13.

14.

15.

16. 17.

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In early Spanish liberal political culture, it was education rather than property that was deemed the main precondition for citizens’ rights. See Pablo Sánchez León, ‘Science, Customs and the Modern Self: From Emulation to Education in Spanish Enlightenment Discourse’, Contributions to the History of Concepts 11, no. 2 (2017), 98–120. Pablo Sánchez León, ‘Aristocracia fantástica. Los moderados y la poética del gobierno representativo’, Ayer 61 (2006), 77–103; Pablo Sánchez León, ‛El pueblo en el primer liberalismo hispano. Lenguaje, identidad colectiva y representación política’, Araucaria 24, no. 49 (2022), 473–98. https://doi.org/10.12795.23. So that in the United States ‘people do everything, even choose the supreme magistrate with the title of president: there, in sum, equality is absolute, and the laws do not recognize any distinction between men, whatever their origin is’. In addition: ‘There equality reigns in society and the laws; here [it reigns] in spite of the laws, due to the democratic character of our government.’ Antonio Alcalá Galiano, Lecciones de derecho politico constitucional (Madrid: Imprenta de D.I. Boix, 1843), 45–46. For example, in 1835, on the eve of the public auction of monasteries, spontaneous mobilizations against the clergy made conservatives denounce the populace whenever guided ‘by a criminal heat’ or ‘led by its own ferocious passions’, DSC, 19 May 1835, 2552–53. At the height of the civil war between the liberals and followers of Carlos, a progresista deputy described so-called carlistas as a ‘a miserable party originated in the scum of society, mostly composed of the convicted, murderers, thieves and the most unwanted people’, DSC, 22 June 1837, 4229. In his view, these latter ‘would have put the arms in the hands of the plebs’ but for the purpose of ‘subduing both the Throne and the people’, DSC, 20 November 1850, 168. DSC, 24 January 1856, 10163–64. See on this issue Manuel Pérez Ledesma, ‘The Formation of the Working Class. A Cultural Creation’, in José A. Piqueras and Vincent Sanz Rozalén (eds), A Social History of Spanish Labour: New Perspectives on Class, Politics and Gender (New York: Berghahn Books, 2007), 19–42. See also Javier Varela, ‘The Image of the People in Spanish Liberalism (1808–1848)’, Iberian Studies 18, no. 1 (1989), 10–21. This definition was offered by a republican-democrat politician and journalist, who also argued that neither ‘opinion’ nor ‘custom’ made it possible to speak in Spain of proper ‘proletarians’ due to the historical trajectory of the country: in his own words, ‘our nation has always been popular to a high degree and democratic in its social spheres’, so that virtue, talent and labour ‘even from the humblest origin’ competed with blood and office, allowing for social mobility. See Eugenio García Ruiz, La democracia, el socialismo y el comunismo según la filosofía y la historia (Madrid: imprenta de C. González, 1861), 72–73. By the middle of the nineteenth century, moderates diagnosed the ‘notorious contradiction’ in the progressive liberals’ portrayal of ‘the people as utterly unhappy, brutalized and villainized’ but at the same time ‘full of noble thoughts and generous affections’ and, as had hastily been concluded, possessing ‘enough enlightenment to make good use of the power they could conquer’. Antonio Alcalá Galiano, Breves reflexiones sobre la índole de la crisis por que están pasando los Gobiernos y Pueblos de Europa (México: Tipografía de R. Rafael, 1849), 35. DSC, 24 January 1856, 10181. Two relevant texts declaring their commitment to popular history were published in 1850. One, narrating the decline of liberties at the end of the Middle Ages, targeted a public ‘interested in the most numerous class, which is also the most unfortunate’: Antonio Ferrer del Río, Historia del levantamiento de las Comunidades de Castilla, 1520–1521 (Madrid: Establecimiento Tipográfico de Mellado, 1850), xxiv. The other, a

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18. 19.

20.

21.

22. 23.

24. 25.

26.

27.

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most comprehensive general history of Spain, tried to unveil ‘the providential destiny of the Spanish people’, who were capable of overcoming all forms of domination and also learning from them to ensure a better future: Modesto Lafuente, Historia general de España (Barcelona: Montaner y Simón, 1887 [1850]), i, v. Juan Valera, ‘La poesía popular como ejemplo del punto en que deberían coincidir la idea vulgar y la idea académica sobre la lengua castellana’ (1862), in Obras Escogidas, XIII (Ensayos I) (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 1928), 258–304, quotations from 297. This was actually a commonplace with a long pedigree among liberal elites. As early as the 1840s, some historians assumed that as a part of the ‘democratic’ development of Spanish culture and constitution, ‘the nobility among us was vulgarized’ in its habits, adopting popular customs. See Alcalá Galiano, Lecciones, 65. According to the federalist republican Valentí Almirall, society was divided between those who ‘live honestly from their work and trade’, for which they ‘do not need any privileges at all’, being ‘part of the true productive people’, and those who live ‘from premium exchange and live on privilege’, who ‘of necessity need power to exploit their equal citizens’, whom he also labelled ‘drones’. V. Almirall, ‘La demagogia y el socialismo’ (1870), quoted in Manuel Pérez Ledesma, ‘Ricos y pobres; pueblo y oligarquía; explotadores y explotados. Las imágenes dicotómicas en el siglo XIX español’, Revista del Centro de Estudios Constitucionales 10 (1991), 59–88, quotation from 74. Virtuous citizens were regarded as plebeians by origin who were acting as people. Having been designated deputy in 1872, a member of the federal republican party defined his election as ‘the triumph of the people, of democracy, of plebeians’, and argued that ‘[t]he triumph of plebeians’ represented the ‘triumph over the aristocracy, the nobility and the privileged classes’. DSC, 1 May 1872, 84. On the parallel rise of an antinomy between people and the bourgeoisie, see Pérez Ledesma, ‘The Formation’. Alcalá Galiano, Lecciones, 139. Self-declared moderates such as the jurist Nicomedes Pastor Díaz, for example, denounced the ‘apostles of the ancient democratic school’ ready to exhume ‘the unfleshed though still intact echelon’ of the French Revolution, arguing that they were instigating ‘the mob’ to express itself directly in politics. See Nicomedes Pastor Díaz, La cuestión electoral, en diciembre de 1839 y enero de 1840 (Cáceres: Imprenta de D. Lucas de Burgos, 1839), 11 and 14 respectively. See Diccionario de la Real Academia Española (DRAE) (Madrid: Real Academia Española, 1832), 239 and 240 respectively. The 1832 edition of the official dictionary introduced the term ‘demagogy’ for the first time. On the 1848 crisis in Rome, see Marco Severini, La Repubblica romana del 1849 (Venice: Marsilio, 2011). The decree that served as constitutional framework for the experiment of urban self-government established the following: ‘The form of government of the Roman State will be pure democracy [la democrazia pura] and will receive the glorious name of Roman Republic [Repubblica Romana]’ (art. 3). Republican legitimacy lasted barely five months, from February to June 1849. Leaning on precursors such as Joseph de Maistre, Donoso Cortés was re-establishing modern reactionary thought. On Donoso Cortés’s status in the European genealogy of reactionary thought, see Alberto Spektorowski, ‘Maistre, Donoso Cortés and the Legacy of Catholic Authoritarianism’, Journal of the History of Ideas 63, no. 2 (2002), 283–302. On his anti-liberal radicalization, see Antonio Rivera García, ‘NineteenthCentury Spanish Counter-Revolution: The Critique to Liberal Parliamentarianism and the Praise of the Traditional Constitution’, in Kari Palonen, Jose Maria Rosales and Tapani Turkka (eds), The Politics of Dissensus: Parliament in Debate (Santander: McGraw-Hill; Universidad de Cantabria, 2014), 127–48. In Donoso Cortés’s words, ‘freedom’ had been ‘vexed, mocked, wounded with malice by all the demagogues in the world’ until its final ‘ordeal’, which had taken place ‘on

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28. 29. 30.

31. 32.

33.

34. 35.

36.

the margins of the river Tiber’ and led all the way up to the Pope’s Roman residence in Quirinal Palace. DSC, 4 January 1849, 170. See the speech in Selected Works of Juan Donoso Cortés, ed. Jeffrey P. Johnson (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000), 45–58. DSC, 19 May 1849, 2311. He had started asking himself whether tribunes speaking for the plebs were ‘a separate caste from the rest of men’. For ‘[a]ll Spanish of age capable of reading and writing and having a fixed residence and a profession or job that made them free of dependency from the will of other persons’. Miguel Artola, Partidos y programas politicos, II (Madrid: Aguilar, 1974), 43. On the 1854 political crisis, see the classic work by Victor G. Kiernan, The Revolution of 1854 in Spanish History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966). On the links between Spanish and Roman radicalism, see Guy Thompson, ‘Mazzini y España (1832–1872)’, Historia Social 59 (2007), 21–55. DSC, 24 January 1856, 10171. By that time, progressives were also defining themselves as ‘democrats’, albeit this concerned only ‘theory’ and not ‘its practical application’. DRAE (1852), 224. Note that this definition departs from the arguments by John Stuart Mill and Alexis de Tocqueville regarding the ‘tyranny of the majority’. See a review in Donald J. Malentz, ‘Tocqueville’s Tyranny of the Majority Reconsidered’, The Journal of Politics 64, no. 3 (2002), 741–63. On Mill and Tocqueville’s analogies, see Alan S. Kahan, Aristocratic Liberalism: The Social and Political Thought of Jacob Burkhardt, John Stuart Mill, and Alexis de Tocqueville (New York: Transaction Publishers, 2001). This formula survived until the introduction of the concept of populism in 1989. However, such vitality could be due to the inherent amphiboly: the 1885 definition of demagogy can be read as the domination either of the plebs or over the plebs. See the new definition of demagogy as ‘dictatorial government with popular support’ in DRAE (1989), 508. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2004), 61. The image of a system implied not only the stated interrelation of its parts but also the systematic theory explaining phenomena as a coherent whole – hence the invocation of ‘laws’ by Marx and Engels, and also by Donoso Cortés. According to the latter, ‘God rules the universe through laws’, the problem being that ‘the causes of revolutions’ – which he described as ‘universal, unforeseen’ – are only analysed ‘superficially’ when in fact they are not ‘just failures in government but something more providential’, DSC, 4 January 1849, 168. Aside from resorting to the divine, this epistemological standpoint is congenial to Marx and Engels when they opine that ‘the theoretical theses of the Communists are not based in any sense in the ideas or principles invented or discovered by this or that reformer of this world’, but are ‘the expression of the real conditions of an ongoing class struggle, of a historical movement that is developing in front of our eyes’, Marx and Engels, Communist Manifesto, 168. See Gayatri Chakravortry Spivak, A Critique of Postcolonial Reason. Toward a History of the Vanishing Present (London: Harvard University Press, 1999). Spivak’s insights deal with postcolonial realities.

References Artola, Miguel, Partidos y programas politicos, II (Madrid: Aguilar, 1974). Breaugh, Martin, L’expérience plébéienne: Une histoire discontinue de la liberté politique (Paris: Payot, 2007). Cortés, Donoso, Selected Works of Juan Donoso Cortés, ed. Jeffrey P. Johnson (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000).

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Díaz, Nicomedes Pastor, La cuestión electoral, en diciembre de 1839 y enero de 1840 (Cáceres: Imprenta de D. Lucas de Burgos, 1839). Fuentes, Juan Francisco, Si no hubiera esclavos no habría tiranos (proclamas, artículos y documentos de la Revolución española (1789–1837)) (Madrid: El Museo Universal, 1988). Galiano, Antonio Alcalá, Breves reflexiones sobre la índole de la crisis por que están pasando los Gobiernos y Pueblos de Europa (Mexico: Tipografía de R. Rafael, 1849). –––, Lecciones de derecho politico constitucional (Madrid: Imprenta de D.I. Boix, 1843). García, Antonio Rivera, ‘Nineteenth-Century Spanish Counter-Revolution: The Critique to Liberal Parliamentarianism and the Praise of the Traditional Constitution’, in Kari Palonen, Jose Maria Rosales and Tapani Turkka (eds), The Politics of Dissensus: Parliament in Debate (Santander: McGraw-Hill; Universidad de Cantabria, 2014), 127–48. Junge, Kay, ‘Self-concepts, Counter-Concepts, Asymmetrical Counter-Concepts. Some Aspects of a Multi-Faceted Agenda’, in Kay Junge and Kirill Postoutenko (eds), Asymmetrical Concepts after Reinhart Koselleck. Historical Semantics and Beyond (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2011), 9–50. Kahan, Alan S., Aristocratic Liberalism: The Social and Political Thought of Jacob Burkhardt, John Stuart Mill, and Alexis de Tocqueville (New York: Transaction Publishers, 2001). Kiernan, Victor G., The Revolution of 1854 in Spanish History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966). Koselleck, Reinhart, Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004 [1979]). Lafuente, Modesto, Historia general de España (Barcelona: Montaner y Simón, 1887 [1850]). Ledesma, Manuel Pérez, ‘The Formation of the Working Class. A Cultural Creation’, in José A. Piqueras, and Vincent Sanz Rozalén (eds), A Social History of Spanish Labour: New Perspectives on Class, Politics and Gender (New York: Berghahn Books, 2007), 19–42. –––, ‘Ricos y pobres; pueblo y oligarquía; explotadores y explotados. Las imágenes dicotómicas en el siglo XIX español’, Revista del Centro de Estudios Constitucionales 10 (1991), 59–88. MacClelland, John S., The Crowd and the Mob: From Plato to Canetti (New York: Routledge, 2011 [1989]). Malentz, Donald J., ‘Tocqueville’s Tyranny of the Majority Reconsidered’, The Journal of Politics 64, no. 3 (2002), 741–63. Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2004). Olsen, Niklas, History in the Plural: An Introduction to the Work of Reinhart Koselleck (New York: Berghahn Books, 2012). Río, Antonio Ferrer del, Historia del levantamiento de las Comunidades de Castilla, 1520–1521 (Madrid: Establecimiento Tipográfico de Mellado, 1850). Ruiz, Eugenio García, La democracia, el socialismo y el comunismo según la filosofía y la historia (Madrid: imprenta de C. González, 1861).

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Sánchez León, Pablo, ‘Aristocracia fantástica. Los moderados y la poética del gobierno representativo’, Ayer 61 (2006), 77–103. –––, ‘Science, Customs and the Modern Self: From Emulation to Education in Spanish Enlightenment Discourse’, Contributions to the History of Concepts 13, no. 1 (2017), 98–120. –––, ‛El pueblo en el primer liberalismo hispano. Lenguaje, identidad colectiva y representación política’, Araucaria 24, no. 49 (2022), 473–98. https://doi. org/10.12795.23. Severini, Marco, La Repubblica romana del 1849 (Venice: Marsilio, 2011). Spektorowski, Alberto, ‘Maistre, Donoso Cortés and the Legacy of Catholic Authoritarianism’, Journal of the History of Ideas 63, no. 2 (2002), 283–302. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravortry, A Critique of Postcolonial Reason. Toward a History of the Vanishing Present (London: Harvard University Press, 1999). Thompson, Guy, ‘Mazzini y España (1832–1872)’, Historia Social 59 (2007), 21–55. Valera, Juan, ‘La poesía popular como ejemplo del punto en que deberían coincidir la idea vulgar y la idea académica sobre la lengua castellana’ (1862), http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/obra-visor/discursos-academicos--0/html/ ff395d86-82b1-11df-acc7-002185ce6064_3.html#I_2_. Varela, Javier, ‘The Image of the People in Spanish Liberalism (1808–1848)’, Iberian Studies 18, no. 1 (1989), 10–21.

Chapter 9

‘Order’ vs ‘Chaos’

Asymmetrical Counter-Concepts and Ideological Struggles in Early Twentieth-Century Russian Poland Wiktor Marzec

A ‘

fter winning over the plaguing anarchy, the renewed social life  – will pour into new forms and will be organized anew.’1 This striking passage comes from a manifesto calling for nothing more than universal mobilization to fight illiteracy. The manifesto, published in an emerging industrial giant – the multi-ethnic city of Łódź in central Poland  – was to become one of the founding texts of the movement urging the Polish provincial intelligentsia to adopt the new ethos about their social mission. The numerous representatives of the local elites who signed it did not want, however, to wait until this change would finally happen – they ‘consider[ed it] as [their] holy obligation to immediately declare war against illiteracy’. The main point of reference was, however, the surrounding anarchy and disorder. Social life had to be rethought anew because ‘new foundations for social and state life were emerging’: with the ‘wheel of history spinning exceptionally fast’, there were, as the slightly fearful intelligentsia believed, ‘the broad people’s masses’ who were eager to ‘retake the stave of social leadership’. To counter ‘the frightening power of illiterates’, ‘everybody who was able to read and write’ had a ‘magnificent and holy obligation’ to ‘become a teacher of the people’. In short, disorder had to be avoided by all means. It was December 1905 and the massive outburst of popular protest generally known as the 1905 Revolution was at its peak in the Russiancontrolled Kingdom of Poland. Additionally, all the pan-European anxieties of the time were amplified by the vagaries of early peripheral capitalism and rapid industrialization on the tsarist terms. Together with the remodelling of the national community under external rule, these

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factors intensified the state of dislocation, perpetuating contention within the basic institutions of society. Multiple ideological languages coping with this truly modern conundrum were trying to envisage order and simultaneously label its opposite. Introducing asymmetrical pairs of concepts helped to make sense of the situation, launch, disseminate and put into practice political programs, police raging discontents and refer to variously defined antagonistic out-groups. The distinction between order and chaos, and various ways of comprehending social reality according to this asymmetric opposition, constituted an important cornerstone of the multifaceted political languages employed in the process. This chapter seeks to map the competing renditions of this opposition in a particular national context that constitutes a remarkable variation on the truly international theme. I argue that it was the opposition to chaos and not the hostility towards enemies or out-groups that provided a backbone for structuring and integrating various Polish political discourses of the time both internally and in terms of their dialogic and antagonistic interactions. The conceptual asymmetry between order and chaos is shown to work analogously, even if it is deployed from different points on the political spectrum in a mirror-like fashion: for both sides, ‘our’ order is likely to be ‘their’ anarchy. Such reversals are possible due to the fact that unification of heterogeneous elements both within the speakers’ own identities and in the realm of rejected otherness is possible through mutual negation of the opposition’s poles. But such a negation cannot be reduced to the simple opposition to the out-group, as merely adding a minus to the highly fractured and complex discursive field would not allow for a sufficient delimitation of the given position. Hence, a critical revision of Reinhart Koselleck’s original approach to the asymmetrical concepts is in order. The examples chosen by Koselleck to illustrate his approach to asymmetrical concepts referred to relations between mostly ‘positive’ self-referring in-groups (Hellenes, Christians, Übermenschen) and mostly ‘negative’ other-referred out-groups (Barbarians, Heathens, Untermenschen/ Unmenschen). This chapter, in turn, suggests both overcoming the ‘negativist’ bias and widening the scope of the conceptual asymmetries, considering such major social antinomies as ‘order’ vs ‘chaos’/‘anarchy’.2 The latter asymmetrical pair gains prominence particularly in times of turmoil and crises, during periods of major social and political changes when definitions of established polity and imagined futures are hotly disputed. Moments of intensified historical reconfigurations and resulting contingency of social life with its political institutionalization are the typical preconditions for such polarized discourses in which the binary ‘chaos’ vs ‘order’ plays a considerable role. I aim to investigate the extent

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to which we can grasp and analyse such discursive networks with the help of Koselleck’s analytical repository; the broader generative structures behind such antagonistically charged political languages; and, last but not least, what the regularities observed can tell us about the original approach pioneered by Koselleck. In the first part of the chapter, I summarize and comment on basic analytical premises suggested by Koselleck in his two seminal essays.3 The main body of the study, however, is an empirical analysis of the situated political discourses, seen as structured by various, competitive and contentious renditions of the opposition between chaos and order. The empirical material I rely upon stems from two relatively large research projects investigating discursive and conceptual changes in late ­nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Russian Poland.4 Taken together, they offer extensive corpora of texts from journals, the daily press, political brochures and leaflets that can be mined for the aforementioned asymmetrical pair in its various, ideologically specific variations. In the conclusion, having extracted synthetic assumptions from the material concerning the generative structures of conceptual asymmetries in political languages, I relate this data to the initial hypothesis.

Persisting Oppositions To begin, let me briefly outline the basics of Koselleck’s approach to asymmetrical counter-concepts; doing so will allow me to single out the analytical techniques that are useful for this project, consider possible deviations from the original doctrine, and, lastly, suggest additions that are pertinent to my topic. Asymmetrical counter-concepts most commonly refer to particular groupings of people in their relation to the outside world (or, in some cases, to specific enemies): ‘“asymmetric” classifications are these conflicting labels, employed only in one direction and in an unequal fashion.’5 The crucial point made here is the primary character of the antagonistic relation directed from ‘the inside’ to ‘the outside’ that is deeply ingrained in any group identity (or the possibility thereof). A political agent (Handlungseinheit) is constituted ‘through concepts by means of which it circumscribes itself and hence excludes others, and therefore, by means of which it defines itself’.6 Koselleck is unambiguous here: such concepts do not name any pre-existing entities, but create them as such. They are meaningful for their participants and capable of political action: ‘a concept does not merely denote such an agency; it marks and creates the unity. The concept is not merely a sign for, but also a factor in, political or social groupings.’7

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The main focus in the Gegenbegriffe essay (and the accompanying depiction in the Feindbegriffe one) is the pairs identifying ‘us’-groups and their oppositions. However, Koselleck also suggests the possibility of analysing the other side, which might be called a counter-­articulation of the  excluded ‘outside’ group. I would like to use this matrix to investigate the asymmetric semantic structures underlying political discourse in pluralized settings. As a first step, I will try to investigate the rival, simultaneously active systems of asymmetrical counter-concepts utilized in various domains of the period’s ideological languages.8 Moreover, the principle of asymmetrical performative denotation may have a more general character not limited to group self- and other-identifications but referring to some meaningful order (and, by the same token, its absence). This is the second step of generalization, enabling me to investigate a broader set of counter-concepts, asymmetrically distributed between the poles of chaos and order.9 When the counter-concepts are not directly bound to group identities, they turn into structural ‘spines’ of particular discursive entities, or partisan sets of concepts, which may be dubbed ideologies. Once established, an asymmetric pair is bound by its structural constraints, which may influence the intentions and actions of the parties involved: ‘concepts employable in a particularly antithetical manner have a marked tendency to reshape the various relations and distinctions among groups.’10 Consequently, these structural constraints, bundled together in discursive areas where several pairs of oppositions may be at play, exert their influence on the group’s identities, meanings and actions. The coexisting conceptual antagonisms are often analogously structured, with analogies producing multiple relational effects in discourse. As a result, various ideological languages, shaken up by conceptual innovators and serialized by other proponents,11 undergo changes, reshaping their own renditions of asymmetries and oppositions, contesting each other and occasionally attempting to re-appropriate and re-evaluate other conceptual pairs to enhance their own political capacities.12 In the pluralized conceptual space of the democratized Neuzeit (a hardly translatable term referring to new times of modernity), an ‘asymmetrical dualism’ does not necessarily ‘contribute[ ] to the creation of a political interior which is shielded from the entirety of the outside world’,13 as Koselleck has claimed. Instead, it can be explicitly and knowingly employed in the pluralized world, actively interacting with the outside (for example, rhetorically securing the inner community from within). Of course, conceptual dualisms are first and foremost the mechanisms of securing and enhancing identity, ‘extend[ing] one’s given position through negation’.14 It is worth noting, however, that such extensions can be efficient precisely because of the power of negativity to universalize

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itself: through negation, it is possible to conflate elements that would not fit together otherwise. This logic is particularly often at work when identities and meanings become dislocated. This process may also engender summary self- (‘not-them’) and other(‘not-us’) identities, but clear-cut examples of such purely one-dimensional semantics are quite rare: more frequently, the negatively evaluated terms, which are meaningful in the given discursive framing, cease to have any definite referential meanings when analysed from a non-partisan perspective. Of course, negative poles are baptized in a certain way predominantly to ensure their powerful appeal; however, regardless of the pragmatic consideration behind their labelling, such concepts nevertheless maintain their capacity of negation, allowing for the blanket derogatory tagging of hostile groups, entities or phenomena. The paradigmatic example of such a structure is the asymmetrical pair order and chaos and its various conceptual analogues.15

The Locus of Chaos The aim of this chapter is the investigation of the asymmetric counterconcepts related to the primary opposition between ‘order’ and ‘chaos’. Naturally, these very terms were deployed rather infrequently, but the two poles associated with them played a role in many debates, cloaked in various conceptual pairs. Both the semantic structure of the opposition and its underlying argumentative backbone were constantly active in shaping particular debates. The objects of scrutiny here are the competing political languages of partitioned Poland at the turn of twentieth century when they were encountering the multifaceted challenges posed by modernization.16 Specifically, my investigation concerns the intensification of these challenges, as epitomized by the Revolution of 1905–7 in the Russian-controlled Kingdom of Poland. The revolution brought about an outburst of accumulated tensions between nations and classes, which were reinforcing but also countering each other.17 The industrial working class waged the first modern urban uprisings in the Russian Empire and infiltrated political parties, thus joining mass politics in ‘Poland’ for the very first time. The struggle was pluralized from the beginning to the end: whereas rural areas witnessed peasant strikes and the felling of landed gentry’s forests, industrial centres such as Łódź, Warsaw and the Dąbrowa Basin experienced some general and many local political and economic strikes, street demonstrations and even one quasi-uprising complete with street barricades and marked by ‘fratricidal’ struggles between workers’ factions.

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Above all, the revolution involved massive political participation among various groups of people. Even a cursory glance at political leaflets or participants’ memoirs describing various aspects of the revolution, such as the activities of political organizations, the legal and illegal press, labour unions, strikes, factory occupations, etc., reveals a striking intensification of political life and public participation in Poland. Workers, who had previously not often displayed any political experience, began entering various areas of the public sphere.18 Membership of all parties was up and rising, and soon tiny sects of professional revolutionaries transformed into mass organizations that counted a fifth of workers in the Polish Kingdom among their members.19 All these factors contributed to the almost universal feeling of social crisis or dislocation, shared by revolutionized workers (who rejected the existing state of affairs) and frightened social conservatives (who lamented the collapse of righteous institutions). Old forms of life were no longer obviously valid; even if they were to be maintained, such maintenance would demand justification. No wonder making sense of the new situation was a dire necessity and references to order and its opposites mushroomed. In the heated debates both in the press and on the street, new important patterns of semantic investment in the ‘chaos’ vs ‘order’ binary were rapidly taking shape.

Anarchy in Production Socialist publications were, of course, the first to excoriate tsarist capitalism. This is not the place to examine these fulminations in depth, as they generally followed the pan-European socialist patterns of argumentation, supplemented by the particular loathing of tsarism and the state in general. What is important for the present study is the fact that this criticism was largely expressed with the help of the ‘chaos’/‘order’ ­opposition: the pair of asymmetric counter-concepts deployed to differentiate the desired future from the present malice was usually a capitalist anarchy of production (or its equivalents) opposed to the new, ordered distribution of resources in socialism. The unjust social polarization, the disorderly distribution of resources and the exploitation in factory mills were contrasted with the rational, just and truly human order of socialist equality and adequate distribution for the real producers, as in one socialist leaflet: Then society will choose the leaders (kierowników), assign work to all, and harvests of this work will go to those who work. Thenthere will be no effort wasted, no anarchy of production, no crises; this insane situation in which

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millions have no food, clothing and homes when the soil lies fallow or gives so little crop because it was not cultivated, and factories are idle when hundreds of thousands of people are unemployed, will not be repeated.20

The disorder of capitalism invoked by socialist agitators comprised such antihuman factors as wars, armament and other imperial state spending based on tax revenues (which were, at that time, highly regressive, disproportionately targeting working classes). Moreover, the focal point of critique directed against capitalist disorders was the unacceptability of crises that exacerbated the already deep feeling of fundamental injustice: one cannot speak of any order in society when food dumping and starvation occur at the same time. For workers, who were already imbued with moralistic indignation at societal injustice as a result of the Marxist critique of capitalism, this was the quintessence of anarchy, disorder and pure irrationality. Crises are constant and inevitable phenomena in capitalist systems, they are an outcome of anarchy in production, when every entrepreneur produces on his own account, everybody aims at producing the most, but nobody has an accurate idea about how many goods could be sold on the market.21

This line of criticism was obviously present in socialist literature for years, but the revolution widened its grasp.22 It also introduced entirely new interpretations of the dichotomy in question.

Anarchy Is Sneaking in Everywhere The atrocities of urban riots that were bloodily suppressed by tsarist troops had not gone unremarked upon. The main target of revolutionary socialist leaflets was the tsarist regime, only later supplemented by local factory owners and capitalism in general. The attack on the tsardom also deployed the chaos–order dichotomy, constructing the asymmetrical pair consisting, roughly speaking, of the anarchy of the tsarist state/ war/occupation as opposed to the order of the independent ­socialist state.23 This rendition was much more popular in the propaganda distributed by the Polish Socialist Party (Polska Partia Socjalistyczna, or PPS), a leftwing organization oriented towards creation of the Polish nation-state. This is hardly surprising considering its focus on the immediately present state of affairs in which the tsarist state was seen as an obstacle to an independent socialist Poland. It was the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania (Socjaldemokracja Królestwa Polskiego i Litwy, or

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SDKPiL) – a party of the internationalist left – that engaged in more general, theoretically grounded criticism of capitalism, as, for instance, in the leaflets quoted above. PPS did not waste any opportunity to stress the criminal, illegitimate character of the tsarist government in general and its rule in Poland in particular. Usually, these battle cries were supplemented by the critique of tsarism not only as an authoritarian occupant but also as a corrupted, chaotic regime unable to rule. This argumentation intensified along in tandem with the rising revolutionary tension: ‘The government is in complete disarray, every day gets deeper into disorder and crime.’24 The pressure of revolutionary forces only deepened the crisis, precipitating, in its own discourse, the ultimate collapse of the Russian autocracy: ‘The attitude of the revolutionary proletariat every day becomes more dangerous, and the resources of the government go flat, the state treasuries are empty, anarchy is sneaking in everywhere.’25 The moral ambivalence of this conceptualization was in line with the paradoxical motto ‘the worse, the better’, reputedly coined by Nicholay Chernyshevsky and later borrowed by Lenin: tsarism was perceived as being so corrupt that its (initially condemned) ‘anarchy’ was ultimately deemed beneficial because it was facilitating its ultimate collapse. Interestingly, the motive of desirable anarchy in the tsarist authoritarian state reappeared in the discourse of the National Workers Union (Narodowy Związek Robotniczy, NZR). This is surprising given that this party usually built its rhetorical strategy upon blanket condemnation of disorder and the generative structure of its argumentation was solidly grounded in the primary opposition against anarchy and chaos. Nevertheless, all in all, the order of inner discipline was reintroduced as the solution to all the discontents: The tsarist state is in anarchy, the traffic is blocked, the government paralysed, starving peasantry embarks upon the path of murder and outrage; no state in the world has ever presented such a destitute picture of decomposition. A frightful punishment for the ages of murder and outrage now approaches Moscow – death. And the death of Moscow is our life. In such a moment our obligation is to resist the Muscovite anarchy with the well-organized and strong Polish society. When Russia is falling into ruins we have to join our forces so as to be powerful in our order and inner calm and reclaim our national rights outside of it.26

The spread of revolution shook order in many respects. The disintegration of order included the final delegitimization of the ruling regime and a deep crisis of labour relations. The subsequent waves of strikes effectively made the stable operation of factories impossible. In the later

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phases of the revolution, the vast array of social disintegration further deepened the feeling of loss and weariness in relation to the revolutionary upheaval. This state of mind affected not only the affluent strata whose position was directly in danger, but also workers themselves, who were tired of constant struggle, risk of death and income instability. Moreover, the rising intra-class conflict led to bloodshed on the streets, where workers fought against each other. Unsurprisingly, fighting bands, excluded once and for all from society, made street fighting and expropriations their way of life, resorting to common banditry. Order became a soughtafter state of affairs.27 Consequently, the condemnation of ‘revolutionary anarchy’ became a common currency, particularly among representatives of the more affluent and conservative social strata. Thus, association with the anarchic pole became a powerful rhetorical device directed against revolutionaries and, more generally, any progressive aspirations. This made the location of the source from which unwanted chaos and disarray had originated a hotly and explicitly contested issue. Socialists retorted accordingly, trying to reverse the roles in compliance with their own political imaginary: And now, when the workers are demanding bread and freedom, when they strike in order to win a bit better living, now the bourgeois scream that these are the workers who are spreading destruction and anarchy and not the tsarist government.28

In addition to the struggle to locate the source of anarchy, another hotly disputed issue arose. As the revolution evolved, the search for scapegoats responsible for disorders continued, with Jews becoming prominent candidates. Here, it is not possible to trace the complex dynamic of rising political antisemitism in pre-revolutionary Poland, but Jew-bashing doubtlessly become one of the semantic facets of the ‘tsarist anarchy’;29 no wonder socialist parties opposed it, acting against ethnic hostilities and in favour of class unity. Regardless of the real involvement of tsarist agents in pogroms that loomed large after the October Manifesto, the socialists unanimously held tsarist services responsible for the calamity.30 In this way, tsarism was once more invested with ‘anarchic’ capacities – this time as a violent instigator of ethnic or religious hatred: The tsarist government does not stop for a second its abominable work of inciting different nationalities and denominations to fratricidal struggle. It has nothing to lose; it feels that its last hour is close, and resorts therefore to the last means to instil turmoil, strife and disorder in the peoples’ activities. It

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sends entire squadrons of vile incendiaries. It organizes bands of bandits and thieves, and orders police (władzom) to stay away from preventing the atrocities. We can see the fruits of this work again today!31

Where it was impossible to explicitly condemn tsarism because of censorship or out of genuine reservations concerning popular revolts, writers limited themselves to calls to maintain social and inter-ethnic order in the face of the menacing pogroms. Such expressive passages were also intended to restrain more nationalistically oriented journalists, who were often not too cautious in their descriptions of Polish–Jewish relationships: Let’s keep undisturbed calm today and not give the slightest reasons for tumults (zajść). Let’s be attentive so as not to let the flame of hatred flare anywhere. Regardless of our convictions, let’s be united in one big wish to keep calm and order today.32

In the meantime, however, the conservative reaction to the revolutionary turmoil started to gain the upper hand and anarchy was increasingly located precisely where the proletarian struggle was, with its strikes, marches, barricades and street fights.

The Anarchy of Revolution Polish National Democracy (Narodowa Demokracja, commonly abbreviated as Endecja) went from progressive popular radicalism to the modern conservative right, prioritizing nationalist goals. The group gradually distanced itself from any revolutionary sentiments, becoming openly hostile to the revolution in late 1905.33 But no matter how influential Endecja was among peasants and the urban middle classes, it was without doubt socialism that championed the mobilization of the urban working class. Bidding for workers’ support became an urgent task when it turned out that workers not only successfully fought for their interests, but also had limited interest in the nation as a primary category of affiliation.  Moreover, National Democrats increasingly appealed to the conservative milieus interested in terminating the revolutionary unrest and securing their social positions. Drawing support from a pre-existing current of ‘factory nationalism’, the National Workers Union was launched to spread national identity and nationalist discipline among the workers.34 Scolding revolutionary ‘anarchy’, successfully managing fears of a destabilized society and profiting heavily from the general weariness with the revolutionary unrest, National Democrats proclaimed themselves to

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be the defenders of ‘order’. Let us look at how this discourse unfolded. ‘We, the working Poles’, announced the proclamation of the National Workers’s Union (NZR), ‘consider national solidarity to be a primary unity bringing us together; our holiest obligation is above all to focus on this solidarity’.35 The latter meant abstaining from strikes in the name of national prosperity: ‘Hence we call on you, brotherly workers, to interrupt occupations of factories, to firmly resist the pressure of agitators, to hold back any manifestations, processions and, last but not least, military actions, bearing in mind the calamities they could bring.’36 To further such goals, a strong rhetorical offensive against disorder was launched: Endecja, for instance, referred to armed resistance or open street rallies as ‘anarchy, or pointless riots (ruchawka) demoralizing the spirit and decomposing national powers’, while participating workers were referred to as an ‘unconscious mob incapable of self-control’.37 Associating this anarchic, chaotic and uncivilized pole of cultural signification with alleged political enemies was the logical next step. Undermining socialist mobilization required a deeper reconfiguration than just delivering an alternative political narrative. Thus, NZR leaflets tried to convince workers that the socialists who organized strikes acted imprudently, if not deliberately destructively. As it was impossible to completely deny the gains achieved by previous strikes, the NZR offered more intricate argumentation: ‘What was possible, we got after the first strike. So they [i.e. the socialists] were only aiming at anarchy, disorder and disarray, at continuous turmoil, which would prepare the ground for a general revolution.’38 But they also more explicitly sowed doubt about the intentions of the strike organizers: ‘Polish workers! Will you again allow the socialist parties to mindlessly and arbitrarily trade with your blood and lead you and the whole country to the abyss of turmoil and poverty?’39 Subsequently, NZR revealed what ‘sober’ people do about the situation. Confronted with the popular common sense of naturally calm and orderly peasants and workers, the mobilizing power of the socialists was expected to wither away soon: And for this hunger, for this despair, turmoil and disorganization (rozprężenie) the Russian and Polish socialists are waiting, thinking that the people (lud) will lack prudence and energy to resist their insidous intentions. They think that they will force upon workers their own will by threatening them with knives and revolvers.40

The remedy for this plotting was suggested by another leaflet: Our whole land witnesses outrages executed systematically against its calm inhabitants – the main pillars of essential social order – such as, first and

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foremost, peasants (włościanom) who with all their behaviour during the turmoil have shown their contempt for anarchy, regardless of its sources.41

Interestingly, the argument gently blurs the distinction between the anarchies induced by revolution and tsarism: the negatively evaluated pole of ‘disorder’, thanks to its generic qualities, is capable of accommodating both. Consequently, it was possible to invest the identity of socialists with the same depravity as that associated with tsarism, even if both entities were sworn enemies and ceaselessly fought each other much more intensively than the Endecja fought anybody else. This conflation was a masterly way out of the severe identity crisis that the National Democracy had to face.

Anarchy as an Asymmetric Counter-Concept Championing modern anxieties deepened by the revolutionary dislocation,42 Endecja, in its political practice, partially converged with the efforts made by the tsarist state: both aimed to effectively govern unrest and maintain the existing order.43 This affinity placed National Democracy in a rather uncomfortable position as far as its political profiling and recognizability were concerned: it was not easy to fit into the already existing antagonistic configuration based on the opposition between tsarist rule and its challenger – revolutionary socialists. At the same time, it was equally impossible for the group to affiliate itself with any of the existing camps. One the one hand, National Democracy could not have pretended to be the main challengers of Russian autocracy while calling for order and fighting with the socialists, who were already involved in a real war with the tsarist troops. On the other hand, any association with tsarism would be a kiss of death for a political force built upon the patriotic and nationalist enthusiasm of the Poles, which was directed, to a large extent, against Russians (see figure 9.1). Thus, anarchy was a very comfortable constitutive ‘outside’: it allowed National Democracy and the NZR to take the third position, not in the middle between the existing political opposites but rather squarely negating them both. Somehow the opposition against anarchy became a cornerstone of the nationalist project not only in respect to the revolutionary movement but far beyond it (see figure 9.2). The unquestioned leader of nationalists Roman Dmowski aptly summarized this position: Anarchy is spreading all over the country, amplified by those who were in charge of maintaining order, which requires us to avoid any unnecessary

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Figure 9.1. Initial revolutionary mobilization. © Wiktor Marzec.

Figure 9.2. Reconfiguration of the political field via chaos vs order division. © Wiktor Marzec. turmoil and extract the largest possible quantity of order from chaos. Therefore, a national camp has to emerge . . ., [which] will be a camp of culture fighting barbarity and savagery.44

The realm of negativity was quite spacious indeed. It could accommodate all other entities that the National Democrats sought to disqualify  – such as ‘the Jews’, who were particularly handy for cleverly

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Figure 9.3. New political antagonism. © Wiktor Marzec.

underpinning the fear of anarchic negativity with pre-existing antisemitism. Consequently, the National Democrats could calmly place themselves in the role of the force resisting anarchy, whatever that was in the current phase of polemics (see figure 9.3): To assist popular moderation, National Democrats and the NZR placed themselves at the helm of maintaining elementary order and resistance to entropy: ‘Our thing would be . . . to prevent the disaster . . . so that the working people . . . were not condemned to hunger and poverty, disorder and anarchy.’45 Little by little, the NZR gained significant support and declarations in their leaflets became proportionately bolder, no longer just modestly referring to the inherent capacities of ‘sober people’ but bringing to the fore the active role of the party itself: We did not want by any means to let the anarchy spread and rule (rozwielmożenia) [which would] demoralize the spirits and decompose the national forces, or allow for pointless riots (ruchawka) that may only lead to the general calamity and gloom.46

Resisting anarchy was now more connected to protecting and enhancing national forces. This corresponded with intensified ‘organic’ imagery and biological metaphors that were ushered in to comprehend the idea of the nation. The nation was increasingly enthroned as an ultimate and

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somehow tautological goal-in-itself.47 The next step was to openly brand the socialists as conscious and vicious enemies of the Polish people: And because people do not want to confront the Muscovite bayonets and bullets with bare hands, the socialists chose to make a mess (robić zamęt) of the country, tarnish and impoverish it, having calculated that it would be easier to incline hungry, impoverished and despairing people for revolution.48

Heated political conflicts led to radicalized political differences, culminating in the so-called ‘fratricidal’ struggles among workers, which grew alongside the revolutionary cycle. More than once, workers from different parties threw each other out of factories. On some days, more militants were murdered in these ‘fratricidal’ struggles than were killed by tsarist troops and police. ‘Hate speech’ became a staple of political leaflets and the National Democrats skilfully lumped together all socialist activities as manifestations of the crime against the ‘order’: Nowadays, when after last-year’s mindless strikes all of us have to struggle with terrible poverty, it is a crime to force hundreds of people into unemployment (bezrobocie) when there is work which only eludes our grasp because of disorder spread by the social-democrats.49

However, the National Democratic ascription of anarchy was not the only one. The weariness with the reigning disarray was also evident in the legal press, which was now, because of the revolution, a little more capable of speaking openly about various social and public issues. Among liberals and progressives, as well as their more conservative counterparts, the bone of contention was the question of who was to blame for the growing instability and the accompanying atrocities.

Who Is to Blame? In the view of the press – and not without reason – the main parties in conflict were workers and factory owners.50 Indeed, little by little, revolutionary claims became preoccupied by economics, with factory owners, rather than the tsarist administration, being the main targets. In the first months of the revolution, the broad social strata were supportive, or at least not hostile, to the workers’ struggles. Liberal opinion hoped for a loosening of the grip of the tsarist autocracy and generally felt sympathetic towards workers claiming their right to a more human existence. From this point of view, if somebody was to blame for the disorder (which was already viewed unfavourably), it was the capitalists:

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Today, when disorder and chaos entered the class relationships, the capitalist class has not taken any steps in order to create new, more appropriate forms of life and adequate relationships between classes.51

The tension grew when, after months of strikes, factory owners decided  to wage a deliberate and organized class struggle from above: suspending competition between factories, they cooperated to suppress the upheaval initiated by workers so that their rule in the factories would no longer be in doubt. Using some minor pretext, in late 1906, they locked out major Łódź factories, firing their workers. Thus, mutual assistance was no longer possible as everybody was unemployed. The owners stated explicitly that their aim was to return relationships between employers and employees to where they had been before the revolution. The bone of contention was not the length of the working day or the daily wage, but the rising heads of the workers who dared to claim dignity and recognition as negotiating bodies, collectively bargaining about working conditions. The harsh conflict ultimately ended in the entrepreneurs’ favour.52 This situation triggered a heated debate about industrial relations, human dignity and justice. The sticking point was who was responsible for the raging misery in the city. Directly after the factories were closed, Kurier Łódzki, a progressive daily, indirectly ascribed responsibility for the dramatic situation to disorganized workers and revolution in general. The disintegration of revolutionary action into petty quarrels, internal fights and banditry allegedly caused factory owners’ reaction: And – in the name of the victory of narrow-minded party programmes – we are ready to wreck the humanity, fatherland and freedom in us. Woe to the vanquished! So here the nationalist parties blame the progressive ones and spit on them, whereas the latter return favours in kind by calling the former ‘the local hooligans’ (chuliganeria rodzima) . . . And in the back­ ground of this party struggle a most frightening abscess signifying moral depravity and social anarchy grows – the banditry. . . . No, it’s not a struggle, it is lethal insanity, sick madness spreading in revolutionary times among degenerated individuals who yearn for blood and murder no matter what.53

Notwithstanding these initial accusations, the journalists were also critical of the owners. The attack on the industrial tycoons was a metonymically disguised assault on the national democratic offensive, which used to blame socialist activists for all the country’s misfortunes. Progressive liberals countered that it was not the workers, but capitalist practices that were breeding true anarchy and outrage:

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I am one of the most ardent enemies of social anarchy, I am a supporter of the highest level of social order possible and therefore I will always maintain that present social relations are grounded precisely on a deep anarchy – or worse, because in the present situation, a tiny minority is able to exercise brutal physical violence on the overwhelming majority.54

This counterclaim contributed to a more comprehensive analysis of the situation, acknowledging the reigning relationship of power. Some critics went so far as to equate capitalism with anarchy in implicit but unambiguous terms. An additional dimension was added to the discussion through the introduction of the notion of the ‘state’ – a pars pro toto referring to the whole of Russian autocracy in terms acceptable to censors. According to this assumption, more democratic social relationships could prompt the more civilized articulation of interests and conflict resolution, as well as inhibiting the equally harmful disorders of a class state and popular rebellion: For as long as capitalist states were only protecting the justice of the owning classes, there was a disorder there, and once they launched democratization and came to acknowledge the rightness of workers, the order began to ­stabilize . . . The removal of anarchy ‘from above’ is a condition for removal of the anarchy ‘from below’.55

Even if support for the workers had withered away over time, it was restored to the level of veritable indignation against the capitalists during the lockout. Regardless of the fact that the struggle became much more focused on down-to-earth issues and specific economic interests, now it was the capitalists who were portrayed as ruthlessly condemning the workers to starvation in the name of profit. However, the critique of capitalists occasionally featured the old plea for the Polonization of industry, ignoring the exploitation of Poles by Poles; thus, some authors suggested that it was not a coincidence that the German and Jewish factory owners scourged the local workers: These invaders, made rich by blood and sweat of our people (naszego ludu) do not feel bound by the slightest obligations to the crowds they are building [their power] upon, have no loyalty whatsoever to the Polish society which has taken them in; they may even be deliberately spreading anarchy and provoking despairing crowds, following the advice of their brethren and ‘bosses’ hiding in Berlin from the righteous anger of those they exploit.56

As we might have expected, the whole passage is about spreading anarchy – this time it is claimed that anarchy is spread by a Berlin-based conspiracy of world capital against the Polish people. Interestingly, in all

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these quarrels about who is deliberately instigating anarchy and disorder, the paternalistic, objectifying attitude to the workers’ political agency was maintained: whatever workers were doing, they always remained unconscious ‘despairing crowds’, ‘easily swayed for the revolution’. However, it is important to note that the social imaginary did evolve and workers gained certain rights to act publicly and make claims, with some such changes becoming irreversible. In the writings of progressives,  a more class-conscious discourse emerged: the situation was analysed in terms of a conflict of class interests caused by the power inequalities that resulted in exploitation. Previously, the hardship of proletarian life had more often been viewed as a result of contemporary ethical crises or the actions of corrupt individuals57 Even in such ‘bourgeois’ periodicals as Rozwój, based in Łódź, which was read predominantly by urban propertied classes that tended to support National Democracy, workers were normally presented as victims whose violations of the assumed codes of conduct were attributed to their lack of education and proper institutional schooling, rather than a mere propensity for making outrageous claims.58 Accordingly, the anarchy was presented more as a general predicament demanding social reconstruction than an outcome of political bastardy. This was the background for the fears of the progressive intelligentsia presented in the opening paragraph of this chapter.

An Asymmetric Pair: A Generative Structure In the preceding overview, I demonstrated how important the opposition between chaos and order was in debates in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Russian Poland. This primary binary set has taken various forms in context-specific pairs of asymmetric counter-concepts deployed in competitive political discourses. The vast majority of political ideologies invested chaos or anarchy with negative semantics, while claiming for themselves the monopoly of bringing (or at least fighting for) order. Occasionally, anarchy was greeted with mixed feelings, as a prelude to the breakdown of the existing (and usually contested) political order. But the main disagreement was about the exclusive rights to employ specific counter-concepts for the primary binary opposition, coupled with a lucrative opportunity to associate political enemies with its negative (‘chaotic’) pole. One can describe this dynamic of conceptual borrowing and appropriation with the help of good old-fashioned structural semiotics:59 as syntagmatic structures, the different ideological subsystems were also in

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paradigmatic relationships with each other, with various substitutional possibilities available in a broader context of modernity (see below). Each of the ideological discourses within the paradigm was involved in what I call metonymical encroachment, unceremoniously putting itself in the place of the generally accepted, standard hegemonic modernity narrative. This involved an imposition of a particular syntagmatic structure upon the discursive field in question, accompanied by the forced integration of the pre-existing conceptual networks into the new scheme. No longer full-fledged paradigmatic alternatives, the conquered narratives were confined to particular positions within the victorious syntagmatic chains. However, none of the new hegemons could avoid replicating the basic generative structure, expressed, for instance, in the scrutinized asymmetric pairs. More specifically, one can distinguish between three basic ideological discourses dealing with the opposition between chaos and order. Polish enlightened opinion, represented by the majority of the Łódź ‘legal’ press, highlighted the imperfections of peripheral capitalism, seen as a variant of tsarist laissez-faire.60 Here, it is not possible to analyse this argumentation:61 suffice to say that the main points of this criticism were deficiencies in urban planning, social desolation and moral decline. These discontents were associated with the particular form of Russian capitalism but not the capitalist system as a whole. Apart from the Russian  imperial administration (which was seen as having failed Poland but escaped criticism  because of censorship), the blame was more explicitly put on foreign – usually German – capitalists. The proposed solution was a moralistic upheaval of the national economy, the civility of which should have been sustained by national responsibility and brotherhood. Doubtless, this language could have been presented in different shades:  whereas landed conservatives imagined a benign rural capitalism, their urban counterparts, much more approving of modernization, quite openly associated urban squalor with the general logic of capitalism and opted for legal measures restraining predatory economical practices (legal codes regulating industrial relations, safety rules in factories, etc.). The challenge to this dominant political discourse was mounted by various kinds of socialism, which were all illegal and, consequently, had little incentive to keep their critique of capitalist civilization within bounds. Thus, Social Democrats saw capitalism as a primary anarchic factor of social development that had to be sublated by the rational and just organization of the production and distribution of resources. The Polish Socialist Party supplemented this conventional culprit with the image of an autocratic but nevertheless inefficient tsarist state, which

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it castigated for its military brutality, its lack of legal principles and its support for the worst forms of capitalist exploitation. The third force arguing along these lines was National Democracy, which had originally been rather unpopular in Łódź, because of its weak party cells among workers, its lack of support from the non-Polish urban propertied classes and its strained relationship with Jews (who were a considerable influential group in this multi-ethnic city). The ideological profile of National Democracy crystallized during the 1905 Revolution, bringing about, among other things, a clear definition of anarchy in national democratic discourse. Revolutionary upheaval profoundly dislocated earlier stances and narratives. Socialists generally upheld their previous positions but also actively engaged in instigating popular discontent. The brutal reaction of the tsarist police and military forces, coupled with the weakening of the state after the Russo-Japanese War, provoked harsh critique of the autocracy, which was mainly painted as a cause of disorder in the first phase of the revolution. Because of the growing weariness with revolution, National Democracy launched a powerful ideological project devoted to battling anarchy, which proved successful in gaining support despite its highly heterogeneous target. Anarchy, habitually linked to revolution, was a capacious category that accommodated such diverse elements as socialists, the economic struggle of the workers, tsarist troops and Jews. Thus, through the aforementioned metonymical encroachment, Endecja managed to take a ‘third’ position ‘above’ its previous contenders, simultaneously objectifying the negated subcategories and consigning them to the realm of lethal disorder. Consequently, the legal press began debating anarchy and also searching for its instigators. The main dispute related to differentiating perpetrators from victims, which proved anything but straightforward. The main characters (such as workers demanding better living conditions but also engaging in brutal riots and sabotage of production, or capitalists legitimately profiting from the existing order but also abusing workers for the sake of profit) proved to be highly controversial. The analysis presented above has been aimed at pinpointing asymmetric conceptual pairs and finding generative structures that shape argumentative patterns in pluralized ideological discourses. These discourses were, to some extent, the offspring of broader ideological currents, usually referred to as ‘modern ideologies’,62 but also their historical re-articulations, responses to the particular situation. The rapidly growing, capitalist modern city was plagued by vagaries typical of the age. These were intensified by state’s abuse of power and consequent outbursts of rioting, which led to massive democratization from below

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but also triggered the mass-scale disintegration of society. The resulting crisis saddled all major political forces of the time with the task of making sense of the world that had just been created before their eyes.63 This is reflected by the political languages of modernity, which were employed to police threats and cope with profound dislocation.64 The topic of order and chaos specifically addresses this dislocation. Respective conceptual pairs constitute important element of the polical languages used to deal with the resulting uncertainty. Ideological discourses have offered many definitions of anarchy and charted possible paths to overcome it. The concept of anarchy was a powerful one, easily relatable to the commonly felt experience and convenient for articulating these feelings in a persuasive and politically relevant manner. Its original semantics proved particularly useful for condemnations and its almost unlimited referential capacity (comparable to the scope of Untermensch)65 allowed for various unexpected redescriptions, relegating to the realm of chaos various seemingly incompatible entities that the narrator chose to designate as enemies of his/her group at a given moment. The results of the present analysis call for a revision of the definition of asymmetrical counter-concepts offered in Reinhart Koselleck’s seminal articles. Justifying his close reading of numerous texts featuring major conceptual pairs, Koselleck claims that concepts are always coined and deployed in antagonistic political settings, fired, in Carl Schmitt’s terms, by ‘friends’ against their foes.66 This rather drastic assumption, rests on the Hobbesian universality of conflicts and embeds asymmetrical counter-concepts in the single friend–foe vision. It holds monopoly on countless conceptual substitutions within its antagonistic frame:67 ‘as long as human agencies exclude and include, there will be asymmetric counter-concepts and techniques of negation, which will penetrate conflicts until such time as new conflicts arise.’68 In contrast, the present study demonstrates that even in extremely pluralized and deeply antagonistic settings, the political discourse of modernity can apply its capacity for conceptual asymmetries to relatively abstract ideas (such as disorder, chaos or anarchy) rather than designated enemies. That said, the ensuing opposition is used in political battles (which included, in the Polish context, a veritable civil war in the streets). The out-groups – the real targets of the polemics – ­populate the scenes as imperfect significations of the overall contingency, a veiled state of existential insecurity in the new times. Political antagonism is a secondary re-codification of the primordial opposition, which is neither political nor anthropological, but rather purely semiotic and structural, actualized and brought to light by empirical conditions of

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modern dislocation. This broader picture refocuses our attention from the naming of the group to the ‘chaos’–‘order’ distinction, and from the particular form of conceptual pairs to the general tenets structuring the political language of modernity. The primordial structural opposition at the core  of  asymmetrical counter-concepts may be understood as universal for any sign system, whose potential to produce conceptual antagonisms may supersede the sociobiological distinction between ‘us’ and ‘them’,69 or even the phenomenological difference between ‘inside’ and ‘outside’.70 Digging up such universal oppositions – the task that conceptual history may well share with post-structuralism and a strong programme in cultural sociology – seems worthwhile if the task is to take the study of asymmetrical counter-concepts beyond identity tags.71 Coupled with this widening of the referential scope of the original study, the deeper theoretical anchoring of asymmetric counter-concepts allows for the easier integration of Koselleck’s insights into a broader tendency in intellectual or political history aimed at excavating the generative structures of political languages.72

Acknowledgements The article was written thanks to the research carried out at the Robert Zajonc Institute for Social Studies, University of Warsaw (Polish National Science Centre grant Opus 14, no. 2017/27/B/HS6/00098). Parts of the article present research material gathered earlier with the support of research grant 2015/19/B/HS3/03737. I would like to thank Paul Barron, Kirill Postoutenko, Willibald Steinmetz, Risto Turunen, Jeremy Young and Agata Zysiak for their insightful comments at various stages of work on this text. Wiktor Marzec is an assistant professor and project leader at the Robert Zajonc Institute for Social Studies, University of Warsaw, Poland. He holds a PhD in Sociology and Social Anthropology from Central European University, Budapest. He is the author of Rising Subjects. The 1905 Revolution and the Origins of Modern Polish Politics (Pittsburgh University Press, 2020), co-author of From Cotton and Smoke. Łódź – Industrial City and Discourses of Asynchronous Modernity, 1897–1994 (Łódź University Press, 2018) and has written several articles on Poland within the Russian Empire, focusing on labour history and the history of concepts. Currently, he runs a comparative project on the political trajectories of the late tsarist borderlands.

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Notes  1. ‘Odezwa do inteligencji naszego miasta’, Goniec Łódzki 298a (1905). All quotes in the paragraph are from the same source.  2. It is worth noting that ‘anarchy’ was in all mentioned instances used in generic terms, that is, not in reference to any specific anarchist movement. Anarchist currents were certainly present during the revolution, although they were not terribly influential (with the sole exception of Białystok, which was actually on the lands directly incorporated into Russia proper). It is possible that their presence was somehow significant, giving rise to the general contempt for modern political ideologies or the revolutionary movement. Nowhere in the sources analysed here, however, was such a reference explicitly made. It is also probable that entanglement with existing anarchist movements might have tainted the composition of the concept of anarchy in different European languages.  3. The earlier essay was originally published as Reinhart Koselleck, ‘Zur HistorischPolitischen Semantik Asymmetrischer Gegenbegriffe’. All quotes are from the following English translation: Reinhart Koselleck, ‘The Historical-Political Semantics of Asymmetric Counterconcepts’, in Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time, trans. Keith Tribe (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), 155–91. The second essay is only available in German, to my knowledge, and translations are mine; Reinhart Koselleck, ‘Feindbegriffe’, in Begriffsgeschichten: Studien zur Semantik und Pragmatik der politischen und sozialen Sprache (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2006), 274–86.  4. The textual corpora utilized here were gathered and analysed in the course of two research projects. One of these relates to the entire corpus of preserved political leaflets issued by major parties during the 1905–7 Revolution (around eight hundred items). Some general remarks on the leaflets may also be found in Andrzej Chwalba, ‘Rola socjalistycznych druków ulotnych w kształtowaniu wiedzy i postaw politycznych robotników w dobie rewolucji 1905–1907’, in Anna Żarnowska and Tadeusz Wolsza (eds), Społeczeństwo i polityka (Warsaw: DiG, 1993). For an overview of the abundance of leaflet production, see Halina Kiepurska, Bibliografia pism ulotnych rewolucji 1905–7 w Królestwie Polskim (Warsaw: Biblioteka narodowa, 1963). The second project is a collaborative initiative launched to scrutinize discourses of modernity in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Łódź. It involved a complete consideration of major local dailies (three titles) during the period 1898–1914. A selection of articles was cross-checked in three-member subgroups of researchers and performed until typological and topical saturation was reached. As a result, a corpus of over eighty articles was built for more detailed analysis. Further procedures concerning both corpora were similar. Digitalized and optically recognized to text leaflets and newspaper articles were researched with computer-assisted qualitative data-mining software (QDA Miner and WordStat), coded in research teams and searched through to excavate various semantic structures. During the qualitative, hermeneutic reading, the strong presence of topoi referring to order and disorder was noticed. Thus, both corpora were systematically searched for renditions of the chaos–order opposition. Subsequently, the main ideology-specific types were extracted and retroductively reanalysed with reference to historical context, semantic structure and performative political operation.  5. Koselleck, ‘The Historical-Political Semantics of Asymmetric Counterconcepts’, 154.  6. Ibid., 155.  7. Ibid., 156. However, note that later Koselleck is not that unambiguous about this, especially with respect to pre-modernity. ‘The acting communities (Handlungsgemeinschaften) do not exist only through their separating concepts of the enemy, but do legitimize themselves primarily on their own’, Koselleck, ‘Feindbegriffe’, 279.

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 8. Apart from the Koselleckian analytical and conceptual reservoir, I use some other terms that were not present in his original approach. Most of these have a particular theoretical genesis; however, they have usually already detached from it. Now they are deployed rather generically in language-oriented research approaches, which may be loosely lumped together and dubbed ‘histories of political languages’; see Elías José Palti, ‘The “Theoretical Revolution” in Intellectual History: From The History of Political Ideas to The History of Political Languages’, History and Theory 53, no. 3 (2014), 387–405. Thus, I use the notion of discourse in a broadly Foucaultian sense (Michel Foucault, Archaeology of Knowledge, Routledge Classics (London ; New York: Routledge, 2002)), later retained in post-structuralist discourse theory (David Howarth, Discourse, Concepts in the Social Sciences (Buckingham: Open University Press, 2000)). When I mention ideology, I mean it in the sense ascribed to it by the ‘conceptual approach’ of Michel Freeden (see Michael Freeden, Ideologies and Political Theory: A Conceptual Approach (Oxford : New York: Clarendon Press, 1998); Michael Freeden, ‘Ideology and Conceptual History’, in Javier Fernández Sebastián (ed.), Political Concepts and Time: New Approaches to Conceptual History (Santander: Cantabria University Press)).  9. Other proposals for broadening the original Koselleckian matrix may be found in Kirill Postoutenko, ‘Asymmetrical Concepts and Political Asymmetries: A Comparative Glance at 20th Century Democracies and Totalitarianisms from a Discursive Standpoint’, in Kay Junge and Kirill Postoutenko (eds), Asymmetrical Concepts after Reinhart Koselleck: Historical Semantics and Beyond (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2014), 81–114. 10. Koselleck, ‘The Historical-Political Semantics of Asymmetric Counterconcepts’, 158. Developing this brief remark of Koselleck’s, one can note that a discursive change and a corresponding action are an outcome of the complex interaction of intentional actions within the structural constraints of the sign system. The rules of the sign system are deployed in any given historical circumstances in a different way. Any abstract logic or structural conditions of a signing system are not operative without being applied is actually existing historical actualization. This historically specific actualization is nonetheless not free from these constrains. This sensitives the analysis for non-personal, non-conscious and non-subjective discursive and interpretative schemes and constraints which do shape politics in at hand social-historical context. 11. Kari Palonen, ‘Max Weber Als Begriffspolitiker’, Etica & Politica/Ethics & Politics 2 (2005), 1–20; Sheldon S. Wolin, Politics and Vision: Continuity and Innovation in Western Political Thought, expanded edn (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004). 12. Timo Pankakoski, ‘Reoccupying Secularization: Schmitt and Koselleck on Blumenberg’s Challenge’, History and Theory 52 (2013), 214–45. 13. Koselleck, ‘The Historical-Political Semantics of Asymmetric Counterconcepts’, 159. 14. Ibid., 168. 15. Due to translation issues, a doubt may rise where the translation is adequate and where there is a tendency to push the translation in the direction of a presumed conceptual framework. Thus, if any slippage of meaning is possible, I add the original wording in italics. Otherwise, the translations are literal, that is, there is no substitution of synonyms and I always tried to provide alternative wording for originally different phrases. Where the concept of anarchy is used, so it was used in Polish (anarchia), as is the case with order (porządek) and others. To signal the rift between in-situ categories and applied analytical language in the present study, when not directly quoting or referring to original discourse, I use mediating wording, for instance, writing ‘anarchic pole’ or ‘concept of anarchy’ instead of simply ‘anarchy’. Italics in quotes are mine. 16. This is obviously not the right place to recapitulate even the top of the iceberg of the relevant scholarly debates. Suffice it to say that I mean above all general outcomes

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of capitalist modernity in Europe: urbanization, industrialization and a profound reconstruction of the social bond. Correspondingly, I also refer to political correlates as democratization, the rise of mass politics ‘in a new key’, the formal and imaginary democratization of the political sphere and social life, and, last but not least, a certain philosophical condition of doubt; as old heteronomous explanations withered away, this ushered in an urgent necessity to rethink the social order and its philosophical cornerstones. 17. Robert Blobaum, Rewolucja: Russian Poland, 1904–1907 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995); Wiktor Marzec, ‘The 1905–1907 Revolution in the Kingdom of Poland – Articulation of Political Subjectivities among Workers’, Contention 1, no. 1 (2013), 53–74. 18. The mole-like work of the radical Polish intelligentsia allowed many to become acquainted with basic social and political knowledge, and meticulously sought to reduce illiteracy. However, working-class autodidacticism and secret educational work remained minority practices and participation levels were structurally limited in conditions of illegality. There were some germs of illegal professional and nationalist associations and an episodic socialist presence here and there, but not so much active resistance against social and political institutions. However, both previous forms of political expression and petitions sent to tsarist officials suggest a rather low level of political consciousness in a strict sense. See, respectively, Adam Światło, Oświata a polski ruch robotniczy 1876–1939 (Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1981); Józef Miąso, Uniwersytet dla Wszystkich (Warsaw: Państwowe Zakłady Wydawnictw Szkolnych, 1960); Laura Crago, ‘The “Polishness” of Production: Factory Politics and the Reinvention of Working-Class National and Political Identities in Russian Poland’s Textile Industry, 1880–1910’, Slavic Review 59, no. 1 (2000), 16–41; ‘Bunt lódzki’ 1892 roku: (Łódź: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Lódzkiego, 1993); Blobaum, Rewolucja; Paweł Samuś, Wasza kartka wyborcza jest silniejsza niż karabin, niż armata . . .: z dziejów kultury politycznej na ziemiach polskich pod zaborami (Łódź: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego, 2013). 19. These included Social Democracy of the Polish Kingdom and Lithuania (SDKPiL), a class-oriented, internationalist left; Polish Socialist Party (PPS), later split into PPS-Revolutionary Faction and PPS-Left, which represented socialism of a more national orientation; and the National Workers’ Union (NZR), a nationalistic group associated with National Democracy. It is worth remembering that socialist parties also addressed German- and Yiddish-speaking workers, and Jewish socialist parties formed another pillar of vivid political life in those days. By the end of 1906, the three main socialist parties, PPS, SDKPiL and Bund, had 55,000, 35,000 and 30,000 members respectively, the sum of which made up a total of 15 per cent of workers in the Polish Kingdom, whereas directly before the revolution none of them had no more than 1,500 members. The NZR reached about 25,000 members. For an overview of party politics, see, respectively, Robert Blobaum, Feliks Dzierżyński and the SDKPiL: A Study of the Origins of Polish Communism (Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, distributed by Columbia University Press, 1984); Paweł Samuś, Dzieje SDKPiL w Łodzi 1893–1918, Łódź (Wydawnictwo Łódzkie, 1984); Bronisław Radlak, Socjaldemokracja Królestwa Polskiego i Litwy w latach 1893–1904 (Warsaw: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1979); Jan Tomicki, Polska Partia Socjalistyczna, 1892–1948 (Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1983); Anna Żarnowska, Geneza rozłamu w Polskiej Partii Socjalistycznej, 1904–1906 (Warsaw: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1965); Joshua D. Zimmerman, Poles, Jews, and the Politics of Nationality the Bund and the Polish Socialist Party in Late Tsarist Russia, 1892–1914 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004); Teresa Monasterska, Narodowy Związek Robotniczy, 1905–1920 (Warsaw: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1973); Henry Jack Tobias, The Jewish Bund in Russia from Its Origins to

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1905 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1972); Feliks Tych and Jürgen Hensel, ‘BUND : 100 lat historii, 1897–1997’ (Oficyna Wydawn. Volumen, 2000). Międzynarodowe Święto Robotnicze i Rewolucja, leaflet issued by Russian Socialdemocratic Party and SDKPiL, 1 May 1907, Archiwum Akt Nowych w Warszawie (hereafter AAN), SDKPiL, 9/VII-t. 7, pp. 13–14a. Bezrobocie, kapitaliści a robotnicy, leaflet issued by SDKPiL, no date, AAN SDKPiL, 9/VII-t.33, pp. 14–15a. This pattern was doubtlessly present in European socialist literature for a long time and the topos of anarchy in production as a criticism of capitalism had been on the table since Marx and Engels writings were published. See Peter Christian Ludz, ‘Anarchie’, in Otto Brunner, Werner Conze and Reinhart Koselleck (eds), Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1972), i, 49–109, 91. It is worth noting that associating ‘despotic’ forms of government with anarchy has its own tradition and was a natural continuation of the old state-centred notion of anarchy, which slotted into the classification of state orders as a degenerated form of one of them. Originally, there had been democracy; later, however, an affiliation between anarchy and despotism emerged – this was prominently exposed in the early modern critique of feudalism; see Ludz, ‘Anarchie’, 65–67, 77–79. In the Polish context, this resonated nicely with the orientalizing topos of the ‘Asiatic despotism’ of the ‘Muscovite yoke’, combining violence, corruption, savagery and disorder, widely present, especially in the literature of the right (more nationalist) wing of the PPS. ‘Do nowego ataku na samowładztwo!’, leaflet issued by the central committee of the SDKPiL, March 1905, in Tadeusz Daniszewski (ed.), SDKPiL w rewolucji 1905: zbiór publikacji (Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1955), 130–31. ‘[Proletarjusze wszystkich krajów łączcie się! Rząd samowładny zraniony śmiertelnie śladami rewolucji proletariackiej . . .]’, leaflet issued by the Łódź committee of the PPS, 5 February 1906, Archiwum Państwowe w Łódzi (hereafter APŁ), PGZŻ 12/1906, p. 63. ‘[Robotnicy! Naród Polski sto lat czekał na tę chwilę, kiedy najstraszniejszy z gnębiących nas wrogów . . .]’, leaflet issued by the central committee of the NZR, October 1905, Biblioteka Narodowa w Warszawie, Dział Dokumentów Życia Społecznego (hereafter BN DŻS). For an interesting analysis of political activity among Jewry in response to modern anxieties, see Scott Ury, Barricades and Banners: The Revolution of 1905 and the Transformation of Warsaw Jewry (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012). ‘Burżuazja przeciw rewolucji robotniczej’, leaflet issued by the Łódź committee of the SDKPiL, June 1905, in Paweł Korzec (ed.), Źródła do dziejów rewolucji 1905–1907 w okręgu łódzkim, tom 1, cz. 2 (Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1958), 222–24. Grzegorz Krzywiec, ‘The Polish Intelligentsia in the Face of the “Jewish Question” (1905–1914)’, Acta Poloniae Historica 100 (2009), 133–69; Theodore R. Weeks, ‘1905 as a Watershed in Polish–Jewish Relations’, in Stefani Hoffman and Ezra Mendelsohn (eds), The Revolution of 1905 and Russia’s Jews (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), 128–41; Wiktor Marzec, ‘What Bears Witness of the Failed Revolution? The Rise of Political Antisemitism during the 1905–1907 Revolution in the Kingdom of Poland’, Eastern European Politics and Societies 30, no. 1 (2016), 189–213. On the dynamics of the pogroms, with larger involvement of tsarist troops in the Kingdom of Poland than in Ukraine, and conflicting explanations of pogroms’ dynamics, see, among others, John D. Klier and Shlomo Lambroza (eds), Pogroms: AntiJewish Violence in Modern Russian History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); Michał Kurkiewicz and Monika Plutecka, ‘Rosyjskie pogromy w Białymstoku i Siedlcach w 1906 roku’, Biuletyn Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej 11, no. 120 (2010), 20–24; Anti-Jewish Violence. Rethinking the Pogrom in East European History (Bloomington:

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31. 32. 33.

34. 35. 36. 37.

38. 39. 40. 41. 42.

43.

44. 45.

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Indiana University Press, 2010); Szymon Rudnicki, ‘Pogrom Siedlecki’, Kwartalnik Historii Żydów 1 (2010), 18–39. On socialism and the Jewish question in Poland, see Michał Śliwa, ‘The Jewish Problem in Polish Socialist Thought’, Polin 9, 1996, 14–31. ‘[Towarzysze robotnicy! Znów doszły do nas wieści o barbarzyńskich rozruchach przeciw żydom . . .]’, leaflet issued by the central commiteee of the PPS, May 1905, AAN, APPS 305/III/34/pdt 3, p. 18. Spokoju i rozwagi, ‘Kurier Łódzki’, 1906, 22a. On the turbulent ideological paths of National Democrats and the birth of Polish modern nationalism, see Brian Porter, When Nationalism Began to Hate: Imagining Modern Politics in Nineteenth Century Poland (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000); Alvin Marcus Fountain, Roman Dmowski, Party, Tactics, Ideology, 1895–1907 (Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, distributed by Columbia University Press, 1980); Andrzej Walicki, ‘The Troubling Legacy of Roman Dmowski’, Dialogue and Universalism 4 (2011), 91–119. Crago, Polishness of Production; Monasterska, Narodowy Związek Robotniczy. Korzec, Źródła 1/2, 176. Ibid., 656. Leaflet of the Central Committee of the National League, 1 August 1905, APŁ PGZŻ 12/1905/II, pp. 918–19, see also the leaflet of Łódź Department of the NZR, 27 December 1905, APŁ GP 1553, p. 6; National-Democratic Craftsmen and Workers Youth, APŁ PGZŻ 12/1905/I, p. 119. ‘[Bracia robotnicy! Znowuż krążą po kraju naszym pogłoski, że partie socjalistyczne czekają tylko na wskazówki petersburskich rewolucjonistów . . .]’, leaflet of the Central Committee of the NZR, June 1905, APŁ ZŻAPŁ GP 390, pp. 382–83. ‘[Bracia Robotnicy! Socjaliści siłą, i przemocą zamknęli fabryki i warsztaty . . .]’, leaflet of the Central Committee of the NZR, 25 June 1905, BN DŻS. ‘[Bracia robotnicy! Znowuż krążą po kraju naszym pogłoski, że partie socjalistyczne czekają tylko na wskazówki petersburskich rewolucjonistów . . .]’, leaflet of the Central Committee of the NZR, June 1905, APŁ ZŻAPŁ GP 390, pp. 382–83. ‘[Rodacy!W najbliższym czasie kraj nasz ma przystąpi . . .]’, electoral leaflet of the National Democratic electoral committee, first Duma elections, 1906, APŁ ZDiPU, 411, p. 17. Grzegorz Krzywiec, ‘Z taką rewolucją musimy walczyć na noże: rewolucja 1905 roku z perspektywy polskiej prawicy’, in WIktor Marzec and Kamil Piskała (eds), Rewolucja 1905. Przewodnik (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznej, 2013); Wiktor Marzec, ‘Modernizacja mas. Moment polityczny i dyskurs endecji w okresie rewolucji 1905–1907’, Praktyka Teoretyczna 13 (2014), 99–132. On these efforts, see, for instance, Malte Rolf, ‘A Continuum of Crisis? The Kingdom of Poland in the Shadow of the Revolution (1905–1915)’, in Felicitas Fischer von Weikersthal (ed.), The Russian Revolution of 1905 in Transcultural Perspective: Identities, Peripheries, and the Flow of Ideas (Bloomington: Slavica Publishers, 2013), 159–74. It is worth noting that there were not many political milieus that were ready to directly form an alliance with the Russian autocracy. Apart from decreasingly influential circles of conservative loyalists, who attempted to negotiate some concessions for servility towards the state, there were no such forces, in part because of the state’s reluctance to make pacts with the allegedly disloyal Poles. For instance, the secret delegation to the Russian prime minister organized under National Democracy leader, Roman Dmowski, was in vain. A [Roman Dmowski], ‘Polityka narodowa i narodowy obóz w Polsce’, Dzwon Polski 32 (1906), 1. ‘[Robotnicy! Panika strejkowa ponownie szerzyć się poczyna w kraju naszym . . .]’, leaflet of the Central Committee of the NZR, 14 December 1905, BN DŻS.

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46. ‘[Rodacy! Parokrotnie od początku wojny obecnej wzywaliśmy Was trzeźwości . . .]’, leaflet of the Central Commitee of the National Ligue (National Democracy affiliate), 1 August 1905, APŁ PGZŻ 12/1905/II, pp. 918–19. 47. Tomasz Kizwalter, ‘Nowoczesny Polak, Darwin i Nietzsche’, Przegląd Polityczny 56 (2002), 104–9; Grzegorz Krzywiec, Szowinizm po polsku. Przypadek Romana Dmowskiego (1886–1905) (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Neriton, Instytut Historii PAN, 2009); Wiktor Marzec, ‘Ponowne obsadzenie pustego miejsca – endecki naród i polityczna nowoczesność’, Hybris 24 (2014), 1–32; Roman Zimand, ‘Uwagi o teorii narodu na marginesie analizy nacjonalistycznej teorii narodu’, Studia filozoficzne 4, no. 51 (1967). 48. ‘[Bracia Rodacy ! Słyszeliście chyba wszyscy o socyalistach . . .]’, Regional Commitee of the NZR in Dąbrowa Basin, March–April 1906, AAN NZR, 41-II, p. 34. 49. ‘[Do pracowników zawodu szewskiego. BRACIA! Samozwańcza organizacja socjaldemokratyczna . . .]’, Warsaw Committee of the NZR, March 1906, BN DŻS. 50. Although the unquestioned centre of intellectual debates, political activity, writing and publishing practices was Warsaw, this study concerns other, provincial, but extremely significant, intellectual circulation. The focal point is the growing industrial giant, the second largest urban centre with the biggest concentration of large factories and the industrial working class, the city of Łódź. This unquestioned ‘capital of industry’ embodied all the processes characteristic of peripheral late nineteenth-century modernization. This was a city of the most rapid, uncontrolled and unsustainable development. Consequently, it was also the place that epitomized the modern ‘social issue’. It was in Łódź that the Revolution was most intense and the changes that occurred most profound. Therefore, the discourse of the local press is an especially productive field for analysis for the present study. After the first Polish newspaper, Dziennik Łódzki (The Łódź Daily), was closed in 1892, the city had no Polish daily press for a few years. After 1898, two challengers suddenly appeared; initially, these were not very divergent in their intellectual profile but rather equally dedicated to pleasing the local enlightened public and Polish business spheres. Of the two, Rozwój (Development) was slightly more bourgeois (both in terms of adhering to burgher values and supporting the interests of industrial moguls) and nation-oriented. Soon afterwards, its slightly more progressively inclined (meaning roughly left-liberal) competitor was launched, Goniec Łódzki (The Łódź Messenger). There is no point analysing in this chapter the complicated histories of both, including the subsequent renaming of the latter as Kurier Łódzki (The Łódź Courier) and, later, Nowy Kurier Łódzki (The New Łódź Courier). See, respectively, Zygmunt Gostkowski, Dziennik Łódzki w latach 1884–1892: studium nad powstawaniem polskiej opinii publicznej w wielonarodowym mieście fabrycznym (Łódż: Wydawnictwo Wyższej Szkoły Finansów i Informatyki, 2008); Jan Chańko, Gazeta ‘Rozwój’ (1897–1915): studium źródłoznawcze, Acta Universitatis Lodziensis: Folia historica (Łódź: Uniwersytet Łódzki, 1982); Kamil Śmiechowski, Łódzka wizja postępu: oblicze społeczno-ideowe ‘Gońca Łódzkiego’, ‘Kuriera Łódzkiego’, ‘Nowego Kuriera Łódzkiego’ w latach 1898–1914 (Łódź: Księży Młyn Dom Wydawniczy, 2014). 51. ‘Zachloroformowani’, Goniec Łódzki 117 (1905). 52. Władysław L. Karwacki, Łódź w latach rewolucji 1905–1907 (Łódź: Wydawnictwo Łódzkie, 1975); Richard D. Lewis, ‘Labor-Management Conflict in Russian Poland: The Lodz Lockout of 1906–1907’, East European Quarterly VII(4) (1974), 413–34. 53. ‘Echa tygodniowe’, Kurier Łódzki 9 (1907). 54. ‘Lokaut w świetle prądów demokratycznych’, Kurier Łódzki 13 (1907). 55. Ibid. 56. ‘Przełom o lokaucie’, Kurier Łódzki 71 (1907). 57. Śmiechowski, Łódzka wizja postępu, chap. 2. 58. This can be traced in articles about the revolution in Rozwój, conveniently collected and published in one volume: Marta Sikorska-Kowalska, ‘Wolność, czy zbrodnia?’: rewolucja

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59.

60.

61.

62. 63. 64.

65. 66. 67.

68. 69. 70. 71.

72.

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1905–1907 roku w Łodzi na łamach gazety ‘Rozwój’ (Łódź: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego, 2012). I rely here on Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011). To explain interrelations between political languages, I use some of the jargon employed in structural semiotics. This does not necessarily mean that the entire logic of the operation of those languages, let alone counter-concepts, should be seen solely through a structuralist lens. Asymmetrical concepts are not necessarily binary pairs but the opposition between order and chaos is a binary due to its logic of mutual negation. Due to tsarist censorship, socialist and nationalist titles were published underground, while in the ‘legal’ press the spectrum of political positions was limited to those representing ‘decent’ urban burghers of different, more nationalist-conservative or liberal-progressive shades. The plethora of opinions, especially in relation to social and political issues, was largely broadened after October 1905, when preventive censorship was abolished and a less restrictive, less punitive system introduced instead. Śmiechowski, Łódzka wizja postępu; Kamil Śmiechowski, ‘Searching for a Better City: An Urban Discourse during the Revolution of 1905 in the Kingdom of Poland’, Praktyka Teoretyczna 13 (2014); Agata Zysiak, ‘The Desire for Fullness. The Fantasmatic Logic of Modernization Discourses at the Turn of the 19th and 20th Century in Łódź’, Praktyka Teoretyczna 13 (2014), 41–69; Wiktor Marzec and Agata Zysiak, ‘“Journalists Discovered Łódź like Columbus.” Orientalizing Capitalism in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century Polish Modernization Debates’, Canadian-American Slavic Studies 50 (2016), 235–65. Freeden, Ideologies and Political Theory. Wolin, Politics and Vision, 9. Agnes Heller, The Three Logics of Modernity and the Double Bind of the Modern Imagination (Budapest: Collegium Budapest, Institute for Advanced Study, 2001); Claude Lefort, Democracy and Political Theory (Cambridge: Polity Press in association with Basil Blackwell, Oxford, UK, 1988); Jonathan Flatley, Affective Mapping: Melancholia and the Politics of Modernism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008). Koselleck, ‘Feindbegriffe’. Timo Pankakoski, ‘Conflict, Context, Concreteness: Koselleck and Schmitt on Concepts’, Political Theory, 38, no. 6 (2010), 749–79. I do not want to explore here Schmittian legacies in Koselleck’s thinking; however, see Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007); Reihard Mehring, ‘Begriffssoziologie, Begriffsgeschichte, Begriffspolitik. Zur Form der Ideengeschichtsschreibung nach Carl Schmitt und Reinhart Koselleck’, in Herald Bluhm and Jürgen Gebhardt (eds), Politische Ideengeschichte im 20. Jahrhundert Konzepte und Kritik (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2006), 31–50; Niklas Olsen, ‘Carl Schmitt, Reinhart Koselleck and the Foundations of History and Politics’, History of European Ideas 37, no. 2 (2011), 197–208. Koselleck, ‘The Historical-Political Semantics of Asymmetric Counterconcepts’, 191. Koselleck, ‘Feindbegriffe’. Alexander Escudier, ‘Temporalities and Political Modernity’, in Javier Fernández Sebastián (ed.), Political Concepts and Time: New Approaches to Conceptual History (Santander: Cantabria University Press, 2011). The former is epitomized by Ernesto Laclau, the latter by Jeffrey Alexander and Philip Smith; see Ernesto Laclau, On Populist Reason (London: Verso, 2005); Jeffrey Alexander and Philip Smith, ‘The Discourse of American Civil Society: A New Proposal for Cultural Studies’, Theory and Society 2, no. 22 (1993), 151–208. Palti, ‘The “Theoretical Revolution”’.

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Śmiechowski, Kamil, Łódzka wizja postępu: oblicze społeczno-ideowe ‘Gońca Łódzkiego’, ‘Kuriera Łódzkiego’, ‘Nowego Kuriera Łódzkiego’ w latach 1898–1914 (Łódź: Księży Młyn Dom Wydawniczy, 2014). –––, ‘Searching for a Better City: An Urban Discourse during the Revolution of 1905 in the Kingdom of Poland’, Praktyka Teoretyczna 13 (2014), 71–96. Światło, Adam, Oświata a polski ruch robotniczy 1876–1939 (Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1981). Tobias, Henry Jack, The Jewish Bund in Russia from Its Origins to 1905 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1972). Tomicki, Jan, Polska Partia Socjalistyczna, 1892–1948 (Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1983). Tych, Feliks, and Jürgen Hensel, ‘BUND: 100 lat historii, 1897–1997’ (Oficyna Wydawn. Volumen, 2000). Ury, Scott, Barricades and Banners: The Revolution of 1905 and the Transformation of Warsaw Jewry (Stanford University Press, 2012). Walicki, Andrzej, ‘The Troubling Legacy of Roman Dmowski’, Dialogue and Universalism 4 (2011), 91–119. Weeks, Theodore R., ‘1905 as a Watershed in Polish–Jewish Relations’, in Stefani Hoffman and Ezra Mendelsohn (eds), The Revolution of 1905 and Russia’s Jews (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), 128–41. Wolin, Sheldon S., Politics and Vision: Continuity and Innovation in Western Political Thought, expanded edn (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004). Żarnowska, Anna, Geneza rozłamu w Polskiej Partii Socjalistycznej, 1904–1906 (Warsaw: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1965). Żarnowska, Anna, and Stanisław Wolsza (eds), Społeczeństwo i polityka: dorastanie do demokracji: kultura polityczna w Królestwie Polskim na początku XX wieku (Warsaw: DiG, 1993). Zimand, Roman, ‘Uwagi o teorii narodu na marginesie analizy nacjonalistycznej teorii narodu’, Studia filozoficzne 4, no. 51 (1967), 3–39. Zimmerman, Joshua D., Poles, Jews, and the Politics of Nationality the Bund and the Polish Socialist Party in Late Tsarist Russia, 1892–1914 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004). Zysiak, Agata, ‘The Desire for Fullness. The Fantasmatic Logic of Modernization Discourses at the Turn of the 19th and 20th Century in Łódź’, Praktyka Teoretyczna 13 (2014), 41–69.

Chapter 10

Dutch McCarthyism?

The Asymmetrical Opposition of ‘Democracy’ and ‘Communism’ in Holland between 1920 and 1990 Wim de Jong

L

ooming above the ideological landscape of Western democracies during the twentieth century was the spectre of communism, which, for better or worse, constituted the main alternative to the Western political system. As the Other of Western democracy, communism had an ambivalent role. Both internationally (as an idea) and at home (through domestic communist parties), it played the role of the constitutive exterior, a negative projection of the Western self-image that could be used to overcome national discord and foster a shared definition of democracy in Western society. But just as different definitions of democracy produced different anticommunisms, these versions of anticommunism were a source of dissensus among the parts of the alleged unity. Until – and even beyond – 1989, the use of the concepts of democracy and communism in politics and civil society could not be separated: in the back of every commentator’s mind, speaking of democracy reflected some perception of communism. But even though the West and the East, at least from the onset of the Cold War, formed the mutually recognized bipolar power bloc, they were asymmetrical in Western ideological discourse: communism as an existing political system was denounced by Western observers (including many socialists) as authoritarian and hence undemocratic. In this way, the memory of National Socialism and the reality of communism became the counter-concepts par excellence on which the gradual acceptance of ‘democracy’ as a universal creed in Western countries could thrive: in the 1930s, there was also a right-wing alternative to democracy, but from 1945 onwards communism became its one and only ‘totalitarian’ opposite.

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This asymmetrical discourse suggested an opposition, but were democracy and communism naturally opposed? From the communist perspective, there was no opposition: Western democracy – the legitimation of capitalist elitism – was, in reality, no democracy at all. Communism, on the other hand, was seen as synonymous with democracy, as the name of the German Democratic Republic made clear. But in the West, too, the opposition between democracy and communism did not go uncontested. As post-Second World War communists untiringly argued, anticommunism had undemocratic features as well. Indeed, as this chapter purports to show, from the 1960s onwards, anticommunism, due to its intolerance, also became an asymmetrical counter-concept of democracy, which illustrates the historical contingency of concepts serving as opposites to democracy. The profound influence of communism and anticommunism on the conceptual history of democracy in the twentieth century does not always receive the attention it deserves. Communism in Western European debates about democracy was not just a big Other for a largely self-contained democratic debate, but its very present alter ego. Hence, it is no accident that contestation in European post-war political discourse began in the 1960s with the challenging of the prevailing notion of anticommunism, which was central to the voluntary curtailing of citizens’ rights in the pre-war democracies after 1945 in the name of the famously defended ‘militant democracy’.1 This chapter investigates communism as an asymmetrical counterconcept of democracy, using the Netherlands between 1917 and the 1980s as the principal case study. Both before and after the war, Dutch society had a hard time fostering national community. The general feeling was that the breakdown of society into religious and political denominations eroded the national community, the absence of which was strongly felt in the new mass democracy. Elites trying to foster national community were distrusted by religious minorities and Social Democrats only gradually began to see themselves as part of it. The discourse of national community was crucial for the movements aiming for the renewal of the political landscape in the 1930s and 1940s. For that reason, after the Second World War, anticommunism steadily grew in vehemence, cutting across party lines and driving state politics: the 1933 banning of communists from public service was upheld in 1951. The anticommunist consensus that lasted from the 1920s to the 1960s2 needs to be qualified. Dutch anticommunism stemmed from diverging definitions of democracy. Progressive groups and post-Second World War Protestant minorities feared the instrumentalization of ‘democratic’ anticommunism for the purposes of the exclusionary agenda. Ultimately,

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tolerance of communists in the 1960s became a litmus test for a democratic system’s ability to practise diversity. Anticommunist policies and anticommunist theories sustained and reinforced each other. Mark Mazower and Thomas Mergel have pointed out that the emphasis on the lunatic fringe of McCarthyism has hindered a non-normative examination of the variety of reactionary and progressive anticommunisms. Mergel defines anticommunism ‘as a political attitude that identifies real Communism as the antipode of one’s own society’.3 This allows for differentiating, as the US historian Michael Kimmage does, between the liberal, New Deal-oriented anticommunism centred upon cultural growth and progressive values, and the conservative, religious anticommunism, which perceived communism as the embodiment of everything that was wrong with modern earthly urban society. In both cases, the staunchest anticommunists were often ex-communist renegades who had fallen under the communist spell in the 1920s.4 One cannot, however, easily distinguish liberal anticommunism from religious right-wing anticommunism. People using religious arguments against communism could have liberal or conservative objectives; rightwing anticommunism was not religious per se.5 Furthermore, the anticommunist discourse cut across party lines; some lines of criticism, notably that of religion, were more popular with particular groups because they played a different role in domestic political projects, rooted in a communal (as opposed to the national) vision of democracy. Although most political parties in the Netherlands were anticommunist, there were significant differences in the vices they ascribed to communism. Moreover, in their anticommunist discourses, different critics of communism frequently settled scores not only with their menacing adversary but also with one another. This chapter explores the ambivalencies of anticommunism as a unifying discourse that was often instrumentalized for diverse national projects. From the 1920s to the 1960s, anticommunism was an important part of the battles over the meaning of democracy. Anticommunism provided ex negativo a shared definition of democracy, but also highlighted differences in the self-understanding of democracy, understood here as an essentially contested concept.6

Anticommunism as a Tool for a Democratic National Community (1918–60) The Netherlands in the twentieth century was a divided country. Workingclass Protestants, Catholics and Social Democrats tried to emancipate

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their constituencies. Researchers have emphasized how these processes of emancipation fostered nationalism in the Netherlands instead of mitigating it. Nonetheless, throughout the last century, Holland was constantly torn between the unitary state and the particular political groups whose disparate ideas about the character of the Dutch nation competed with religion and class for the master narrative of national self-understanding.7 This disparity of ideas about Dutch society intensified the search for convergence, and communism, at least after the Bolshevik Revolution, provided a convenient screen on which all the normative discussions of democracy could be projected: even when the various factions of Dutch society struggled with each other about just about everything, they all rejected communism. An important common ground for contrasting democratic Selves with communist Others was the perception of communism as un- and antinational. This might seem logical because of the traditional internationalism of communist ideology, but that is not entirely the case. Mergel points to the divergence between the anticommunism in the United States, which saw the enemy’s ideology as an imported good (many US communists were indeed foreigners), and the anticommunism in Western Germany, where the same argument could hardly have been made against the homegrown mass communist movement.8 In the Netherlands, both approaches had taken root. In some ways, communism had been part of the local socialist movement since the end of the nineteenth century, with strong support in rural regions, especially in the north of the country, so it certainly was not a ‘foreign’ phenomenon. This fact, however, did little to allay fears that even the quite marginal Communist Party of the Netherlands would use its international contacts for sabotage and domestic disorders. These worries, projected upon both communists and Social Democrats, were comparable to the first US Red Scare and exacerbated by a failed coup by Social Democrat leader Pieter Troelstra in 1918. In due time, the fear of a possible regime change was replaced by fears of the public order being disrupted by the extreme left-wing parties.9 The Netherlands thus had two homegrown socialist movements – communists and Social Democrats – which made the answer to the question of whether communism was unnational even more ambivalent. For two groups, the Social Democrats and the Catholics, presenting communism as unnational had the discursive function of inscribing their own constituencies in the national community. (For Protestants, this was less of a problem because they had presented themselves since the ­sixteenth century as the basis of Dutch national culture; liberals had only ascended to the political elite in the nineteenth century.)

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The great schism between Social Democrats and communists was the result of what Social Democrats saw as the necessity to present themselves as democratic and thoroughly national. In Germany, the obsessive enmity between communists and Social-Democrats, fuelled by the unconditional rejection of social democracy by Soviet Bolsheviks, went so far that two parties failed to form a united front against Nazism.10 For Dutch Social Democrats, the reclamation of trustworthiness was even more urgent than for other European Social Democrats due to Troelstra’s big error of judgement in 1918; they constantly had to prove their credentials and were only allowed into the government in 1939. The interwar fear of revolution spawned anti-revolutionary, semi-paramilitary organizations.11 In 1919, at the Congress for National Resilience, the ex-chief of staff general Cornelius Snijders noted approvingly that Social Democrat Chairman Willem Vliegen had called loyalty to one’s country a duty of Social Democracy.12 Still, there was no end to warnings of unnational ‘revolutionary agitation’. Thus, in 1917, Catholic and Protestant trade unions wanted the government to protect workers from agitation that could ‘only harm their interest and the Dutch national economy’.13 During the apex of the first (from 1917 to the mid-1920s) and the second (1947–53) Red Scares, the discourse of ‘revolutionary agitation’ had distinctly xenophobic overtones reminiscent of US anticommunism: for example, a liberal newspaper Het Vaderland saw revolutionary agitation as ‘emanating predominantly from the Moscow hotbed’,14 thereby portraying communism as a product of agitation by foreign agents.15 This discourse of communism as unnational did not, however, go uncontested in the ideological battles of the time. In 1937, the Catholic priest and philosopher Wilfried Dekkers insisted in a commentary on the anticommunist encyclical Divini Redemptoris that communism was not a manifestation of the Slavonic soul but an offspring of Western modernism and liberalism, and should therefore be regarded as the consequence of modern Western culture.16 Another element of this campaign-against-the-‘unnational’ discourse was the narrative of the communist Gleichschaltung: fervent anticommunists like the National Society against Revolution claimed that as soon as socialist parties became part of the Third International, they were forced to give up all ‘authentic personality’ and obey the Komintern (Social Democrats, too, commonly depicted Dutch communists as Russian mouthpieces).17 And indeed, just as Dutch Catholics were among the most ultramontane in Europe, so Dutch communists were the most loyal acolytes of the Bolsheviks: both the pre-war Communistische Partij Holland (CPH) and the post-war Communistische Partij Nederland (CPN) were

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devout followers of the Moscow orthodoxy and there has never been such thing as Dutch eurocommunism. As far as anticommunism was concerned, the only difference between the Sociaal Democratische Arbeiderspartij (SDAP) and the National Society was the fact that, for the latter, every kind of criticism of the government – even the SocialDemocratic criticism – was seen as dangerous. Since Social Democrats and communists were targeting the same electorate, outright insults directed at communist voters from the social-­democratic side were rather uncommon. At the same time, Social Democrats lost no opportunity to lambast the members of the Communist Party for their infighting and the constant repression practiced by their leaders.18 In the Social-Democratic media, the card-carrying communists were simultaneously portrayed as brainwashed and as manipulators destroying their party through sectarianism; against this backdrop, the democratic foundations of then Social Democratic parties served as the bulwark against authoritarian Bolshevism.19 The attempts of Dutch communists to model their party upon the Bolsheviks were ridiculed: the statement ‘Bolshevism does not seem to find fertile ground in the Netherlands’ negatively alluded to the thorough Dutchness of Social Democracy.20 The images of the individual members of the Communist Party and average voters isolated from national political life helped sustain a shared image of the national community. Communists were typically seen as sectarian fanatics who were immune to rational arguments; on the other hand, both members of the party and those who voted for the party were presented by their critics as victims of manipulation who were not fully responsible for their political views.21 In 1945, the Catholic ex-missonary Hans van Amstel spoke of well-meaning but shallow workers who had fallen under the spell of communism, which, as a social force, seemed to him like a parasite thriving on social problems.22 The conservative liberal newspaper Het Vaderland wrote, in 1929, that propaganda was successful in the south of the Netherlands because the proletariat there was ‘easily inflamed, bent on the sensational’.23 That communism could be the political choice of individuals in their right minds was apparently inconceivable. Social Democrats summarily depicted communist voters as disgruntled and staunchly negative people, similar to supporters of today’s populist parties. That made them an undesirable constituency. Social Democrats were at pains to show that their electorate consisted of constructive citizens who had built and (after the Second World War) rebuilt the national community. Communist voters were not generally perceived as such. Thus, post-war Social Democrats were anxious to convey the impression that their good showing in elections was rather due to their

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making inroads in the mainstream bourgeois constituency of religious parties.24 Catholics were among the staunchest anticommunists, for both political and ideological reasons. Protestants and other non-Catholic believers profoundly distrusted Catholics, accusing them, as they did with communists, of a double loyalty – in this case, to the Netherlands and Rome. Hence, for Catholics, it was of major importance to portray communism as the ultimate unnational doctrine and thereby profile themselves as good patriots. Ultramontanism contributed to the impression of Catholics as undemocratic and authoritarian, an impression that was reinforced by Catholic  proposals for an ‘organic’ system of political representation. Before the Second World War, the opposition between democracy  and communism was less pronounced in Catholic discourse, which embraced democracy as praxis but not yet as ideology.25 Still, the pre-war Dutch Catholics took it upon themselves to defend democracy from the communists as democracy was a system devoted to authority and protecting the church and family from the state. The position of Protestants and right-wing liberals, who feared governmental meddling in their affairs, emphasized authority and distrusted the state, was not dissimilar. The most persistent Catholic vituperations directed against communism concerned its atheistic character. Catholics saw the battle against communism as a religious crusade. In their catechism-style propaganda, communism was depicted not so much as an ideology but rather as a semi-religious system of beliefs.26 The implication of this spiritualist discourse was that irreligious people who had no morals undermined the family and authority. The understanding of anticommunism as a fight for the faith was prevalent among Protestants as well. In 1933, Reverend Frederik Johan Krop called communism ‘in its core a philosophy of life, which is absolutely hostile to ours, and has avowed a struggle to death against every type of religion . . . morals, yes, our entire culture’.27 The claim that communism sanctioned immorality was also common in Social Democracy, albeit in a different way: Lenin’s and Stalin’s statements about goals justifying the means were considered typical examples of communist opportunism.28 Catholics did not refrain from using medical metaphors to describe communism as the defining Other of Dutch and Western society. In 1919, the Catholic newspaper De Tijd referred to the ‘international germ’ of Bolshevism.29 This sort of branding had a long tradition: in 1878, Pope Leo XIII had called communist teachings a ‘lethal pest’.30 In post-war Social Democrat propaganda, naturalistic metaphors were used to

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describe communist public manifestations as everything from ‘the tip of the iceberg’ to the ‘Trojan horse’.31 Gender imagery also played a considerable role in the religious bashing of communism: communists at once represented everything that was bad about men, such as aggression and disruptiveness, while lacking commendable male features, such as responsibility and a good work ethic. Communists were presented as men who had not assumed responsibility, preferring to constantly blame the system. Communist women were portrayed as cold battleaxes. Overall, communist women represented for Catholics a deep aberration from what women were supposed to be and do; in 1920, the Catholic De Tijd could not conceal its disgust in reporting how communist women had plundered an Italian monastery.32 The conservative Telegraaf, in its turn, reported how an Italian communist court dominated by women proposed literally burning fascists at the stake.33 This counter-image of communist women negatively confirmed anticommunist norms of women’s political activity; commentators, horrified by the ‘socialization’ of women, claimed that their proper place was in the private sphere. These Dutch examples recall the 1960s US propaganda cited by the US historian Mary Brennan, in which soft and kind US woman were contrasted with communist females – cold, hard and obsessed with politics.34 In fact, both Social Democrats and Catholics represented emancipatory social movements. Catholics had a strong, if internally contested, trade union wing in the Katholieke Arbeiders Beweging. Progressive Catholics blamed laissez-faire liberalism and capitalism for communism and presented their own social teachings as the answer to social injustice.35 Catholic labour unions employed similar legitimizing strategies to the Social Democrats. In 1929, when a wildcat strike in the Catholic south led to disorder that claimed the lives of a worker and a police officer, they blamed the radical socialist workers for unleashing terror and anarchy; their goal was to present themselves as the legitimate representatives of workers.36 The possibility of transgression in the wildcat and political strikes legitimized for both Social Democrats and Catholics their own emancipatory ideals and how their trade unions defended workers’ rights. Derived from very diverse ideological backgrounds, this othering of unruly, aggressive communists reinforced the ideals of a national democratic community based on responsible hard-working citizens that Social Democrats and Catholics claimed for themselves. After the Second World War, the wounds and memory of National Socialism became a major topic in Western democratic discourse. However, this trauma was conditioned by the controversial ideology of

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communism. Quickly, a theory of ‘totalitarianism’ became influential; this equated the past danger of National Socialism with the present danger of communism.37 This equation, which had not been entirely absent before the war, received a boost several decades later as the underpinning of the Cold War. Now communism as the formidable ideological adversary prompted the formulation of democracy as a real ideology centred upon voluntary cooperation and individual and social rights. It became a sort of gospel spread across the globe, particularly by the United States. Compared to the United States, though, the Western European attitude to democracy, apart from being strongly anticommunist, was more nuanced. Democratic ideology was not yet so pronounced and, in practice, the citizens’ involvement in Western European democracies was rather limited: the room for political participation in demonstrations and strikes was small, and the repressive authority of the state remained strong. As Leopoldi Nuti and Vladislav Zuzok argue, there was no pronounced common Western creed mirroring Soviet Marxist dogmatism.38 As we will see below, this was the result of contestations of both democracy and anticommunism, which, in the Netherlands, concerned both domestic politics and the global situation. The Second World War had a significant impact on Dutch anticommunism, because communists were among the most active resistance groups against German occupation, for which they were rewarded in the first post-war election of 1946. They had actually shown themselves to be good patriots, having engaged in the most dangerous resistance activities. The Catholic Workers’ Movement countered that communists only joined the resistance when Russia came under attack;39 in 1948, the Communist Party confirmed their opponents’ suspicions when they abandoned their moderately nationalist course in favour of full-blown support of the Soviet Union in the Cold War. The coalition between Social Democrats and Catholics that ruled the Netherlands from 1946 to 1958 was the closest thing to a joint anticommunist front. Anticommunism was a tool for forging a national community for various factions within different political parties, which strove to overcome the divisions of pre-war Dutch society. In particular, the ideologues of the renewed Social Democrats, like Willem Banning and the party chairman Koos Vorrink, wanted to do away with the oppositions secular vs religious and bourgeois vs socialist parties, steering their party towards national cooperation. For both leading Dutch parties, anticommunism legitimized a restrictive civil liberties policy and strong government intervention. Prime Minister Willem Schermerhorn issued a warning in response to a big

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dock strike in Rotterdam in 1945 organized by the United Workers’ Union (Eenheids Vak Centrale, or EVC), claiming that it presented an immediate danger to post-war reconstruction and the combatting of food shortages. Schermerhorn warned against ‘power struggles, distrust and irresponsibility’.40 The government and the leadership of the existing unions succeeded in branding both the EVC and the social conflict it took part in as ‘communist’. For the Social Democrats in power (such as Minister Jacobus Suurhoff), this branding was instrumental in issuing a call for national solidarity and social justice for employers and workers alike. Catholics, in their turn, also had sound political reasons for framing the EVC as communist, as the latter was an obvious challenge to the organization of workers on a religious basis that they preferred and promoted. (As a matter of fact, the communists had only been given a chance in the strike because the port officials, who were tolerant of the United Workers’ Union but fearful that the dispute would be hijacked by the strike-mongering communists, refused reasonable negotiations.)41 Even though the domestic Communist Party was not deemed that big a danger, it was generally seen as the local branch of a global threat, a ‘fifth column’ of sorts. In the heavily Atlanticist post-war Netherlands, the equation of the two totalitarianisms (communism and Nazism) was already visible in Social Democrat propaganda in 1940 and in Catholic propaganda after the war.42 As a consequence of the Czechoslovak coup d’état in 1948, which Dutch communists warmly supported at the cost of inviting upon themselves the wrath of the general population, the communists were expelled from vital government services, permanent committees in Parliament and radio broadcasting services with the new restraining order of 1951.43 The motion was met with little overt resistance: Prime Minister Willem Drees saw the problematic character of these measures from a democratic perspective, but justified them by referring to the antidemocratic goals of communists, as well as the danger of sabotage.44 As in the United States, loyalty programmes of this kind were also carried out after 1951, which led to the profiling of people on the basis of allegations about their communist leanings. This did not receive much popular attention until the late 1960s, despite the fact that in some cases the citizens concerned did not learn that they had not gained employment as a teacher or doctor due to intelligence reports. Only in 1970 did the investigation of people’s political backgrounds come to an end.45 The Dutch response to US McCarthyism was also typical of the Dutch mentality in the 1950s.46 Joseph McCarthy was mainly criticized because his witch hunt had spun out of control. According to Dutch newspapers,

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McCarthy disrespected democracy and freedom of speech and even hurt its cause, tarnishing the reputation of anticommunism and obstructing US international policy. Ex-Prime Minister Schermerhorn, a Social Democrat, even compared McCarthyism to Nazi Germany.47 Although Dutch communists explicitly linked Dutch anticommunist measures to McCarthyism, the Dutch press ignored the extent to which Dutch people were also victims of the incriminations.48 The Dutch press did not view anticommunist policies as hysterical or the curtailing of democratic rights as unacceptable, even though it acknowledged these democratic deficits. McCarthy was mainly criticized for roundly accusing the wrong people, but the repression of certified communists was met with approval.49 In 1956, in response to the Hungarian Uprising, an angry mob of Dutch citizens, backed by the authorities, attacked the communist headquarters in Amsterdam.50 The results of the 1946 elections amounted to a a hangover for the Social Democrats, who came second. At least in part, the loss was due to the success of the communists, who increased the number of their seats in Parliament from three to ten (out of a hundred). The unpleasantly surprised Het Vrije Volk, the newspaper of the Social Democrats, blamed the unpopularity of the reconstruction policies on the obstinate mentality of the Dutch people, the implicit message being that the communist electorate consisted of people who were susceptible to nihilism.51 The Social Democrat chairman asserted that only the education of young workers could counter the communist appeal. The Catholic De Tijd blamed the Social Democrats for failing to stop the communists and lamented the lack of anticommunist propaganda, portraying the Communist Party as a bunch of populist free-riders.52 Social Democrats acknowledged that the growth of post-war communism was partly the result of their party’s more national and less classically socialist orientation compared to its pre-war predecessor, the SDAP:53 anticommunism served to distinguish their progressive national democratic stance from classical socialism. Realizing that achieving dominance in Dutch politics would necessitate destroying the communists, Social Democrats fought communism more fiercely in the 1948 elections, with pamphlets such as No Russian Colony!,54 and little by little fulfilled their goal during the 1950s. The rhetorical strategy employed by Social Democrats included, among other things, the association of disorder and division with communism, targeting (and marginalizing) the old-fashioned veterans of the class struggle in the classical Marxist vein popular in the interwar period. Presenting erratic communism as the only obstacle to nationwide cooperation thus legitimized the new course of the

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Social Democrats both internally (saying goodbye to what remained of Marxist socialism) and externally (a statement of patriotic intentions and general credibility directed at the bourgeois parties). Nonetheless, party leader W. Drees carefully avoided giving the impression that the new Partij van de Arbeid was no longer socialist:55 turning the party policies in the ‘national’ direction, he wrapped them in the old-school, red symbols. The bad traits of communists emphasized by their Social Democrat critics serve as a backdrop for the image of the Dutch democratic citizen. Social Democrats were at pains to stress that they represented the good, true working class, law-abiding and constructive people, even if they obviously aimed to change laws in the socialist direction. They also created the impression that the constituency of the communists consisted of voters on the margins of political life: the 1951 report – the rationale for banning communists from public offices – linked the declining support for the Communist Party to the increase in invalid ballots.56 The main ideologues of the post-war Social-Democrats wanted to make it a national party that put industrial peace before everything. Two types of strikes were rejected as ‘communist’: ‘political strikes’, called for political reasons, and wildcat strikes, organized without consultation with trade unions. Disturbing the well-ordered parliamentary democratic process (in the case of political strikes) and upsetting industrial negotiations (in the case of wildcat strikes) were things a good Social Democrat would never do. In the development of Social Democracy from an internationalist, Marxist political movement to a mainstay of national Dutch culture, communism thus served a demarcating purpose. Social Democrats shunned all organizations in which communists took part. As the historian Jolande Withuis shows, organizations like the National Union of Women (Nationale Vrouwenbond) were steeped in a tension between constantly urging cooperation between different groups and denying responsibility for some groups actually becoming communist. Communists within these organizations came to assume dominant roles, implement a pro-Moscow agenda and push ‘bourgeois’ members out, while Social Democrats tried to make their people leave the unions controlled by communists in order to undermine the organizations as ‘communist’ ventures.57 In this strategy of isolation, the concept of the ‘umbrella organization’, suggesting that the EVC and other organizations had been established as webs of communist influence, played an important role. The implication was that whenever communists participated in such organizations, they would try to subordinate them to the Communist Party, which sang, in

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its turn, the same tune as the Bolshevik Central Committee.58 Withuis and others have shown that these organizations actually started out on a much broader basis and were not direct satellites of the Communist Party.59 And during a period when political parties and social-cultural organizations were closely associated for every political denomination, the selective use of the term ‘umbrella organizations’ was rather hypocritical. The strategy of isolation was particularly important in the context of the Indonesian War of Independence (1945–49). The leading role played by Social Democrats in this undertaking was very controversial: in effect, they were conducting a colonial war, the legitimacy of which hinged on a feeble argument that if they were to step down, the religious right wing would form a Cabinet and conduct the war just the same. To bolster their case, those who opposed the war had to be framed as communist extremists, which was made easier by the communist leanings of Indonesian nationalist leader Sukarno. This explains why, in 1948, the PvdA depicted the Nederland-Indonesië Committee, which organized left-wing resistance against the war, as a ‘hunting ground’ for communists.60 By this time, Social Democrats had already weakened the committee by ordering party members to leave it.61 For post-war Catholics, the anticommunism of the Social Democrats legitimized cooperation with the Social Democrats, who joined the government in 1939, but were still a very controversial group for religious groups to form a coalition with. The Catholic party had renamed itself the Catholic People’s Party (Katholieke Volks Partij), signalling a break from the prewar dominance of conservative forces. A progressive policy was deemed necessary to hold on to Catholic workers, which prominent figures within the party (such as the priest Jacobus G. Stokman OFM) viewed as susceptible to the lure of Social Democrats and communists.62 Anticommunism was also used for the legitimization of policies striving towards a social state that would complete the emancipation of Catholic and SocialDemocrat workers: while guaranteed social rights would immunize workers from communist propaganda, national solidarity would support democracy. These policies underscored another interesting difference between Dutch and US anticommunism: whereas McCarthyism in the United States, as has been recently argued by London Storrs, was bent on expelling from the government service not only avowed communists but all left-leaning liberals in order to do away with the legacy of the New Deal,63 post-war anticommunism in the Netherlands, to a large extent, went hand in hand with the social-democratic agenda.

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Anticommunist Discord and the Gradual Development of Anticommunism into a Counter-Concept of Democracy It has been shown that during the national reconstruction after the Second World War, communism provided a convenient negative image for shaping the major traits of the ‘good’ Dutch citizen: rather than being prone to political and class conflicts, the patriotically minded person would be law-abiding, constructive, cooperative and hard-working. This inversion trickled down to more specific areas of anticommunist discourse, such as gender roles: instead of struggling and dominating, men were supposed to be cooperative and responsible, and women’s function was to provide for their families rather than engaging in political activism. As a focal point of criticism from opposite sides of the political spectrum, the image of a ‘communist’ fostered the national integration of Social Democrats and Catholics, among other forces, and legitimized their social agendas. However, the cracks in anticommunist doctrine highlighted political divisions. Just as communists and Social Democrats were, for half a century after the First World War, incapable of forming a united front against the far right due to their deep mutual hatred, there was no united anticommunist front either, as the interwar communities were constantly struggling with the deep ideological rifts within Dutch society. For example, the Catholic authorities did not want to contribute to the initiative Godsdienst, gezin, gezag (Religion, Family, Authority) conceived as a broad interconfessional anticommunist platform,64 preferring instead to blame liberalism and Protestantism for making the modern aberration of communism possible.65 This last example attests to the fact that anticommunism was not a clear ‘right-wing’ phenomenon. There was, of course, conservative capitalist anticommunism, which was especially prevalent in prewar Dutch politics and saw communism primarily as a danger to capitalism. This entrepreneurial position was defended by the religious and liberal parties in power; according to this position, Social Democrats, with their failed 1918 coup and Marxist jargon, were not to be trusted. However, after the Second World War, this type of anticommunism was marginalized in favour of a liberal anticommunism defended by the Social Democrat–Catholic governments until 1958 in their attempt to construct a neocorporatist system regulating industrial life. Even though the antinomy ‘democratic’/‘antidemocratic’ was a common topic in post-war anticommunist propaganda, it did not result in much unity. Minorities like the Protestant Anti-Revolutionaire Partij (ARP) feared that the exclusion of communists from public politics on the grounds that they were antidemocratic could boomerang on them:

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in the words of the orthodox Protestant leader Jan Bruins Slot in 1948, communists should only have been excluded if they threatened a wellordered society. (In the 1930s, Catholics largely shared these reservations about the use of the term ‘democratic’, for the same reasons as the ARP.)66 Overall, the marginalized progressive groups feared that the radical exclusion of communists would damage democracy by restricting freedom of speech.67 The great convergence of Protestant and Catholic anticommunism provided an opportunity to argue for the conservative idea of democracy and authority, in opposition to the ideology promoted by Social Democrats. Protestants and Catholics opposed oppressive communist dictatorship to the clerical and political authority grounded in the conscience, resulting from a free choice; hence, their communitarian vision of freedom and democracy derived its credentials from negation of the big socialist adversary. In both the Catholic and the orthodox Protestant conception of democracy, it was very important to preserve the plurality of communities based on respect for religion, family and authority, even though both confessions underscored their mutual differences: for the Protestants, Catholics were too authoritarian, whereas Catholics saw Protestants as too rationalist and modern.68 The Catholic insistence on group diversity and the primacy of groups over individuals in the 1950s led to tensions with liberal and Social Democrat visions of democracy, which were more liberal-democratic.69 In their turn, Social Democrats used anticommunism to increase their credibility as the national reconstruction party par excellence, portraying democracy as a national community with room for every individual to develop into a ‘person’. This was part of their efforts to loosen the grip of religious parties on Dutch political life.70 Catholics, the largest minority in Dutch politics, were suspected of ‘totalitarian’ tendencies. Liberals, Social Democrats and Protestants distrusted their democratic credentials, doubting that they would honour the rights of other minorities when in power.71 ‘Totalitarian’, in this context, alludes to a lack of respect for privacy and attempts to force other communities within society to conform to Catholic values – which was one of the Catholic arguments against communism. In 1954, an episcopal monitory letter urged Catholics not to become members of socialist organizations on penalty of being denied sacraments, provoking furious debate over the undemocratic character of such meddling in the individual conscience. On the other hand, Catholics used anticommunism to discredit socialism as a whole: notwithstanding the fact that members who practised religion were prominent in the post-war Dutch socialdemocratic party PvdA, Catholics kept telling workers that socialism was

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wrong in its entirety and that Social Democracy was only a softer incarnation of the dangerous atheistic creed. Invoking a big socialist onslaught on Christianity underlined the Catholic party’s ongoing right to exist.72 Both Catholics and Protestants could invoke the fact that their parties had been built on religious social movements that had fought for their rights since the nineteenth century. Social Democrats claimed that religion as the foundation of political parties belonged to the past. Anticommunism on a religious basis was never accepted by Social Democrats; they agreed that one of communism’s problems was its intolerance of religion, but they only saw this as a problem in terms of democracy. Some organizations close to the Social Democrats, such as the Humanist Society (Humanistisch Verbond), were derided by prominent Catholics (and the Catholic newspaper De Tijd)73 as their ‘umbrella organizations’ to underpin the danger posed by socialists in religious politics.74 In the battle for workers’ votes, Social Democrats wrangled with Catholics over the use of this derogatory concept in relation to this and other societies (for instance, the progressive Union for Sexual Reform) serving as ‘umbrella organizations’ controlled by the PvdA,75 adding yet another anticommunist counter-concept to the contested ideological terrain. So behind the façade of the orderly democracy of the 1950s, which derived much of its appeal from anticommunism, lurked two different conceptions of democracy – one emphasizing individual fulfilment through a national community and another underscoring group diversity. And these were not the only divisions within anticommunism: in 1950, the conservative Dutch politician Carel Gerretson added to the list of divisions within anticommunism the divisions between capitalism and anticapitalism (referring to Social Democracy), democracy and dictatorship (referring to fascist Spain), Christianity and secularism. Gerretson saw Franco’s Spain as an indispensable member of the anticommunist front,76 which caused tension between Social Democrats, who were disgusted by fascist regimes altogether, and Catholics who prioritized the protection of religion and capitalism over democracy. As a result of the controversy, Spain was denied NATO membership. The contentious issue contributed to the destabilization of the post-war European political order. In 1963, Dutch pacifist socialists disrupted a NATO ceremony in which Portugal – a fascist Catholic dictatorship at that time – was taking part. In the 1960s, the three major components of anticommunism all changed, causing communism to lose its function as the primary asymmetrical counter-concept of Western democracy. First of all, capitalism was subjected to progressive critiques with some neo-Marxist overtones but with a broader appeal, for instance, from the standpoint of the

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emerging peace and international aid movement. Secondly, the religious basis of anticommunism withered due to a secularization process that picked up steam at the end of the 1960s, turning individuals’ personal convictions into a central element of Dutch society. For example, both in 1975 and in 1979, the traditionally conservative Protestant religious schools were embroiled in controversies over the acceptability of firing teachers with openly communist sympathies. One of the leading figures in the ensuing debates, the conservative Prof. Johannes Verkuyl, argued that ‘there were limits’ to tolerance and hence it was impossible to have a communist teacher in a religious school.77 But the responses of teachers, professionals and students indicated that, in effect, such limits did not exist and tolerance was the supreme democratic and Christian virtue.78 Attempts to interfere with people’s personal convictions could no longer be taken lightly. Finally, as a part of the growing consensus on the new liberal definition of democracy, a more tolerant attitude towards granting communists unlimited democratic rights developed. In 1957, Social Democrat leader Jaap Burger could still get away with quipping that prohibiting communists from broadcasting was merely awarding them the same rights that non-communists had behind the Iron Curtain (the witticism was repeated in 1963 by his successor Anne Vondeling).79 But in 1965, the Minister of Education and Science Maarten Vrolijk – another Social Democrat – expressed his intention to allow communists to engage in political broadcasting as a matter of ‘healthy democracy’. The progressive Catholic newspaper Volkskrant also took the position that democracy shows its strength by tolerating extremist parties; before too long, the staunch anticommunist Frans Goedhart (PvdA) became the lone voice opposing full rights for communists.80 Shortly thereafter, the municipality of Utrecht decided to give communists full access to the municipal buildings again.81 However, tolerating communists as a minority or a sect for the sake of democracy was not the same as accepting communism as a political choice. The student movement in the second half of the 1960s proved to be a big stimulus for communist parties all over Europe. Being a communist (or posing as one) was the ultimate statement against the post-war bourgeois order and gave one a kind of radical chic. This position, however, was not free from paradoxes. The height of the student movement in 1968 coincided with the Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia. Apart from some naïve diehards, the new radicals on the left defined communism as a Third Way between the United States and the USSR. Breaking with the traditional communist orthodoxy, they did not believe that the Soviet Union had the recipe for a brave new world, having basically the same

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complaints about Russian authoritarianism as anticommunists but interpreting it as a part of global problems, such as the nuclear threat. The naïveté of the Third Way propagandists rested, among other things, on the illusion that the GDR was different to the Soviet Union and that socialism with a human face, notwithstanding the Prague 1968 bloodbath, was still possible. Due to these glaring inconsistencies, the revival of Marxist socialism was short-lived (from 1965 to around 1982). After heated polemics, a consensus about the moral bankruptcy of communism was re-established, helped by the publication of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago. Even if left-wing radicals still saw this unmasking of their idol as yet another expression of Ronald Reagan’s hatred of the ‘evil empire’, Marxism went out of fashion again. For the vast majority of Dutch society, communism was dead and gone by 1989; even the radical left milieu started reformulating its ideology in a post-Marxist way.82 From the 1970s onwards, Dutch anticommunism played a new role in the discourse of the national community. The memory of the witch hunts during the post-war reconstruction period became a common negative reference point and the anticommunist radicalism of that time was increasingly regarded as a symptom of the pre-1960s democratic immaturity that had not allowed free speech and democratic rights to flourish. The battle of the 1960s was waged over the overall social acceptability of the nonconformist positions –most notably the communist ones – in a society in which the majority of both conservative and liberal anticommunists turned their backs on those who adopted these positions. Tolerance of communism as a form of non-conformist social behaviour became a litmus test of democracy and toleration of nonconformist social behaviour in the Netherlands as a self-described morally ‘guiding’ country.83 In the 1980s, as far as democratic rights were concerned, the Netherlands saw itself as a highly tolerant and progressive country – this self-image was underpinned by the memory of past anticommunism that had been overcome along with its communist adversary. But the spectre of communism was still around, playing a crucial negative role in the spectacle of the Berlin Wall coming down in the name of democracy, epitomized in the recycling of the nineteenth-century Romantic slogan ‘Wir sind das Volk’.84 In Western European culture, communism still functions as a profound counter-concept of Western democracy, if only because many in the twenty-first century remember it better than National Socialism. At the same time, it is not exempt from what Tony Judt has famously described as a certain forgetfulness of the West regarding the great ideological cataclysms of the twentieth century.85 The memory of communism as the

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big Other of democracy tends to become a sterile monument, a tourist attraction like Checkpoint Charlie. In the Netherlands, after the definitive end of the Cold War in 1989 (at which point the local communists had already been completely marginalized), it lingers in the background, at a distance.

Comparisons and Conclusions: Dutch and Other Anticommunisms As a constituting Other, communism had many faces. It served national unity in fostering the national integration of minorities like progressive Catholics and Social-Democrats and legitimized their social agendas when they assumed power in 1946. During the post-war economic crisis and the reconstruction phase, the communist also functioned as a negative example of citizenship, identified with unruly behaviour and offensiveness. Later, this image was turned upside down: the recollection of 1950s repressive anticommunism became a reference point for the national democratic culture. Anticommunism served different purposes for everyone and a real national front never materialized. Even during the heyday of cooperation between Social Democrats and Catholics, it was used in the trench warfare between the two coalition partners for dominance in Dutch politics. In covert and sometimes explicit terms, the contested meaning of anticommunism as a counter-concept played a major role in a struggle over the dominant principle of democracy in the Netherlands: whereas Social Democrats thought the problem with communism and Catholicism was a lack of respect for the individual, Catholics considered the communism’s and Social Democracy’s tendencies towards planned state socialism to be a threat to the holy trinity of family, church and religious schools, which was, for them, the embodiment of democracy. The three internal divisions of anticommunism sketched by Gerretson (see above) were transnational in character. Nearly everywhere, anticommunism was divided over the questions of capitalism, democracy and religion, but these divisions worked differently in different countries, which had consequences for the nature of the anticommunisms in question. In the United States, the capitalism division was less important than in the Netherlands, as the vast majority of the population saw communism as a threat to the US way of life and hence deemed anticommunism legitimate. Due to the conservative streak of both Eisenhower administrations and the McCarthy campaign, the anticommunism in the United States automatically involved downsizing or even rolling back the social state envisioned

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by the New Deal. But even in liberal circles, such as the Truman administration, capitalist liberal anticommunism went unquestioned. In contrast, in the Netherlands before the Second World War, Social Democrats’ issue with communism was not its anticapitalism, but its authoritarianism. The post-war period, however, saw the establishment of the social state, underpinned by a typically Dutch social-democratic and progressive Catholic anticommunism. There was a European consensus on a type of Rhineland capitalism, the neocorporatism of which was partly meant to shield it from the lure of communism. All in all, the general reduction of the communism–anticommunism opposition to the contradistinction between capitalism and anticapitalism shaped the binary division of the West, leading to the acceptance of Portugal and Spain into the anti-Soviet bloc regardless of their neofascist politics. As for the semantics of democracy, the Netherlands largely followed the rhetoric from across the Atlantic. But its response to McCarthyism was paradoxical: while it was interpreted as an anomaly that endangered democracy, this did not lead to reflection upon the Netherlands’ own witch hunt against communists (particularly in 1956). Only in the 1960s did a critical stance towards extreme anticommunist measures begin to take shape, bringing the situation more in line with the policy of Western German (which avoided an anticommunist witch hunt, despite banning the Communist Party in 1956).86 Transatlantic affinities were most visible in the function performed by anticommunism in the discourse of national community. In the United States, McCarthyism had the ultimate effect of sowing national discord and questioning the very validity of the democratic norms it claimed to defend – a development staunchly opposed by Democrats and other opposition groups that were put off by the methods (rather than goals) of the anticommunist movement. So, both in the United States and in the Netherlands, it was not so much anticommunism as its interpretation that was controversial. In the Dutch case, anticommunism did facilitate the national integration of both Catholics and Social Democrats; it was also instrumental in establishing cooperation between various progressive forces, providing a common framework for the post-war reconstruction. But behind this dominant liberal anticommunism lurked doubts about its implications for major democratic values, such as diversity (Protestants) and freedom of speech (progressive groups on the margins of the p ­ olitical spectre). The instrumentalization of anticommunism for different political purposes is another point of convergence between the two countries, in which anticommunism was understood differently by liberal and conservative forces. In the Dutch case, the communist threat was used

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in propaganda by both Social Democrats (underlining the importance of a big progressive party as opposed to various religious parties) and Catholics (inflating the danger of socialism and highlighting the role of democracy in protecting the rights of religious groups). In the 1960s, a new tolerance of the Communist Party coincided in the Netherlands with a gradual disappearance of the fronts opened by the adversaries of communism after the Second World War, notably that of religion versus atheism. Communism two decades later did not imply opposition to capitalism, democracy and religion, but simply encompassed everything young rebels wished to challenge in the post-war world. The controlled capitalism of the 1950s was no longer seen as progressive because its emphasis on cooperation defied the 1960s definition of democracy as radical freedom of speech. Flirting with communism, or at least acknowledging the good intention of domestic communists, was seen as the most decisive break with the oppression of underrepresented minorities. This multifaceted account of anticommunism in the Netherlands during the age of extremes shows that communism as an asymmetrical counter-concept was as ambiguous as the forces that had brought it to life. It was anchored in the narratives of national division but also supported the construction of national community, and it played a major role in debates seeking to determine whether democracy should be about individual rights, national cooperation or the plurality of communities. On top of that, anticommunism provided legitimizing narratives to overcome these divisions, which, in many cases, at least as far as anticommunists’ goals were concerned, were not really about communism as such. Especially in countries like the Netherlands, where the domestic threat of communism was limited, the instrumentalization of anticommunisms for different political agendas and visions of democracy calls for further research. Wim de Jong is a Dutch historian and political philosopher, who was awarded his PhD from Radboud University Nijmegen in 2014. He specializes in the history of democracy, notably the connection between democracy, citizenship education and urban studies in the Netherlands and the United States. He recently published Civic Education and Contested Democracy. Towards a Pedagogic State in the Netherlands post 1945 (Palgrave Studies in Global Citizenship Education, 2020). In 2016, he was a visiting fellow at the Special Collections of Columbia University, New York. In 2017, he published a monograph on the history of Protestant education in the Netherlands. He has worked as a lecturer and postdoctoral scholar at Radboud University Nijmegen,

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Utrecht University and the Open Universiteit Nederland. Currently, he is a postdoctoral researcher at the Open Universiteit and affiliated with the RU Nijmegen.

Notes  1. Jan-Werner Müller, Contesting Democracy. Political ideas in Twentieth Century Europe (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011), 129; 147; Geoff Eley, Forging Democracy: The History of the Left in Europe, 1850–2000: The History of the Left in Europe, 1850–2000 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 304.  2. Dirk Engelen, Geschiedenis van de Binnenlandse Veiligheidsdienst (Den Haag: SDU, 1995), 182; Duco Hellema, Nederland in de wereld: buitenlandse politiek van Nederland (Antwerp: Houten, 2014).  3. Thomas Mergel, ‘The Unknown and the Familiar Enemy: The Semantics of AntiCommunism in the USA and Germany 1945–1975’, in Willibald Steinmetz (ed.), Political Languages in the Age of Extremes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 246; Mark Mazower, ‘Reconstruction. The Historiographical Issues’, in Mark Mazower (ed.), Post-war Reconstruction in Europe 1945–1949 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 20.  4. Michael Kimmage, The Conservative Turn. Lionel Trilling, Whittaker Chambers and the Lessons of Anti-Communism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), 159.  5. Larry Ceplair seems to classify religious anticommunism as a variation of conservatism in his division of unofficial anticommunism into five types: institutional, ex-communist, liberal, left-of-liberal and conservative. See Larry Ceplair, AntiCommunism in Twentieth-Century America: A Critical History (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2011), 18.  6. Walter Gallie, ‘Essentially Contested Concepts’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 56 (2013), 167–98.  7. Stefan Berger and Chris Lorenz, ‘Introduction: National History Writing in a Global Age’, in Stefan Berger and Chris Lorenz (eds), The Contested Nation. Ethnicity, Class, Religion and Gender in National Histories (London: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2008), 2; Henk te Velde and Hans Verhage, De eenheid en de delen. Zuilvorming, onderwijs en natievorming in Nederland (Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis, 1996), Introduction.  8. Mergel, ‘The Unknown and the Familiar Enemy’, 249.  9. Joris Gijsenbergh, ‘Divided Fronts: The Anti-Communist and Anti-Fascist Defence of “Democracy” and “Europe”’, European Studies: A Journal of European Culture, History and Politics 32, no. 1 (2014), 63–85. 10. Jean-Jacques Becker, ‘Preface’, in Aspects de L’anti-communisme (Paris: L’Age d’Homme, 2000), 6. 11. Such as Vereniging Volksweerbaarheid. 12. Snijders quoted De sociaal-democratie en den oorlog, in De Tijd: godsdienstig-staatkundig dagblad, 20 September 1919, Dag. 13. De Tijd: godsdienstig-staatkundig dagblad, 4 August 1917, Dag. 14. Het Vaderland: staat- en letterkundig nieuwsblad, 10 Secember 1924, Avond. 15. See Aron B.N. David, ‘Onderbouw’, Godsdienst, gezin, gezag (1933), 10. 16. Wilfried Dekkers O. Praem, Kerk en communisme, Tongerloo XIII (1937).

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17. De strijd tegen het bolsjewisme (Nationale Bond tegen Revolutie), 8; Een aanklacht tegen het communisme, Amsterdam, 1940, 2. 18. Het volk: dagblad voor de arbeiderspartij, 16 November 1929, Ochtend; Het volk: dagblad voor de arbeiderspartij, 22 July 1921, Dag. 19. Het volk: dagblad voor de arbeiderspartij, 6 April 1926, Dag. 20. Het volk: dagblad voor de arbeiderspartij, 29 Decmber 1932, Avond. 21. Het volk: dagblad voor de arbeiderspartij, 13 May 1931, Avond. 22. Hans van Amstel, Waarom tegen het communism, 2nd edn (Eindhoven: Van Eupen, 1945), 5, 7. 23. Het Vaderland: staat- en letterkundig nieuwsblad, 21 October 1929, Avond. 24. Chairman Koos Vorrink in Het vrije volk, 26 June 1952; in 1956, the ‘breakthrough’ was again emphasized, Het vrije volk, 14 June 1956. 25. Paul Luyckx, ‘Katholieken en de democratie’, in Andere katholieken. Opstellen over Nederlandse katholieken in de twintigste eeuw (Nijmegen: SUN, 2000). 26. For example, Hendrik J.A. van Son, Honderd vragen en antwoorden oer het Russisch communism (Tilburg: Katholieke Actie, 1932), 6; De Tijd: godsdienstig-staatkundig dagblad, 12 April 1934, Avond. 27. Krop, Godsdienst, gezin, gezag, 4. 28. Anton de Jonge, Het paard van Troje. Een uiteenzetting over theorie en praktijk van communistische mantelorganisaties (Amsterdam: Partij van de Arbeid [hereafter PvdA]; 1948), 4; for example, Vladimir I. Lenin, ‘Where to Begin?’, Iskra 4, May (1901): Lenin actually argued that changing tactics only worked with firm principles, but he also made it clear that all kinds of tactics were allowed for revolutionary purposes. 29. De Tijd, 27 January 1919, Dag. Cf. J.P. van Iers, Communisme?, 1929, 4. 30. In his encyclical Quod Apostolici Muneris (Rome, 1878), §3. 31. Anton de Jonge, Het paard van Troje; De ijsberg. Communistische spionnage! (Amsterdam: PvdA, 1950). 32. De Tijd, 21 August 1920, Dag. 33. De Telegraaf, 9 March 1921, Avond. 34. Mary C. Brennan, Wives, Mothers, and the Red Menace: Conservative Women and the Crusade against Communism (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2008), 2. 35. Dekkers, Kerk en communisme, 69; Katholieke Arbeidersbeweging, Eenheidsorganisatie en de communisten (Breda: Katholieke Arbeiders Beweging, 1945), 15. Compare with Belgium: Albertus Werner van Winckel, O.P., Communisme-katholicisme (Antwerp: Geloofsverdediging, 1925), 28–31; 36. Het socialistisch schandaal te Maastricht, of de wilde staking aan de Maastrichtse zinkwitfabriek (Den Haag: Paap, 1929), 29. 37. See, for instance, Carl J. Friedrich, Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy (Cambridge, MA: Harward University Press, 1956). 38. Leopoldi Nuti and Vladislav Zubok, ‘Ideology’, in Saki Dockrill and Geraint Hughes (eds), Palgrave Advances in Cold War History (London: Palgrave, 2006), 73–110, 75; see also Giles Scott-Smith, Western Anti-Communism and the Interdoc Network Cold War Internationale (London: Palgrave, 2012), 3. 39. Katholieke Arbeidersbeweging, Eenheidsorganisatie en de communisten, 10; D. Bont provoked outrage by saying during a commemoration ceremony that communist resistance fighters had not been national and, upon their death, had been awarded Judas’s thirty pieces of silver (D. Bont, ‘Om een doodenherdenking’, Leidsche Courant, 23 May 1946). 40. Jacobus Suurhoff’s introduction in Willem Schermerhorn, Staking ja of neen? (Amsterdam: Nederlandse Volks Beweging, 1945), 3, 6. 41. Staking ja of neen?, 9. 42. Een aanklacht tegen het communism (Amsterdam: SDAP, 1940), 2; Hans van Amstel, Waarom tegen het communism, 4–5.

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43. De Vries, Complexe consensus, 228. 44. Paul Bovend’eert, ‘Het verenigingsverbod voor ambtenaren van 1951’, Politieke Opstellen 7 (1987): 49–61; Engelen, Geschiedenis van de BVD, 190. 45. Engelen, Geschiedenis van de BVD, 195–96; 203. 46. Dutch historians speak of an anticommunist climate in the post-war Netherlands (J.C.H. Blom, ‘Jaren van tucht en ascese’, Bijdragen en mededelingen tot de geschiedenis der Nederlanden 96 (1981), 300–33, 329), as well as ‘McCarthyism in a broad sense . . . and an anti-left witch hunt’; see Herman de Liagre Böhl, ‘De rode beer in de polder. Een herinterpretatie van de ‘lange jaren vijftig’, in Connie Kristel et al. (eds), Met alle geweld. Botsingen en tegenstellingen in burgerlijk Nederland (Amsterdam: Balans, 2003), 214–28, 218. 47. Limburgsch dagblad, 8 September 1951, Dag; US foreign policy: ‘Het wereldbeeld. McCarthy op jacht’, De tijd: dagblad voor Nederland, 25 March 1953, Dag; De Telegraaf, 8 May 1953, Dag; Het vrije volk, 9 July 1953, Dag; Schermerhorn (PvdA) in the Dutch Senate: Handelingen Eerste Kamer (Acts of Dutch Parliament), 1953–54, 505; Goedhart (PvdA), Handelingen Tweede Kamer, 1953–54, 654. 48. Utrechts Nieuwsblad, 15 April 1954; De waarheid, 2 January 1952, Dag. 49. Catholic: Limburgsch dagblad, 8 September 1951; Social Democrat: Het vrije volk, 9 July 1953; liberal: Algemeen Handelsblad, 26 March 1953. 50. Duco Hellema, Negentienzesenvijftig: de Nederlandse houding ten aanzien van de Hongaarse revolutie en de Suezcrisis (Amsterdam: Mets, 1990), 142. 51. Het vrije volk, 18 May 1946, Dag. 52. De Tijd, 18 May 1946, Dag. 53. International Institute of Social History, Archive Partij van de Arbeid inv. nr 1367. 54. PvdA, Géén Russische kolonie (Amsterdam, 1948). 55. Hans Daalder, Gedreven en behoedzaam. Willem Drees 1886–1988. De jaren 1940–1948 (Amsterdam: Balans, 2003), 392. 56. Notably in Friesland, Groningen and the north of Noord-Holland. 57. Jolande Withuis, Opoffering en heroïek. De mentale wereld van een communistische vrouwenorganisatie in naoorlogs Nederland 1946–1976 (Amsterdam: Boom, 1990), 75. 58. Anton de Jonge, Het paard van Troje; De ijsberg. Communistische spionnage!, 8. 59. Withuis, Opoffering en heroïek, 75. 60. De Jonge, Het paard van Troje, 21. Ad van Liempt, Nederland valt aan. Op weg naar oorlog met Indonesië 1947 (Amsterdam: Balans, 2012) shows that the PvdA had problems with their party members participating in Nederland-Indonesië because of the presence of communists within it. 61. Louis de Jong, Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in de Tweede Wereldoorlog – Deel 12 – Epiloog II (Leiden: Nijhoff, 1988), 815. 62. Johannes Antonius Bornewasser, Katholieke Volks Partij 1945–1980. Band 1, herkomst en groei tot 1963 (Nijmegen: Valkhof Pers, 1995), 159. 63. London R.Y. Storrs, The Second Red Scare and the Unmaking of the New Deal (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013), 1. 64. Krop, Godsdienst, gezin, gezag, 47. 65. Dekkers O. Praem, Kerk en communisme, XIII. 66. Jan A.H.J.S Bruins Slot, ‘Democratie’, Trouw 24 September 1948; 24 July 1948; 31 July 1948; 7 August 1948; 14 August 1948; 28 September 1948. 67. Among these forces was Vrij Nederland; communist newspaper De waarheid (2 June 1948) approvingly cited the party member J.M. den Uyl, who defended the toleration of those very movements in a democracy that aim to radically change it. 68. Notably during the ‘Mandement controversy’ in which the clerical authorities told their flock in 1954 not to join the Social Democratic party; compare Jeroen van Merriënboer, ‘Politiek rondom het Mandement van 1954’, in Carla Van Baalen and Jan Ramakers (eds), Het kabinet Drees III. Barsten in de brede basis (Den Haag: SDU, 2001), 147–96, 148.

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69. This conflict came to a head with the Mandement controversy in 1954 when the clerical authorities publicly warned Catholics against participation in socialist organizations. 70. For example, PvdA, Onze katholieke kandidaten voor de Tweede Kamer (1956). 71. For example, ‘Verdraagzaamheid’, Het vrije volk, 6 September 1950, Dag. Protestants: ‘Prof. Zuidema houdt felle rede tegen mandement Maar zijn vrees voor doorbraak is groter’, Het vrije volk, 27 October 1954, Dag. 72. During the 1956 electoral campaign, the Catholic Party illustrated the danger of socialism with pamphlets showing the burning of Catholic schools. 73. De Tijd, 30 September 1953, Dag; De Tijd, 13 November 1953, Dag. 74. For the rejection of this claim by PvdA, see Anton de Jonge, Het paard van Troje. 75. Friese koerier, 19 July 1954, Dag. 76. Carel Gerretson, ‘De ideologische grondslag’, De Telegraaf, 30 December 1950, Dag. 77. Johannes Verkuyl, Er zijn grenzen (Kampen: Kok, 1980). 78. Bulletin: tijdschrift voor documentatie van en bezinning op het christelijk onderwijs 8, no. 3 (1980), 19. 79. Jaap Burger, Handelingen Tweede Kamer, 1957–58, 2277; Anne Vondeling, ‘Vondelings brievenbus. Zendtijd CPN’, Het vrije volk, 21 May 1963, Dag. 80. Cited in ‘Zendtijd voor CPN’, Leeuwarder courant, 5 June 1965, Dag. HTK, 1964–65, 1774. Conservative parties like CHU supported a liberal policy as a sign of a strong democracy, HTK, OCV/UCV 1964–65, C720. Limburgsch dagblad, 8 July 1965, Dag; De Telegraaf, 2 August 1965, Dag. 81. Leeuwarder courant, 24 December 1965, Dag. 82. Chantall Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. Towards a Radical Democratic Politics (London: Verso, 2001 [1985]), 1–7. It was the seminal work of the former Marxist theorists that started to redefine radical politics. 83. See the classic and still influential work: Henk J.A. Hofland, Tegels lichten, of ware verhalen over de autoriteiten in het land van de voldongen feiten (Amsterdam: Contact, 1972), 187; see also J.C. Kennedy, ‘Nederland als het meest progressieve land ter wereld’, in Wim van Noort and Robert Wiche (eds), Nederland als voorbeeldige natie (Hilversum: Verloren, 2006), 105–18. 84. See Vanessa Fischer, ‘Wir sind ein Volk’ – Die Geschichte eines deutschen Rufes, Länderreport, Deutschlandradio, 2005. 85. Tony Judt, Reappraisals. Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century (London: Penguin Books, 2009), 2. 86. Mergel, ‘The Unknown and the Familiar Enemy’, 252.

References Amstel, Hans van, Waarom tegen het communism, 2nd edn (Eindhoven: Van Eupen, 1945). Becker, Jean-Jacques, ‘Preface’, in Aspects de L’anti-communisme (Paris: L’Age d’Homme, 2000). Berger, Stefan, and Chris Lorenz, ‘Introduction: National History Writing in a Global Age’, in Stefan Berger and Chris Lorenz (eds), The Contested Nation. Ethnicity, Class, Religion and Gender in National Histories (London: PalgraveMacmillan, 2008). Blom, J.C.H., ‘Jaren van tucht en ascese’, Bijdragen en mededelingen tot de geschiedenis der Nederlanden 96 (1981), 300–33.

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Bornewasser, Johannes Antonius, Katholieke Volks Partij 1945–1980. Band 1, herkomst en groei tot 1963 (Nijmegen: Valkhof Pers, 1995). Bovend’eert, Paul, ‘Het verenigingsverbod voor ambtenaren van 1951’, Politieke Opstellen 7 (1987), 49–61. Brennan, Mary C., Wives, Mothers, and the Red Menace: Conservative Women and the Crusade against Communism (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2008). Ceplair, Larry, Anti-Communism in Twentieth-Century America: A Critical History (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2011). Daalder, Hans, Gedreven en behoedzaam. Willem Drees 1886–1988. De jaren 1940–1948 (Amsterdam: Balans, 2003). Een aanklacht tegen het communism (Amsterdam: SDAP, 1940). Eley, Geoff, Forging Democracy: The History of the Left in Europe, 1850–2000: The History of the Left in Europe, 1850–2000 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). Engelen, Dirk, Geschiedenis van de Binnenlandse Veiligheidsdienst (Den Haag: SDU, 1995). Fischer, Vanessa, ‘Wir sind ein Volk’ – Die Geschichte eines deutschen Rufes Länderreport, Deutschlandradio (2005). Friedrich, Carl J., Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy (Cambridge, MA: Harward University Press, 1956). Gallie, Walter, ‘Essentially Contested Concepts’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 56 (2013), 167–98. Géén Russische kolonie (Amsterdam: PvdA, 1948). Gijsenbergh, Joris, ‘Divided Fronts: The Anti-Communist and Anti-Fascist Defence of “Democracy” and “Europe”’, European Studies: A Journal of European Culture, History and Politics 32, no. 1 (2014), 63–85. –––, Nederland in de wereld: buitenlandse politiek van Nederland (Antwerp: Houten, 2014). Hellema, Duco, Negentienzesenvijftig: de Nederlandse houding ten aanzien van de Hongaarse revolutie en de Suezcrisis (Amsterdam: Mets, 1990). Het socialistisch schandaal te Maastricht, of de wilde staking aan de Maastrichtse zinkwitfabriek (Den Haag: Paap, 1929). Jong, Louis de, Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in de Tweede Wereldoorlog – Deel 12 – Epiloog (Leiden: Nijhoff, 1988). Jonge, Anton de, De ijsberg. Communistische spionnage! (Amsterdam: PvdA, 1950). –––, Het paard van Troje. Een uiteenzetting over theorie en praktijk van communistische mantelorganisaties (Amsterdam: PvdA, 1948). Judt, Tony, Reappraisals. Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century (London: Penguin Books, 2009). Katholieke Arbeidersbeweging, Eenheidsorganisatie en de communisten (Breda: Katholieke Arbeiders Beweging, 1945). Kennedy, J.C., ‘Nederland als het meest progressieve land ter wereld’, in Wim van Noort and Robert Wiche (eds), Nederland als voorbeeldige natie (Hilversum: Verloren, 2006), 105–18. Kimmage, Michael, The Conservative Turn. Lionel Trilling, Whittaker Chambers and the Lessons of Anti-Communism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009).

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Lenin, Vladimir I., ‘Where to Begin?’, Iskra 4, May (1901). Leo XIII, Quod Apostolici Muneris (Rome: Ex Typographia Vaticana, 1880 [1878]). Liagre Böhl, Herman de, ‘De rode beer in de polder. Een herinterpretatie van de “lange jaren vijftig”’, in Connie Kristel et al. (eds), Met alle geweld. Botsingen en tegenstellingen in burgerlijk Nederland (Amsterdam: Balans, 2003), 214–28. Liempt, Ad van, Nederland valt aan. Op weg naar oorlog met Indonesië 1947 (Amsterdam: Balans, 2012). Luyckx, Paul, ‘Katholieken en de democratie’, in Andere katholieken. Opstellen over Nederlandse katholieken in de twintigste eeuw (Nijmegen: SUN, 2000), 67–88. Mazower, Mark, ‘Reconstruction. The Historiographical Issues’, Past and Present 210, no. 6 (2011), 17–28. Mergel, Thomas, ‘The Unknown and the Familiar Enemy: The Semantics of AntiCommunism in the USA and Germany 1945–1975’, in Willibald Steinmetz (ed.), Political Languages in the Age of Extremes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 245–74. Merriënboer, Jeroen van, ‘Politiek rondom het Mandement van 1954’, in Carla Van Baalen and Jan Ramakers (eds), Het kabinet Drees III. Barsten in de brede basis (Den Haag: SDU, 2001), 147–96. Mouffe, Chantall, and Ernesto Laclau, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. Towards a Radical Democratic Politics (London: Verso, 2001 [1985]). Müller, Jan-Werner, Contesting Democracy. Political Ideas in Twentieth Century Europe (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011). Nuti, Leopoldi, and Vladislav Zubok, ‘Ideology’, in Saki Dockrill and Geraint Hughes (eds), Palgrave Advances in Cold War History (London: Palgrave, 2006), 73–110. Schermerhorn, Willem, Staking ja of neen? (Amsterdam: Nederlandse Volks Beweging, 1945). Scott-Smith, Giles, Western Anti-Communism and the Interdoc Network Cold War Internationale (London: Palgrave, 2012). Son, H.J.A. van, Honderd vragen en antwoorden oer het Russisch communism (Tilburg: Katholieke Actie, 1932). Storrs, London R.Y., The Second Red Scare and the Unmaking of the New Deal (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013). Velde, Henk te, and Hans Verhage, De eenheid en de delen. Zuilvorming, onderwijs en natievorming in Nederland (Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis, 1996). Verkuyl, Johannes, Er zijn grenzen (Kampen: Kok, 1980). Winckel, Albertus Werner van, O.P., Communisme-katholicisme (Antwerp: Geloofsverdediging, 1925). Withuis, Jolande, Opoffering en heroïek. De mentale wereld van een communistische vrouwenorganisatie in naoorlogs Nederland 1946–1976 (Amsterdam: Boom, 1990).

Chapter 11

Asymmetrical Oppositions and Hierarchical Structures in Soviet Musical Criticism The Case of the Essay Collection Za rubezhom (Abroad) (1953) Kirill Kozlovski

T

he immediate impulse for writing this chapter was a small work for bass voice and piano written by the famous Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich. The composition, whose text (aside from a quotation from Alexander Pushkin) was written by Shostakovich himself, bore a strange title: Preface to the Complete Edition of My Works and a Brief Reflection Apropos of this Preface.1 Here is the part of the work relevant for our topic:

We can see in this piece a clear juxtaposition of two concepts – ‘sovetskiï’ (Soviet) and ‘zarubezhnyï’ (foreign) – manifesting itself not only on the verbal but first and foremost on the musical level. Whereas the adjective ‘Soviet’ lacks any specific characterization, its musical face being bleak and inexpressive, its counterpart, the adjective ‘foreign’, is set to music with a characteristic interval of a diminished fifth, which has often been perceived as the ‘devil’s interval’ in European music since the Renaissance.2 Thus, the word ‘foreign’ is given some strong negative

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connotations (whether they are ironic or not is up to the audience to decide). In its turn, the unmarked adjective ‘Soviet’ is perceived as a part of a binary opposition only a posteriori, in comparison with the marked adjective ‘foreign’. This small but telling example can serve as an introduction to the study of asymmetrical counter-concepts in Soviet musicological discourse. For this case study, I have chosen a collection of essays called Abroad (Za rubezhom, hereafter ZR), published in 1953, which contains eleven articles authored by Soviet musicologists and composers in 1945–51 for the journal Sovetskai͡ a muzyka (Soviet Music). All the articles, composed by the prominent figures in Soviet musical life, are essentially reports about the authors’ journeys outside of the Soviet Union. Indeed, all of the nine authors (the composer Dmitri Kabalevsky and the collections editor Ivan Martynov contributed two articles each) were prominent figures in Soviet musical life. The countries covered in ZR were also nine in number: Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia (two articles), China, Austria, Italy, Belgium, the United Kingdom, the United States and Poland. The scope of the contributions varied widely: while Tikhon Khrennikov’s article offered a comparative perspective on musical life in Czechoslovakia, Poland and Austria, the majority of volume participants confined themselves to discussing musical life in a single country, and a few focused on specific events (such as the international violin competition in Brussels in 1951, discussed by Mikhail Chulaki). Before embarking on a close reading of the volume, one cannot neglect the vexing problem of authorship and authenticity in the Soviet Union: many prominent public figures unable or unwilling to frame their loyalty in the precise terms prescribed by the ideological authorities used ghost writers to write ‘obligatory’ articles and speeches. Among the collection’s authors, at least one – namely, Dmitri Shostakovich – resorted to this practice,3 but he may not be the only one to have done so. Even if all the other texts in the book were actually written by those who signed them, the outcomes of the creative process were almost certainly affected by the ubiquitous self-censorship, editorial corrections to the manuscripts before they were first published in the journal Sovetskai͡ a Muzyka (Soviet Music) and, last but not least, the semi-official censorship of the General Directorate for the Protection of State Secrets in the Press (‘Glavlit’) exercised over all texts issued by Soviet publishing houses. In his (unsigned) preface, the volume editor Ivan Martynov claimed to have minimally intruded upon the texts of his colleagues. The comparison of the texts published in the collection with their original versions in Sovetskai͡ a Muzyka confirms that the editorial corrections were indeed minimal, being limited to changes in spelling and the conjugation of

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foreign names and toponyms, changes of layout and occasional synonymic substitutions (for instance, ‘our country’ was replaced with ‘USSR’, etc.). In the face of such virtually insurmountable difficulties in cleansing authentic authorial voices (if any) of multiple editorial interferences, I decided to treat this collection as a unified – albeit not very homogeneous – entity, ignoring stylistic and other differences between the articles. Let us have a closer look at the opposition ‘Soviet’ vs ‘foreign’. In this 190-page-long book, the adjective ‘Soviet’ appears 302 times – often as a part of such standard word combinations as ‘Soviet deputy’, ‘Soviet art’ and, of course, ‘Soviet Union’. In contrast to Shostakovich’s song mentioned earlier, the volume often offers definitions of ‘Soviet’. Here is a good example: Having condemned the formalist, anti-popular orientation in modern reactionary bourgeois music of Western Europe and America leading to the complete degeneration of music as a great art form; and having condemned the manifestations of the formalist tendencies in Soviet music, we the Soviet composers consider problems that were discussed at the Congress of Soviet Composers to be directly connected to the destiny of music of all countries and nations of the world. (ZR, 39)

Examples of this kind in the collection are manifold: the semantic field of the concept ‘Soviet’ is usually clearly demarcated and extensively commented upon. Coupled with the extremely high frequency of its use, this anchoring turns the word ‘Soviet’ into the key notion of the book. As the positive, self-referring pole of the counter-conceptual pair ‘Soviet’ vs ‘foreign’, the word seems somewhat functionally similar to the notions of ‘Hellene’ and ‘Christian’ in the two first sets of asymmetrical counter-concepts investigated by Reinhart Koselleck.4 However, the analogy is far from complete. In the case of Abroad, the ‘mutual recognition’ of the positive term by senders and recipients appears questionable, or at least limited:5 not many people outside of the USSR would share the messianic overtones of the quoted passage. This places the word ‘Soviet’ in the vicinity of another positive but non-consensual member of the asymmetrical set of concepts mentioned by Koselleck – namely, ‘Super-Human’.6 Another issue with the pair is the extreme rarity of the adjective ‘foreign’, which is supposed to function as the counterpart of ‘Soviet’: it is employed in the collection only four times – and all these appearances are in the anonymous preface. The word ‘abroad’, consisting in the Russian language of the preposition za and the noun in the instrumental case

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rubezhom, is used almost as sparingly (seven times in the whole book). An even more peculiar situation can be observed in relation to the adjective ‘inostrannyï’ (literally meaning ‘from another land’), which is a popular synonym of the word ‘zarubezhnyï’ (foreign). None of its six appearances in the book places the word in opposition to the notion of ‘Soviet’: rather, it is used from the point of view of the country that is being described. Here is a characteristic example: One of the unpleasant sides of modern Italian street life is the open hunt on foreign tourists, aimed at making them give away money at any cost. As soon as a foreigner appears in a district with museums and ancient monuments, he is immediately attacked by street merchants selling all kinds of relics and souvenirs, with unemployed guides – and even simple beggars – offering their services. (ZR, 125)

The same can be said about the other synonyms of ‘zarubezhnyi’ found in the book. Whereas the adjective ‘zagranichnyj’ (which literal means ‘beyond the border’) does not appear at all, its paronym ‘granit͡ sa’ (border) is used twice – but never in connection with the actual border of the USSR. Other related words, such as ‘bezgranichnyj’ (limitless), stray even further from the main dichotomy, being used metaphorically in decidedly non-political contexts. This state of affairs appears to be at stark variance with the expectations implicitly established in Koselleck’s seminal work. Contrary to Koselleck’s persistent mentions of counter-concepts as binary phenomena,7 the words ‘Soviet’ and ‘foreign’ fail to appear in pairs, or at least they fail to do so with comparable frequency. Moreover, virtually all possibilities of conceptual pairing of the positive and the negative concepts (including the latter’s derivatives and substitutes) are demonstrably ignored, even at the cost of creating an unruly, polycentric narrative in which synonyms are not synonymic at all. Indeed, in the volume, the notion of ‘Soviet’ is constantly reiterated and buttressed, shifting attention away from the notion of ‘foreign’ as such. If, in Shostakovich’s song, the adjective ‘Soviet’ was a bleak, undefined and unmarked term compared to ‘foreign’, the essay collection reverses the semantic value of the same terms (without calling into question the conceptual asymmetry itself): the whole existence of ‘abroad’ is questioned and its seemingly obvious qualities are left undefined or even unmentioned. What could be the reason for such a strategy? In my opinion, asymmetrical oppositions between these concepts do exist and play a significant role in Za rubezhom, but their architecture is more complex than the binary scheme suggested by the book title: the ensuing

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hierarchy neither confirms nor negates the opposition manifested in the book title but rather fills the conceptual void created by the underdetermination of the term ‘foreign’. The point of departure for testing this hypothesis can be the only notion that one can consider defined, that is, ‘Soviet’. Indeed, the word is used very frequently in the book – but only in specific contexts: it does not allow negative connotations to linger, it eschews ambivalence and, most importantly, it precludes the possibility of using comparative or superlative degrees such as ‘more Soviet’ or ‘the most Soviet’. ‘Soviet’ refers to an ideal – a goal to strive for. Here is a characteristic example: We, Soviet composers, unanimously answered this question at our First AllSoviet Union Congress: Music must serve the interests of the people; it must carry to the millions of listeners (precisely millions – and not just a handful of selected guild-secluded musicians) the high ideals of humanism as they are understood by us, Soviet people and all truly progressive agents of humanity who defend the real interests of democracy. (ZR, 37)

This quote gives us an insight into the main – and fairly obvious – reason for avoiding the word ‘foreign’: the border is drawn not between the Soviet Union and everything else, but between the ‘capitalist countries’ and the so-called ‘countries of people’s democracy’. In this specific context, the words ‘Soviet’ and ‘democratic’ might seem synonymous. But a closer look at the texts shows that this is not the case. The words ‘democracy’, ‘democratic’ and their derivatives appear in the volume sixty-two times. But their semantic field is more ambivalent than that of ‘Soviet’, as the following quotations demonstrate: But even these composers that consciously aim for democratization of their art, are not nearly free from the burden of the formalist influences. (ZR, 36) The musical culture of Czechoslovakia has grown up and became more ­democratic – that’s what we would like to tell our readers about. (ZR, 158) We have seen and heard representatives of the really progressive intelligentsia of America fighting for peace, for the true democracy, and having great sympathy towards Soviet Union. (ZR, 52)

The quotations allow for some common trends to be discerned: unlike ‘Soviet’, the notion of democracy can be graded (‘more democratic’) and qualified (‘true/real democracy’, which implies the existence of its untrue or false variations). Most importantly, democracy is deemed compatible not only with positive notions that are ideologically adjacent to it, but also with markedly negative qualifications, such as ‘formalistic tendencies’. In

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the latter case, the progressive dynamics of striving towards democratization is particularly stressed, producing an opposition to the static perfection of ‘Soviet’. Close to this notion is that of ‘realism’, which, together with its paronyms, appears in the book’s fifty-seven times. Similar to ‘democracy’, ‘realism’ is also a dynamic concept, frequently used in word combinations implying movement, such as ‘stepping on a pathway of big realistic art’ (ZR, 89), or ‘striving to find the new, realistic ways of development’ (ZR, 97). And, as the following quotation demonstrates, it is also (somewhat) gradable: the large education work carried out by the Communist Party of Czechoslo­ vakia,  and finally, the huge influence of Soviet realistic music helped many composers and musicologists of Czechoslovakia to overcome harmful cosmopolitan tendencies of the formalist bourgeois art and step firmly on the path of realism and people’s spirit (narodnost’). (ZR, 85)

From this excerpt, it is possible to see that the meaning of ‘realism’ varies in accordance with the semantic properties of related key concepts. Connected to the notion of ‘Soviet’ (as in ‘Soviet realistic music’), it is a static and unambiguous concept. However, whenever realism is connected with ‘narodnost’’, it turns into a dynamic notion associated with overcoming harmful tendencies – on the way towards the ideal, but not quite there yet. By the way, the notions of ‘narodnost' and ‘narodnyï’ (people’s), which apparently belong to the same semantic field as ‘democracy’ and ‘realism’, happen to be very popular with the book’s authors, appearing no less than one hundred and forty times. Like the notion of ‘Soviet’, they possess, however, no discernible territorial connotations, which, according to Koselleck, link conceptual asymmetries with the basic deictic self- (inside) and other- (outside) identifications.8 However, the opposition between the terms and their opposites, underpinned by the clear negative prefix ‘anti-’ (‘narodnyï’ vs ‘antinarodnyï’), appears to be even more asymmetrical than the main opposition ‘Soviet’ vs ‘foreign’. This conceptual asymmetry is skewed in a similar fashion to ‘sovetskiï’ vs ‘zarubezhnyï’: the word ‘antinarodnyj’ appears in the collection only seven times – and always as a part of a synonymic row with ‘formalisticheskiï’ (formalism) (six times) or ‘cosmopoliticheskiï’ (once). In its turn, the negative pole of this privative conceptual opposition is closely connected to the notion of cosmopolitanism, so that the words ‘anti-people’ (‘antinarodnyï’) and ‘cosmopolitan’ (‘kosmopoliticheskiï’) can be used almost interchangeably, affixing pejorative connotations to the otherwise neutral term.9 Additionally, these connotations are underscored by the contrastive juxtapositions of the term

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‘cosmopolitanism’ with its positive correlate ‘internationalism’, as in the following passage: In general, those were serious questions touching upon the situation in modern music art and concerning formalism and realism, internationalism and cosmopolitism . . . (ZR, 77)

The opposition between the good (internationalism) and the bad (cosmopolitanism) alternatives to ‘narodnost’’ is underscored here by the parallelism with the adjacent counter-conceptual pair in which the conjunction ‘i’ (and) likewise differentiates between the positive and the negative counter-concepts, albeit in reverse order. The last example provides a good opportunity to shift our attention to the negative poles of conceptual asymmetries, which refer to the ideological adversaries of Soviet Union and its allies. Some of the conceptual asymmetries somewhat misleadingly take the form of aesthetic controversies indifferent to ideologies and national boundaries: this is true of the aforementioned terms ‘formalism’ (‘formalism’) and ‘formalist’ (‘formalisticheskiї’), used in the book thirty-three times as antipodes of, respectively, ‘realism’ (‘realizm’) and ‘realist’ (‘realisticheskiї’). In the last quoted passage, the contradistinction is given a meditative shape, but it can easily be amplified and dramatized, as Dmitri Kabalevsky’s account of musical life in Great Britain demonstrates. The Soviet composer scolds his British colleague Edward Clarke for the unwillingness to take sides in an ‘escalating struggle between the two tendencies in contemporary music – the formalistic and the realistic ones’ (ZR, 81).10 In its turn, the negative correlate of ‘democracy’ and its paronyms is the adjective ‘bourgeois’ (‘burzhuaznyї’), which is used in the book twenty-four times (again, far less than its positive correlates) – most typically as a part of the expressions ‘bourgeois music’ or ‘bourgeois art’. But, unlike the notion ‘formalist’/‘formalism’, ‘bourgeois’ is localized geographically. This is done, at least in part, by means of anaphoric repetition: the ‘bourgeois music’ occurs in the text alongside ‘bourgeois West’ and, even more specifically, ‘bourgeois Austria’. A case in point can be seen in the following, previously quoted passage: We, Soviet composers – having condemned the formalist, anti-popular orientation in modern reactionary bourgeois music of Western Europe and America leading to the complete degeneration of music as a great art form . . . (ZR, 39)

The adjective ‘capitalist’, usually employed in the book as a part of the word combination ‘capitalist country’, is even easier to localize,

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although it appears in the text just ten times (twice in relation to the United States)  – way less often than its positive correlate ‘democracy’. One excerpt in particular deserves our attention: Concurrently with the competition in the Belgian capital one of these infamous ‘trials’ aimed at discrediting the Soviet Union, was organized. Such ‘trials’ are organized in capitalist countries from time to time following direct orders from the other side of the ocean. (ZR, 153)

Using conceptual asymmetry to sketch out intricate relations between the USSR and two capitalist countries, this passage attempts to establish a more complex correlation between asymmetrical counter-concepts and geography than the simple distinctions between ‘Soviet’ and ‘foreign’ or even ‘democratic’ and ‘bourgeois’ would imply. The model for dealing with such undertakings, which presents hierarchical relations between countries in discourse as based on their spatial (physical) and ideological (metaphorical) proximity, has been suggested by Paul Chilton11 and I will be relying on his findings in my analysis. ‘Soviet Union’ presents itself as the obvious positive pole of the book’s narrative, with the positivity not simply derived from the authors’ common self-identification but also empirically verified by the contextual analysis of the term ‘Soviet’ above. The last quoted passage attests to the fact that ‘abroad’ was by no means a homogeneous Other of the Soviet Self, having been subject to further partitions and subordinations. Still, the most basic division of foreign countries suggested in the book was a standard opposition between ‘capitalist states’ and ‘the countries of people’s democracy’. The line drawn between the two ideological camps was supported on both sides by supplementary asymmetrical concepts, such as progressive vs regressive, realistic vs formalistic, democratic vs bourgeois, traditionally employed in Soviet public discourse for ideological demarcation. A typical example can be found in Tikhon Khrennikov’s article ‘Novoe i staroe v muzykal’noї zhizni Evropy’ (New and Old in the Musical Life of Europe), in which ‘bourgeois Austria’ is juxtaposed with ‘democratic Poland and Czechoslovakia’: Even the briefest impressions of these encounters, musical works and presentations that we listened to at the composers’ meetings create a picture of an interesting and substantial revival process concerning ideas and creativity in the musical life of the countries of people’s democracy – as well as the picture of deep spiritual crisis, muddle and perplexity of ideas among composers of bourgeois Austria. This picture unfolds against a backdrop of a stunning contrast between the shining dawn and rise in the social, economic and cultural life in democratic Poland and Czechoslovakia and a full degradation of the

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national economy in bourgeois Austria. The grand pathos of building the new socialist life, the powerful rise of the amateur activities of broad masses of working people, optimism and faith in the bright future on the one side – and decline, desolation, poverty and a lack of perspectives on the other. (ZR, 83)

Helpful in telling friends from foes, this series of one-dimensional binaries fails, however, to reveal the chain of command within the ‘bourgeois’ area and to grade the badness of its elements accordingly. Already, the references to the ‘direct orders from the other side of the ocean’ quoted above put the United States in the position of the supreme ideological evil; the brief mention of local progressive forces does little to alter the very negative tone of the article devoted to the United States. The noun ‘America’ is often followed by the adjectives ‘capitalist’ and ‘free’ (the latter, always in quotation marks, is evidently used ironically). The degree of negativity ascribed to the transoceanic superpower is discernible in the following quotation: The struggle against this danger (the attempts to stall the fruitful development of national countries), the struggle against the harmful and shallow American cosmopolitanism is one of the most important tasks for all progressive musicians in the world. (ZR, 32)

Close to this apex of evil are the ‘countries of the Anglo-American bloc’. The adjective ‘Anglo-American’ appears in the collection six times and one of these instances seems to be particularly revealing: An important place in discussions was occupied by the problem of composers’ and critics’ freedom of creativity in the conditions of capitalist America and the countries of the Anglo-American bloc. (ZR, 31)

Here, an author keen to highlight the supreme position of the United States among capitalist countries chooses to forgo logic, opposing the whole (‘Anglo-American bloc’) to a part (‘capitalist America’) and literally putting ‘America’ first. However, the inconsistency of the notion ‘Anglo-American’ is not limited to this irregularity: largely associated with English-speaking countries, its semantics is flexible enough to accommodate nearly every imaginable combination of the ‘evil’ countries. As Dmitri Astashkin has stated, ‘The notion of “Anglo-American bloc” implied that the local audience would read it as a broad conglomerate of any political or military forces hostile to the USSR.’12 Moreover, in ZR, the necessity to set the United States apart from lesser evils leads to some rather positive descriptions of other countries belonging to the ‘bloc’. For instance, Dmitri Shostakovich favourably contrasts the habits of Irish journalists to those of their American colleagues:

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Their polite manners and tactfulness seemed to create such an impressive contrast to our recent American ‘conversation partners’ that both I and Fadeev, despite utter exhaustion and the late hour, were gladly answering their questions. (ZR, 48)

Other authors readily employed this model of internal partition within negatively marked identities: although the negative status of the ‘bourgeois’ (or ‘capitalist’) countries was never called into question, occasional positive evaluations of aspects of these countries were not uncommon (with the expected exception of the United States). Thus, Dmitri Kabalevsky mentioned the ‘signs of growing movement of progressive forces’ in the United Kingdom (ZR, 82) and in Tikhon Khrennikov’s description of Austria, ‘a group of composers was sincerely trying to step on a path of the righteous realistic creativity’ (ZR, 50). Even more ambivalent is the article by Aram Hachaturyan about Italy: although clear about the subordination of the country to the United States by means of the Marshall Plan, the author hails the amity between the supposed ideological enemies, praising the Italy–USSR Friendship Society and rejoicing at the sight of crowds singing ‘The Internationale’ while meeting Soviet delegates: The warm meeting of the Soviet delegation at the railway station was a clear demonstration of the friendly feelings that Italian people experience towards Soviet Union. (ZR, 124)

The material collected appears sufficient for making preliminary conclusions about the negative poles of asymmetrical concepts tied to the general notion of ‘foreign’ in the volume. Among the capitalist countries portrayed, only the United States is presented as unambiguously negative, which also corresponds to its ascribed role as the focal point and the main driving force of the capitalist evil. Other Western countries are described in a more nuanced and flexible way, revealing the gradable scale of ideological goodness and badness between the unquestionably positive (the USSR) and the unquestionably negative (the United States) poles; indeed, a country could receive comparatively better treatment in the book when mentioned alongside the United States and still score low next to the one of ‘the people’s democracies’. The vague expression ‘countries of the Anglo-American bloc’, aside from indirectly affirming the dominance of the ‘pole of evil’ (the United States) in the capitalist camp, is also subject to significant semantic alterations depending more on specific contexts than its verbatim meaning. The conceptual framing of hierarchical relations between ‘friendly’ countries is organized rather similarly to their ‘hostile’ opposite: like the United States, the main anchor – Soviet Union – occupies an

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unchallengeable position, which is not negotiable, gradable or prone to significant changes. This static monumentality is often underscored by the use of the past tense and a gerund, for example, ‘We, Soviet composers, having condemned the manifestations of formal tendencies in the Soviet music’, etc. (ZR, 39). Other ‘countries of the people’s democracy’ are measured against this yardstick, with the amount and strength of analogies between them and the USSR being the main evaluative criteria. It is probably not a coincidence that the collection opens with Georgi Khubov’s article ‘Bulgarian Sketches’, which is saturated with references to the expressions of ‘love of Bulgarians towards their brother and liberator – the Russian people’ (ZR, 23). Curiously, out of thirty uses of the adjective ‘Russian’ in the volume, half occur in Khubov’s text. For instance, while describing Bulgarian folk music, the author uses every opportunity to stress its similarities with Russian and Ukrainian folk traditions, blending political and economic associations with the ethnic and geographical ones. Another generalized expression of closeness between the Soviet Union and Bulgaria is the linguo-ethnographic term ‘Slavonic’ applied to Soviet Union and Bulgaria (in such word combinations as ‘Slavonic brotherhood’ or ‘Slavonic nature’) and never used for the pairings of the Soviet Union with the other Slavonic countries, namely Poland and Czechoslovakia. This misleading pars pro toto grants Bulgaria the special status of the ‘close friend’ of the Soviet Union, somewhat similar to the standing of the United Kingdom in relation to the United States. As for Poland and Czechoslovakia, they are associated with the USSR by means of the familiar (and non-geographical) aesthetic concept of ‘realism’ (as opposed to the ‘formalism’ of the bourgeois countries). But their subordinate positions are clearly marked by the use of processual terms. For instance: the forces of progressive musicians are huge; joining them will undoubtedly bring forth substantial and fruitful results for the benefit of the healthy and successful development of musical art. (ZR, 43)

By these means, the two socialist countries are shown to be striving for and emulating unshakable aesthetic and political credentials that the Soviet Union has always defined for everybody else. Interestingly, China – the country which was both culturally and geographically (as far as the European part of the USSR was concerned) quite distant from the Soviet Union – was also depicted in the volume as a close friend, probably due to the rosy relations between the two dictatorships in 1950s. Dmitri Kabalevsky’s article ‘Muzyka svobodnogo Kitai͡ a’ (The Music of the Free China) reveals a rather hopeless scramble for similarities between Russian and Chinese music that could match the countries’ political rapport. In the absence of stronger arguments, the

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task is fulfilled by randomly mentioning Chinese cultural figures that have either studied or performed in the USSR, and citing the popularity of Russian music – particularly Russian songs – in China. Having paid a lot of attention to the cultural evolution of specific verbal pairs exemplifying the phenomenon of asymmetrical counter-concepts in Western cultural history, Reinhart Koselleck largely refrained from discussing their actual correlation in texts on micro- and macro-levels: it seemed to be of little interest to him whether (and how) conceptual asymmetries actually achieve coordination in sentences and larger discourse units. This chapter’s close reading of the edited volume ZR offers some tentative answers. Apparently, conceptual asymmetries can sustain great discrepancies between the frequencies of the positive and negative poles in texts without losing their divisive potential. From time to time, asymmetrical counter-concepts appear next to each other in texts, but the syntactic representation of such asymmetries is rather weak, so the readers are expected to know the differences in advance. Last but not least, conceptual asymmetries can be coordinated hierarchically. The underlying divisions ‘Soviet’ vs ‘foreign’ and ‘capitalism’ vs ‘people’s democracy’ rely on supplementary sets of non-gradable conceptual asymmetries (such as the oppositions ‘realism’–‘formalism’, ‘progressive’–‘regressive’) fully represented by the two emblematic identities, the positive Self (the Soviet Union) and the negative Other (the United States), the values of which are also absolute. The badness of capitalist countries other than the United States is measured by the presence or absence of properties associated with the positive poles of supplementary asymmetries (‘progressive tendencies’). The goodness of socialist countries, in contrast, is determined based on the degree of their ‘Russianness’, high and low levels of which mark the proximity of the respective satellites to the positive centre of the system: the USSR. Kirill Kozlovski is a concert pianist and researcher with a special interest in Soviet music. He holds a Doctor of Music degree from the Sibelius Academy (University of Arts, Helsinki, Finland).

Notes  1. Shostakovich, Dmitri, Preface to the Complete Edition of My Works and a Brief Reflection Apropos of this Preface, op. 123; bars 70–79.

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 2. See, for instance, Andreas Werckmeister, Harmonologia musica oder kurze Anleitung zur musicalischen Composition (Quedlinburg: Calvisius 1702), 6.  3. Elisabeth Wilson, Shostakovich: A Life Remembered (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006), 377.  4. Reinhart Koselleck, ‘Zur historisch politischen Semantik asymmetrischer Gegenbegriffe’, in Vergangene Zukunft: Zur Semantik geschichtlicher Zeiten (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1979).  5. Ibid., 211.  6. Ibid., 244.  7. See Kirill Postoutenko, Introduction to this volume.  8. Koselleck, ‘Zur historisch politischen Semantik asymmetrischer Gegenbegriffe’, 218.  9. Andrea Albert, Kosmopolitismus: Weltbürgerdiskurse in Literatur, Philosophie und Publizistik um 1800 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2005), 21–66. 10. Meanwhile, it was (again) Dmitry Shostakovich who devoted a large section of his cantata Anti-Formalist Gallery (Antiformalisticheskiї raek, 1948–68) to parodying this particular binary opposition. 11. Paul Chilton, Analysing Political Discourse: Theory and Practice (London: Routledge, 2004). 12. Dmitriï I͡ u. Astashkin, ‘Obraz anglo-amerikanskogo bloka v poslevoennoï Novgorod­ skoï presse v nachal’nyï period “kholodnoï voïny” (1947–53 гг.)’ [The Image of the Anglo-American Bloc in the Postwar Novgorod Press in the Early Period of the ‘Cold War’], Vestnik Novgorodskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta 63 (2011), 23.

References Albert, Andrea, Kosmopolitismus: Weltbürgerdiskurse in Literatur, Philosophie und Publizistik um 1800 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2005). Astashkin, Dmitriï, I͡ u., ‘Obraz anglo-amerikanskogo bloka v poslevoennoï Novgorodskoï presse v nachal’nyï period “kholodnoï voïny” (1947–1953 гг.)’ [The Image of the Anglo-American Bloc in the Postwar Novgorod Press in the Early Period of the ‘Cold War’], Vestnik Novgorodskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta 63 (2011), 22–24. Chilton, Paul, Analysing Political Discourse: Theory and Practice (London: Routledge, 2004). Koselleck, Reinhart, ‘Zur historisch politischen Semantik asymmetrischer Gegenbegriffe’, in Reinhart Koselleck, Vergangene Zukunft: Zur Semantik geschichtlicher Zeiten (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1979), 211–59. Martynov, Ivan (ed.), Za rubezhom. Sbornik stateï [Abroad: Collected Articles] (Moscow: Muzgiz, 1953). Werckmeister, Andreas, Harmonologia musica oder kurze Anleitung zur musicalischen Composition (Quedlinburg: Calvisius, 1702). Wilson, Elisabeth, Shostakovich: A Life Remembered (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006).

Chapter 12

‘We the Basques’, and the ‘Other(s)’

Ethnic Asymmetries in Basque Nationalist Discourse Iñaki Iriarte López

F

ounded at the end of the nineteenth century, Basque nationalism constituted the main ideology of the Basque Country for decades. Its influence, far from being limited to this region, extends throughout Spain, the political life of which has been considerably affected by this phenomenon: for example, the configuration of Spain after 1978 as a state consisting of autonomous regions would be inconceivable without the influence of Basque nationalism. Nationalist parties currently represent 40–60 per cent of the electorate in the Basque Country and 18–28 per cent in Navarra – an autonomous Spanish region that nationalists claim belongs to the Basque Country. By contrast, in the French Basque Country – a 3,000 km² stretch of land in the south of France – the number of people who see it as a part of the Basque Country is much more modest, hovering at around 7–11 per cent. And, unlike in Spain, Basque nationalism is practically non-existent in French politics. Throughout its 130-year history, Basque nationalism has treated the concepts of ‘Basque’ and ‘Spanish’ as asymmetrical terms, although – as this chapter purports to demonstrate – the changes to the terms’ contents during this period were so substantial that the opposition became barely recognizable. The very contradistinction between the Basque and the Spanish stands in marked contrast to the conceptual landscape prior to the emergence of nationalism. Of the three Basque provinces, two (Vizcaya and Guipuzcoa) belonged to Castile from the twelfth century onwards and the third (Alava) was part of it from the thirteenth century. According to Basque

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historiography in general (and, until recently, nationalist historiography in particular), their incorporation into Castile took place voluntarily and with acknowledgement of their self-government. Although strong particularist feelings, relating more to each of the provinces than to the whole area, seem to have existed for a long time, this did not lead to demands for independence. Some early manifestations of secessionism emerged in the eighteenth century, but it was only in the late nineteenth century that they became clearly visible,1 though support for secession was very limited at least until the Second Republic (1931–36). In the case of Navarra – a region of approximately 1,500 km² to the north of the Pyrenees – the situation is more complex. Until 1512, when it was conquered by the troops of Ferdinand, the King of Castile and Aragón, Navarra was a (relatively) independent kingdom. After the conquest, the kingdom swore loyalty to Ferdinand as king but did not disappear. In 1530, Ferdinand’s grandson, the Emperor Charles, abandoned part of the territory of Navarra, citing the difficulties presented by defending it. In this region, the earlier dispossessed Navarran monarchs restored their rule and also laid claim to the rest of the country. When Henry of Bourbon, king of this small territory from 1572, acceded to the throne of France in 1589, he united both crowns and from that moment onwards French monarchs called themselves ‘the Kings of France and Navarra’. In spite of this, and notwithstanding the popularity of particularistic sentiments in Navarra, the independence movement after 1530 was apparently little more than anecdotal until the 1970s. It is worth emphasizing that the awareness of a common identity between the different provinces whose culture was fully or partially Basque was fairly limited and very marginal until at least the second half of the twentieth century.2 The Basques defined their identity in relation to each of their territories and to the monarchy as a whole, of which they considered themselves a significant part. In fact, the term ‘Basque’ was not even widely used. Typically, it was applied to the inhabitants of what was known from the nineteenth century onwards as the ‘French Basque Country’. The inhabitants of the territories of Basque culture in Spain employed either their provincial names (Navarran, Vizcayan, etc.) or other less precise terms, such as ‘vascongado’ and ‘cántabro’. It is essential to recall, in this respect, that at this time a clearly defined Spanish identity did not exist either, as the very idea of Spain was more of a patchwork of partially autonomous territories, united by diverse historical and legal bonds, but, above all, by the figure of the monarch.3 The fact that the provinces in question, including some territories under French rule, shared the same language, Basque – a large part of the vocabulary of which was similar to Spanish, but which had very different

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morphology and syntax – did not seem to play a role in creating a clear sense of community in the nineteenth or even the twentieth century. The only word in the Basque language that refers to Basques is ‘euskaldun’, which can be literally translated as ‘possessor of Basque’. As a result, mastery of Basque would be sufficient for one to be considered ‘Basque’. On the other hand, the term ‘erdaldun’, used to designate all those who do not speak the language, means ‘one who has the manner of speech of foreigners’. It should be borne in mind that the Basque territory has not been homogenous from a linguistic point of view since the beginning of historical records: the people who populated it spoke, at different times, Latin, various Romance languages (Navarran-Aragonese, Occitan and Castilian) and Arabic. Consequently, many of the provinces’ inhabitants had never been ‘Basques’, as defined by the Basque language itself. However, it is also true that on some occasions the term ‘euskaldun’ was used in Basque sources to refer to those who were Basque by birth and family origin, even if they did not speak the Basque language. Although one perceives certain asymmetries between ‘euskaldun’ and ‘erdaldun’ in the works of some authors from the seventeenth century onwards, the frequent bilinguism among the population and the general disdain towards Basque (judged to be a language fit only for domestic use)4 must have contributed to this language having limited popularity in BasqueNavarran society of the time. The Basque language appears to have been of concern only to historians and scholars – and more as a proof of the antiquity of the Basques than as a linguistic reality. This is attested by the almost universal indifference to the language’s drastic decline during the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Traditionally, the Basque territories had enjoyed tax and commercial privileges compared with the rest of the Hispanic Monarchy. In Vizcaya, Guipuzcoa and the northern valleys of Navarra, there was ‘universal nobility’, according to which every inhabitant enjoyed the status of noble. As a result, they paid no taxes, but in the event of war had to raise their own armies – a very frequent situation during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, given the proximity of France, Spain’s number-one enemy during this period. As well as enjoying this position of privilege, Basques and Navarrans were also disproportionally represented in the higher ranks of Spanish administration in the seventeenth century.5 During this period, local authors Juan Martínez de Zaldibia, Andrés de Poza and Esteban de Garibay understood Basques as a kind of hyperbole of Spaniards, highlighting the former’s exemplary attachment and loyalty to the monarchy.6 Basques are described as descendants of Túbal, a grandson of Noah, who came to Spain immediately after the confusion of Babel. They are also identified with the Iberians, the earliest

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inhabitants of the peninsula. Moreover, according to this local historiography, Basques had remained pure and independent in their mountain strongholds, resisting successive invasions of the peninsula by Romans, Visigoths and Arabs. This theory of the single origin of the Basque people must be understood in the context of Castilian historiography’s theories regarding the origins of the Hispanic Monarchy. According to these theories, the Kingdom of Spain was the continuation of the kingdom founded by the Visigoths in the early sixth century, which survived until the Arabic invasion of 711. Thus, Spanish nobility itself traced its lineage back to the ancient Visigoth aristocracy. By contrast, Basque historians laid claim to an indigenous collective lineage predating even the Roman presence. In addition, during this period when Spaniards were associated in Europe with the defence of Catholicism, the Basques systematically described themselves as the archetype of Catholicism.7 At the same time, the fact that Basques saw themselves as the religious and ethnic hyperbole of the Spaniards opened up the possibility of tension between both concepts. Thus, during the nineteenth century, when the other peninsular territories were going through a period of centralization and loss of autonomy, various polemics arose between Castilians and Vascongados regarding the origins of the latter’s privileges. Castilian authors were very sceptical about the ‘universal nobility’ of Basques, having emphasized the incompatibility of the status of nobility and habitual engagement in manual labour.8 They also questioned the theory that Basques escaped unscathed from Goths and Arabs. Some even regarded Basques as descendants of Jews. Meanwhile, seventeenth-century Spanish literature is full of ironic descriptions of Basques blending acknowledgement of their noble spirit and heightened sense of loyalty with satirical depictions of their short temper, fondness of wine and proverbial narrow-mindedness. For their part, Basque authors vigorously defended the singularity and nobility of the Basque provinces, as well as their loyalty to the Catholic Monarchy. They often referred to their language as the undeniable proof of the antiquity and purity of the Basques. It was claimed, for example, that Basque was one of the seventy-two languages that emerged in the wake of the Flood and even that it was spoken by Adam and Eve in Paradise.9 But, as with many other nations, the rivalry between the Castilians and Basques failed to produce stable oppositions or clear conceptual asymmetries. The situation of privilege in the Basque provinces had already begun to change before the crisis of the Ancien Régime. With the change of dynasty in Spain – the Habsburgs gave way to the Bourbons – the process of centralization of the monarchy intensified and the Basque tax

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reliefs began to be questioned.10 There was also talk of the disappearance of the tariff borders between the Basque provinces and the rest of the peninsula, which were still in the hands of Basque authorities. At the level of historiography, various Spanish historians, such as Joaquín Traggia, Juan Antonio Llorente, Francisco Martínez Marina and Vicente González Arnao, published works that questioned the historic claims of the Basque-Navarran territories.11 As a consequence of all these insecurities, Basques became defensive about their group identity. The French invasion of 1808 triggered the crisis of the Ancien Régime in Spain, which lasted until 1872 and was particularly turbulent in the Basque Country and Navarra. In these regions, the resistance to liberalism was much stronger than anywhere else in Spain, especially in the rural areas, although in cities such as Bilbao or Pamplona people were more favourably disposed towards liberalism. The reigning family of Bourbons was split into two branches, one liberal and the other ‘absolutist’ (according to the liberals’ terminology), with the latter supporting the traditional Catholic Monarchy. This second branch had its main stronghold in the Basque territories (as well as in Valencia and parts of Catalonia), where the inhabitants were known for their religious fervour. Of the three civil wars that this dynastic-political conflict provoked in Spain, two – the first and the third – had their principal battlegrounds in Navarra and the Basque provinces. All of them ended with the defeat of the advocates of traditionalism – the so-called ‘Carlists’. Although initially their arguments focused on the lack of dynastic legitimacy of the other branch of the Bourbons and the defence of the Catholic religion, towards 1839 they also took upon themselves the defence of the old kingdoms and parliaments, together with their specific legislation (‘los fueros’). In the Basque and Navarran cases, these ‘fueros’ were still largely in force when the first of the aforementioned civil wars broke out (1833–39). Indeed, it was the Carlist defeat that led in 1841 to the passing of a law that repealed a substantial amount of the regional laws in Navarra, which had until then continued to enjoy its formal status as a kingdom with its own borders within the Spanish Monarchy. From that moment on, it became just another province, though it did retain a number of important fiscal and administrative powers. However, this change of status does not appear to have aroused much opposition within the province. Local historiography presented it as the result of a pact between the state and Navarra. As far as the Basque provinces were concerned, their ‘fueros’ remained intact until they were repealed at the end of the civil war in 1876 – although, as in the Navarran case, they managed to preserve a considerable degree of fiscal autonomy, which they have retained to this day.

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Carlism pitched its supporters against those of liberalism with the help of a typical opposition between friends and foes. Whereas the former were represented as good Catholics and good Spaniards – obedient, noble, hard-working, courageous, simple and honest – the latter (that is, the liberals) were, on the contrary, depicted as bad Spaniards and enemies of the church, with their cowardice, laziness, degenerate traits and corrupt practices. After the third and final Carlist war was over, this opposition became associated with regional identities. From then on, the tendency was to associate Basques with Carlism and, although Spaniards were not yet wholly identified with ‘the enemy’ – it was no coincidence that the Carlists regarded themselves as Spanish patriots – they were definitely associated with the liberal point of view, perceived not in a non-Basque sense, but rather in an anti-Basque sense. A late but very explicit example of this is the Manual de Gramática Bascongada (1899), written by the Carlist priest Victoriano Huici, for whom the terms ‘liberal’ and ‘Castilian-speaking’ are virtually synonymous with ‘non-Basque’ (erdeldun). In his work, he portrays the Basques as good Catholics, obedient, humble and austere, whereas the liberals, on the other hand, embody every vice imaginable. They are enemies of religion and social order, revolutionary, arrogant, and immoral people. Above all, they hate all things Basque, being the ‘greatest enemies’ of Basques. In this manner, he indicates that, in spite of the countless sacrifices made by the Basques for the common homeland, the Spanish liberals have stolen their ancient freedoms, imposing upon them laws that are contrary to Catholicism: ‘The liberal has taken away our traditions, laws and lifestyle.’12 For Huici, the Basque language had functioned as a border protecting Basque purity and for that very reason the liberals wanted to ‘erase it from the map’. Nevertheless, the author was certainly not advocating the independence of the Basque Country. He saw himself as a Spanish patriot and, curiously enough, recommended extending the use of the Basque language to the whole peninsula. The defence of the Basque and Navarran ‘fueros’ by the Carlists has led some representatives of Basque historiography to interpret it as a prenationalist movement.13 However, for other authors, Carlism as a whole remained within the bounds of Spanish nationalism in its reactionary variety.14 In any case, there is no doubt that the theory of Sabino Arana, the founder of Basque nationalism, originates in Carlism and that most of his followers were inspired by the same school of thought as that represented by Partido Integrista, a small ultra-Catholic party.15 Prior to addressing the case of Basque nationalism, one must refer to the ‘euskaros’, an important literary movement founded in Navarra at the end of the Carlist war, which, imitating the félibres of Mistral,

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advocated the promotion of the Basque language in addition to promoting the interests and rights of the Navarran Basque Country.16 Although the movement was originally of an apolitical and pluralist nature, it soon adopted a more political profile and was accused of defending points of view close to Carlism. Nevertheless, although the euskaros did share many of the Carlists’ points of view, the question of who reigned in Spain was of little interest to them. Their proposals essentially aimed at the reintegration of the Basque and Navarran ‘fueros’ – which, in the case of Navarra, meant the restoration of their own kingdom with the King of Spain as monarch. This and their rhetoric, which was, on occasion, very aggressive, made them seem like a nationalist party, though they never formally rejected the idea of Spain.17 Meanwhile, it is significant that the members of this movement, confronted with the absence of a term referring to the territories that constituted their field of reference and its inhabitants, adopted the neologisms ‘Euskaria’ and ‘euskaros’, which they employed to refer to themselves. These are interesting terms because although they look like they come from the Basque language, in fact they do not. Ironically, these terms were used to denominate a human group that was unfamiliar with these words. On other occasions, the euskaros employed the archaic term ‘Vasconia’ and on yet other occasions still the expression ‘Navarran Basque Country’. It was only at the beginning of the 1890s (when the movement itself was virtually extinct) that they started to make regular use of the Gallicism ‘basko’. In line with the earlier historiography, most euskaros continued to regard Basques as the descendants of the former Iberians and, therefore, as ‘true Spaniards’. In this sense, it was not yet possible to speak of specific asymmetries between the Basque (‘euskaro’) and the Spanish. As I have mentioned, the euskaros still maintained the idea of Spain, although they begrudged the ‘ungrateful’ response of the latter to the numerous sacrifices made by the Basque-Navarran provinces. In any case, there had been a very clear opposition between the Basque and the ‘Castilian’, with Castile being, evidently, the dominant and largest kingdom in Spain. Thus, while the ‘euskaros’ described themselves as hard-working, simple, obedient, religious and peaceful – though prepared to fight to death if their faith or rights were attacked – Castilians appear in the texts mentioned as driven by pride, haughtiness and ambition and are portrayed as blasphemous, quarrelsome and idle glory-seekers. Often Castilians were accused of having brokered a compromise with the materialism that characterized the modern world, thereby making themselves untrustworthy. In contrast, Basques had opted to reject progress that turned its back on god, living happily in their darkness:18 they are depicted as the most

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religious, most independent, most honest people ever – calm, unchanging and indifferent to the passage of history, independent and virtuous in a Europe that betrays its own tradition. Their lengthy historical memory had shown them that, from time to time, humanity plunged into chaos on account of its arrogance; cloistered in the ‘oasis’ of their mountains,19 protected by their mysterious and unintelligible tongue, entrenched in their traditions, they, the ‘barbarians’ of sorts, were ‘a dike against revolutions’ shaking the world, the embodiment of a certain ‘conservative utopia’.20 The euskaros recycled the oppositions employed by other Carlists in characterizing their supporters and liberal enemies, respectively, but aligned them with territorial criteria: whereas Castilians were said to reflect liberalist traits, euskaros represented Carlism. This alignment, as one can see, is of vital importance: rather than being established upon the basis of a prior opposition between the Basque and the Castilian, the ‘friend–enemy’ distinction was now based upon a pre-existing political opposition that, originally, had no territorial connotations. Meanwhile, it is worth highlighting that, as with the seventeenthand eighteenth-century authors, the newly shaped opposition between Vasconia and Castile spilt over into the field of linguistics. Thus, the former’s pamphlets (which were, paradoxically, written almost always in Castilian) claimed that Basque, despite its limited number of literary texts and speakers, was an extremely rich and flexible language, whose grammar astounded scholars. With origins that were mysterious but ancient, Basque had no place for blasphemy, serving as a solid barrier against licentiousness and revolutionary ideas. Castilian, on the other hand, was said to be a mongrel language, derived from Latin and shaped by French, Arabic, Gothic and other languages – it was popular but also prone to vulgarity. Although, as Kirill Postoutenko21 has shown, counter-concepts are not necessarily asymmetric, euskaros unambiguously portrayed the relations between the Castilian and the Basque-Nazvarran as asymmetric. An illuminating example of this is the tale suggestively called Contrastes. Cuadro de Costumbres buenas y malas (1881), written by the leader of the euskaros, Arturo Campión (1854–1937), and describing life in an idyllic Basque village inhabited by ingenuous, hard-working, friendly and noble people.22 These people all love religion, respect the social order and feel bound by their patriarchal customs, which seems to pay off as far as economic equality is concerned: none of the villagers is shown to be excessively poor or rich. All of a sudden, a train from Madrid, whose passengers are Castilian proletarians heading for their holidays on the Basque Coast, pulls into the station: ‘Those were not the Moors who were coming but their brothers. Madrid was vomiting its rabble onto Guipuzcoa in the form

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of a pleasure train.’ The atmosphere in the carriages is decidedly vulgar: ‘Brown faces . . . dirty, sweaty fingers . . . fat women with murky sweat running from their pores and children stupefied by the heat and the noise . . . moustached women and beardless, yellow-skinned men . . . The entire mob, by nature uncultured and by custom vulgar.’ Blasphemies are uttered and a Guipuzcoan guard, in bad Spanish, requests that religion be respected, only to be knifed by one of the passengers. A few moments later, the train leaves, emitting revolutionary songs from its interior. The author, a silent witness to the entire incident, concludes in a pessimistic tone: ‘This way of life will kill the old one.’ In short, the other is not just a criminal, but his/her very presence represents a direct threat. It is very important to note that for Campión the biggest threat to the Basque Country was associated not with foreigners but rather with those compatriots who showed indifference or hostility towards the euskaros: ‘The enemy who annihilates us . . . is the enemy at home . . . he shares our name. He belongs to our race and to our family.’23 The native who disregards the fate of his homeland is portrayed, therefore, as a ‘monstrous’ concept: he is a part of the people, but, like a cancer, brings about the death of the people. This harsh judgement of ‘uncommitted’ natives anticipates their future exclusion from the collective homeland and their conceptualization as foreigners in the discourse of Basque nationalism. Specifically, it was Sabino Arana (1865–1903), the founder of Basque nationalism, who radicalized the oppositions between ‘natives’ and ‘foreigners’. These oppositions, moreover, no longer referred to Castilians but were directly applied to Spaniards, and in particular to the immigrants in the Basque Country, whom he usually designated with the pejorative term ‘maketos’. From the 1880s onwards, the Basque provinces of Vizcaya and, to a lesser degree, Guipuzcoa received hundreds of thousands of immigrants from the rest of Spain. As Kay Junge suggests,24 sharing the same territory could only amplify the asymmetries between natives and outsiders. Remarkably, Arana initially focused his attention on the Vizcayans (‘bizkaitarrak’) rather than Basques as a whole. At the same time, the word ‘euskaro’, originally employed to designate the inhabitants of Vizcaya, was used in the language of Arana, and, before long, that of his critics, to refer to Basque nationalists. For instance, the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) has often been described as ‘partido bizkaitarra’ (party of the people of Biscay). As the party’s activity spread to the other Basque provinces, the same phenomenon occurred with the terms ‘gipuzkoarra’, ‘napartarra’, etc. Before long, the Spanish words ‘guipuzcoano’, ‘navarro’ and their Basque equivalents were employed to refer to supporters of the Nationalist Party.

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With regard to the Basque community as a whole, Arana often used the term ‘basko’, eschewing the terms ‘euskaldun’ and ‘erdaldun’: in his view, knowledge of the Basque language was not synonymous with actually being Basque, given that many Basques did not speak their ‘own’ language, whereas, for example, ethnic groups in the country (such as gypsies) did, having lived there for centuries.25 Furthermore, he invented (or, in his words, ‘rediscovered’) a reference to Basques in the Basque language, ‘euzkotar’, which alluded to the racial rather than linguistic identity. Indeed, for the founder of the PNV, Basques constituted, above all else, a race that was isolated, pure and totally different from ­‘mestizos’ – the ‘Latin’ peoples surrounding it.26 Besides, Basques were said to be Catholics who had practised monotheism prior to the advent of Christianity. They were also presented in Arana’s writings as hardworking, austere, obedient defenders of private property and devoted to their families. Paradoxically, Arana described ‘euskotarras’ as simultaneously displaying rural origins (‘All Basques are descendants of villagers’) and universal nobility; egalitarian by instinct, they were shown to reject servitude and distrust great landowners and capitalists. Basques also had an elevated sense of the moral; evidence of this was found by Arana in their dance, which, unlike in Spain, kept men and women at a distance. Another fundamental personality trait attributed to Basques by Arana was their ‘independence’ – their embracement of freedom. With regard to the ‘maketos’, or, in other words, Spaniards, Arana constructed what M. Lynne Murphy and Roberta Piazza call a ‘criminonym’27 by referring to them as ‘the ones with knives’; he also branded them as cowardly, arrogant, lazy, hypocritical, depraved and irreligious Basque-haters who sought not only to enslave but also to corrupt and eliminate the adversary. The entire character of ‘maketos’, according to Arana, was a testimony to their lack of racial purity and their ‘African’ personality – idle, fanatical, disloyal, envious and despotic. Time and again, Arana expounded this acerbic portrait of the Spanish people: Amongst Spaniards, adultery is frequent . . . Ninety-five per cent of the crimes committed in Vizcaya are the work of the Spanish delinquents, and four of the remaining five per cent are ‘Vizcayans turned Spanish’. A Spaniard is bone idle; even if in good health, he prefers to live at his neighbour’s expense rather than work; . . . he undertakes nothing, risks nothing, and is good for nothing . . .; he was born to be a lackey and a serf. . . . Many of them seem to bear undeniable witness to the theory of Darwin, as they resemble apes rather than men, being scarcely less beastly than gorillas: seek not in their faces the expression of human intelligence or any virtue; their gaze reveals only stupidity and brutality.28

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It is hardly surprising, then, that, in his opinion, the foreign invasion had brought to the Basque Country ‘impiety, every type of immorality, blasphemy, crime, free thinking, incredulity, socialism, and anarchism’: indeed, socialists and anarchists were the leading exponents of the ‘maketo’ way of being. However, like Arturo Campión, Arana believed that the greatest enemies of the race were some of its own children: ‘People of Biscay’, he exclaimed once, disappointed by the limited impact of his declarations, ‘Biscay is dying . . . and you are killing it’.29 Following Sabino Arana’s death in 1903, his followers in the Basque Nationalist Party continued to present ‘Basque’ and ‘Spanish’ as radically asymmetrical concepts. One example of this is a famous pamphlet entitled Ami Basque, written by a nationalist friar, Evangelista de Ibero, in 1906. For Ibero, ‘to declare that the Basque is Spanish is to commit a triple blunder: ethnic, geographic and political’.30 Basques were Basque only and the purity of their language, containing ‘no traces of Latin,  French, Spanish,  Celtic, German, or of any other European language’,31 was irrefutable proof of this racial singularity, ‘maintained until  our days’,  which was the result of Basques’ refusal to mix with other  peoples. ‘They cherished independence’ and, in Ibero’s words, lived until the nineteenth century ‘completely independent of any other State’; only by means of force had Spain and France snatched away their freedom. Indeed, Ibero identifies freedom (for which he had also invented a Basque neologism – ‘askatasuna’) with purity and independence even more clearly than Arana. In his opinion, the Basques needed to be independent to be free and remain pure, and this was the only lifestyle available to them: ‘The Basque people had isolated themselves from whoever chose not to be Basque, and lost themselves by joining the latter. Any temptation, then, to abandon this isolation . . . and link their interests with those of other peoples threatens their life, pushes them towards death.’32 After Arana, Basque socialists and republicans continued to come under attack in nationalist literature due to their foreign origins. Thus, in 1907, commenting upon the votes obtained by the socialists in some districts of Bilbao, the newspaper Euskalduna declared that ‘most of these votes come from foreigners to this land, from those who, escaping the  misery and hunger of Toledo, Palencia, León, Burgos, Galicia, came here as if to California or Hawaii, and here they vegetate, grow and prosper’. Its fellow journal Aberri was tougher still and spoke of the ‘anti-Basque neighbourhoods’, which were nothing more than ‘bulwarks of prostitution’.33 Thus, those locals who rejected nationalism continued to be accused of contributing to the death of the Basque people, although

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critics tended to maintain a distinction between the deceived masses and the governing elite that acted in full awareness of their bad faith. Although Arana’s legacy has never been the object of open criticism within the PNV, from 1910 onwards the party evolved towards more moderate positions, such as the creation of a Basque autonomous region within Spain. Leaders like Manuel Aranzadi even declared in public that their objectives did not extend beyond achieving the integral restoration of the Basque ‘fueros’, as before the Carlist wars.34 Nonetheless, in terms of discourse, this evolution was not translated into an explicit acceptance of Spain; in fact, the ambiguity created by pragmatic policy and maximalist rhetoric would later become one of the hallmarks of the PNV. Disappointed by this moderate policy, the pro-independence factions of the party split off in 1921, forming a group called ‘Aberri’ (Homeland). Although Sabino Arana’s brother, Luis, was formally the leader of the schism, its most prominent figure was Eli Gallastegi. The latter advocated preserving the philosophy of the founder of nationalism, but, at the same time, changed some of its emphases, constructing a nationalism that was significantly different to Arana’s and that would have a decisive influence upon the generations born after the Spanish Civil War.35 Gallastegi, for example, was very critical of the Basque upper classes, accusing them of being exploitative and ‘Spanish’. He also attacked capitalism as a denationalizing factor and argued in favour of a Basque worker government instead, proposing to couple a social liberation with a national one. Moreover, although he, too, demanded independence, he relativized the Aranian opposition between ‘maketos’ and ‘euzkos’. In his opinion, not all immigrants were ‘maketos’ but only those who contributed to the denationalization of Euskadi (which he declared to be the gravest crime possible). He believed, in fact, that there were ‘maketos’ who had become Basques and vice versa. In any case, the fact that Gallastegi admitted the possibility of outsiders becoming Basque did not temper the asymmetry between Basque and Spanish, but rather lent it a more ideological character: those immigrants who wanted to be considered Basques would have to renounce their Spanish status and become ‘abertzales’, or Basque nationalists. Meanwhile, the Basques who rejected nationalism and regarded themselves as Spanish would automatically cease to be Basque. The majority of these alleged traitors did cease to be Basque as a result of denationalizing education, while the behaviour of the ruling minority, which Gallastegi, similar to Campión, identified with a ‘cancer’, owed much to its economic interests. The two currents of nationalism – the official current and the more pragmatic current – merged in 1931, effectively putting a stop to the

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radical schism instigated by Arana and Gallastegi. Just a year earlier, the Basque Nationalist Party had signed, in San Sebastián, a pact with Spanish republicanism as a whole, agreeing to collaborate on the creation of a republic in Spain (which, at the time, was still ruled by Alfonso XIII) that included the transformation of its various regions into autonomous states. This shift towards more autonomist positions (the inherent ambiguousness of which prevented the explicit renunciation of independentism) did not mean, however, a rapprochement between the concepts of ‘Basque’ and ‘Spanish’ in the rhetoric of Basque nationalism. Spaniards – even those who acceded to the promotion of the Basque autonomy – continued to be perceived as enemies of the homeland and freedom. During the years of the Second Spanish Republic, the PNV maintained the policy of promoting Basque autonomy and collaboration with the republican forces. However, this did not prove to be a cordial relationship and the nationalist press conveyed considerable hostility towards the expressions of anticlericalism by the left-wing groups. Given that the Basque identity was still linked to Catholicism (despite the emergence of a small secular nationalist party, the Acción Nacionalista Vasca, or the ANV), these circumstances continued to sustain the asymmetries between ‘Basque’ and ‘Spanish’ in the nationalist perspective. During the 1931 election to the Constituent Assembly, the nationalists formed a Catholic coalition with the Carlists and the pro-Spanish right-wing forces. To a large degree, the very project of autonomy was conceived as the creation of a barrier to keep the Basque Country safe from republican secularism. For the nationalists, however, this meant forming a pact with those whom they accused of being anti-Basque and selling out to the foreigners. Meanwhile, the conceptual controversy between ‘Basque’ and ‘Spanish’ in the discourse of Basque nationalism contrasts sharply with the general tone of Spanish political discussion throughout this period, during which Basques were considered with anything but hostility. It should be borne in mind that many of the most prominent Spanish conservatives of the age (Miguel de Unamuno, Pío Baroja, Ramiro de Maeztu, etc.) were actually Basque or had Basque roots. In fact, as conservative thought became increasingly hostile to republicanism, at least a part of the Basque territories (Navarra and Alava) began to be described as a kind of a ‘New Covadonga’, from which – in a manner similar to the eighth-century countering of the Arab invasion – the Catholic re-conquest of Spain should have begun.36 As with conservatism, the hostility towards Basque nationalism and even some parts of Basque culture were, paradoxically, the products of the Basque Country – and neither the aforementioned

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Unamuno, nor the traditionalist Victor Pradera, nor the liberal Gregorio Balparda were even remotely ashamed of that.37 The Basque Country, in any case, was often seen as a ‘mother’, or even a ‘grandmother’, of Spain and ‘the Basque’ often stood for the original and the primeval, with all the ambiguity that these notions involve. Between 1931 and 1936, the political climate in Spain deteriorated rapidly and the nation, split into two irreconcilable halves, rushed headlong into civil war. After much hesitation,38 the Basque Nationalist Party, which had begun inching closer to Christian democracy, sided with the republican regime, under which it had achieved the passing of an autonomy statute for the three Basque provinces. The left-wing ANV, which ran on the ticket of the Frente Popular, fought on the opposite side, against the republic. However, some dissident nationalists, such as the aforementioned Eli Gallastegi, refused to participate in ‘a war between Spaniards’ and went straight into exile. The fall of Bilbao to Franco’s forces in June 1937 led to the surrender of Basque nationalist battalions in August of the same year without the approval of the republican authorities, who felt betrayed by this action. Furthermore, although nationalists collaborated on the formation of the Basque autonomous government with socialists, republicans and communists, there were constant tensions between them and their nonnationalist partners. It is significant, in this respect, that the killing of proFranco prisoners in August 1937 was attributed by the nationalist press to Spanish socialists and anarchists, who were also accused of various acts of hostility against Catholicism.39 Basque nationalist historiography has referred to the ‘Basque oasis’,40 exempt from the climate of terror reigning in the remaining republican territories and in which religion, private property and political pluralism were respected. In a way, therefore, some of the old clichés about religious and deferential Basques (as opposed to the revolutionary Spanish) remained a staple of the nationalist discourse during this period, duly applied to the republicans, who were, after all, their allies. With regard to the pro-Franco forces, their description in nationalist discourse was, unsurprisingly, even more hostile: in a context in which international opinion was polarized in favour of or against the regimes of Hitler and Mussolini, nationalism presented the Basque people as a victim of fascism, which was directly identified with Francoism. In this respect, the brutal bombing of Guernica by the Condor Legion in 1937 became a symbol of Francoist hatred of the Basques. The deprivation of the Vizcaya and Guipuzcoa provinces of fiscal autonomy in 1937 by the Francoist authorities, as a punishment for their ‘betrayal’ (which consisted of armed resistance to the insurgents), accentuated this perception of Francoism as an anti-Basque system – notwithstanding the

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fact that the autonomy of both Navarra and Alava was respected. The Spanish Civil War, in any case, functioned as a sort of hyper-experience in the nationalist discourse, which cast its shadow over the entire perception of relations between Basques and Spaniards. However, Francoism as a whole does not seem to have articulated a negative conception of the Basque, let alone opposed it to the Spanish. To begin with, repression in the Basque Country during and immediately after the war was significantly milder than in Andalusia or Extremadura. It is true that teaching in Basque simply disappeared until 1954, as did Basque cultural institutions, like the Academy of the Basque Language and the Society of Basque Studies. There is also evidence of several people being fined for speaking Basque – a punishment that lacked any legal basis whatsoever. However, from the mid- to late 1950s onwards, local Francoist authorities made modest efforts to promote Basque culture. Moreover, it cannot be claimed that Basques were banished from politics by Francoism; as a matter of fact, their presence among the political elite of the dictatorship was quite conspicuous, particularly in diplomatic circles. For example, the eighth government of the dictatorship (1958–62) had no less than five Basque-Navarran ministers, out of a total of eighteen. Moreover, for economic reasons, Franco’s regime continued to protect Vizcayan and Guipuzcoan industry; when the dictator died, they were amongst the wealthiest provinces in Spain. Last but not least, Francoist propaganda highlighted the variety of ‘the lands and men in Spain’ and Basques were systematically described as strong, hard-working, entrepreneurial, religious, formal and reliable people, replicating, to a large degree, the concept developed by the Carlists, many of whom had successfully integrated into Franco’s regime. During the Second World War and the immediate post-war period, Basque nationalism floated the idea of Basque people oppressed by dictatorship and resolutely advocating democracy.41 At the same time, it distanced itself from the pro-Soviet stance adopted by some of the Spanish republicans in exile. In the turbulent years of the Second World War, some factions of the PNV were in favour of breaking ties with the republican government in exile and demanding independence for the Basque Country, along with some territories in other Spanish provinces, such as Huesca, Logroño and Cantabria. The majority of the party, however, favoured continued collaboration with the Spanish republicans, which grew very close over time, although they also demanded recognition of the Basque Country’s right to self-determination and objected to the understanding of the term ‘Basque’ as a part of ‘Spanish’. In 1947, the PNV participated in the foundation of the Internacional Demócrata Cristiana and, a year later, took part in the Congress of Europe held

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in the Hague. Thus, the meaning of ‘Basque’ was linked by nationalist propaganda to Europe, democracy, human rights and welfare, whereas ‘Spanish’ was associated with dictatorship, political repression and cultural, social and economic backwardness. In the 1950s, some extremely important changes occurred within Basque nationalism. Until that time, the party had, by and large, occupied a position on the right of the political spectrum. But from the 1950s onwards, a group of young people gradually distanced themselves from the PNV; they rejected the formula of an autonomous state within Spain and sought nothing less than independence. They also advocated revolutionary nationalism and defended recourse to violent methods. Furthermore, they abandoned any remnants of the Catholic faith and initiated the shift towards militant atheism and anticlericalism, which characterized left-wing nationalism from the mid-1970s onwards. Last but not least, they distanced themselves from any remaining references to race as a defining element of Basque identity; after all, the families of many of these young people came from outside of the Basque Country. On the other hand, they stressed that the Basque language – which most of them strove to learn – was essential to being Basque. In 1958, these dissident groups from the PNV created the armed organization ETA (an acronym of Euskadi and Freedom), which, by 2010, had carried out thousands of attacks, killing about a thousand people.42 Certainly, extreme right-wing and paramilitary groups resorted to violence as well, but their victims were far less numerous (around eighty fatalities altogether) and their activities were generally over by 1987. Although ETA did not initially declare itself to be Marxist, it was not long before it defined itself as a revolutionary socialist party. It was, in any case, a ‘national socialism (socialism nacional), distinctly Basque’, in the style of many anti-colonialist movements of the time. From 1965 onwards, a series of divisions occurred between the more nationalist and the more socialist sectors within the organization, with the latter leaning towards Marxism–Leninism and Trotskyism. Significantly, these left-wing factions were branded ‘pro-Spanish’ by their rivals because they appeared to subordinate the national question to the class struggle. In any case, by the early 1980s, only the most nationalist sector continued to exercise violence. A conglomerate of pro-independence parties and organizations (Koordinadora Abertzale Sozialista (KAS), Herriko Alderdi Sozialista Iraultzailea (HASI), Herri Batasuna (HB), Langile Abertzale Batzarra (LAB), Jarrai, Euskal Herritarrok (EH), Batasuna, Segi, etc.), known generically as the Izquierda Abertzale, provided support to ETA by recognizing it as a legitimate actor, entitled to negotiate the future of the Basque Country and Navarre, advocating negotiation with the Spanish

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government in order to end the ‘conflict’. This sector of Basque opinion obtained between 10 and 26 per cent of votes between 1979 and 2014. As well as justifying the use of violence by ETA, the Izquierda Abertzale presented independence as the only way for the Basque people to avoid being assimilated by the Spanish and the French. This emphasis upon independence was, logically, accompanied by an amplification of the asymmetries between the concepts ‘Basque’ and ‘Spanish’, with the latter representing the antithesis of the former. Additionally, this radicalization of pre-existing asymmetries was conflated with the opposition between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, typical of Leninist discourse. This surprising but significant phenomenon created a synergy between nationalist and political radicals: whereas the broad nationalist masses began drifting to the far left, the Basque Marxists embedded themselves in radical nationalism. The text that laid the foundations of this new revolutionary Basque nationalism was the book Vasconia by Federico Krutwig, a philologist whose father came from a wealthy German family. Raised in a Spanishspeaking environment within the Basque Country, he learnt Basque as an adult.43 Exiled to France, he participated in the foundation of ETA, becoming its main intellectual figure. His points of view prevailed until 1967, when he began to lose ground to the sectors closer to Marxist rhetoric. Although he abandoned the organization in 1975, the imprint of his ideas on the military wing of ETA has always been visible. A committed Europhile, he preferred Pierre-Joseph Proudhon to Karl Marx, admired Menachem Begin (whose book The Revolt he considered to be a ‘bible’ of the movement) and, at the same time, maintained an intense (though ultimately explosive) friendship with Jon Mirande, an iconoclastic Basque–Breton writer, antisemite and admirer of the Third Reich. Although Krutwig explicitly rejected the racism of Sabino Arana, the racial issue did occupy an important place in his work Vasconia. Thus, he placed Basques amongst the ‘Dalic race’ (a branch of the Nordics), whose virtues were realism, musculature and a love of the land. The Spaniards, meanwhile, were basically ‘Mediterranean’ (‘communicative, quick-witted and unattached to material things, somewhat boastful and fond of appearances’).44 Furthermore, Krutwig was a firm believer in the ‘character of the land’. Every territory stamped a way of being on its inhabitants and, for this reason, immigrants eventually acquired the specific character of the area they lived in. In any case, the Basques did not despise other ethnic groups, but did feel ‘repugnance towards mixing with them’.45 But, for Krutwig, the key criterion for determining the Basqueness of a person was language not race: the true Basque had to be a Basque speaker

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and the person born in the Basque Country but unable to speak Basque would be nothing more than a ‘castrated Basque’ (euskal motz).46 As far as Castilian was concerned, while Krutwig admitted that it had been ‘long associated with the Basque people’, he believed that it had become a ‘means of denationalisation’. To support this argument, he highlighted the fact that while the Basque bourgeoisie communicated in Castilian, the lower classes, the peasants, communicated in Basque. Furthermore, Krutwig described Basques as people possessed of a kind of revolutionary tradition. He emphasized their purportedly egalitarian character and – despite all the evidence to the contrary – maintained that they had not experienced feudalism. Krutwig even claimed that Basques had their own socialism, given their tendency towards communal ownership. Moreover, in his view, Basques were sworn enemies of all authoritarianism, having created their own model of democracy independently of the French Revolution; among them, since time immemorial, ‘each and every citizen exercised sovereignty’.47 Accordingly, the Basque family was matriarchal and libertarian and the Basque language itself constituted a ‘symbol of libertarian fraternity’.48 Thus, the learning of the Basque language was itself a ‘revolutionary act’, an expression of rebellion in a world doomed to homogenization. Rebels by nature, Basques hated both to dominate and to be dominated, and sympathized with the oppressed in every corner of the world. Finally, unlike all those who had previously characterized Basques as exemplary Catholics, Krutwig described them as enemies of the church and ‘Christians in appearance only’:49 at heart, they had remained pagan. Unsurprisingly, in Krutwig’s texts, Spaniards were portrayed as the opposite to Basques. The archetypes of Spanishness were a civil guard, a Francoist civil servant, a soldier, a fascist oppressor, an exploitative boss, a landowner and an imperialist conquistador: ‘The Castilian nobleman has the mentality of the conquistador who seeks peoples to enslave so that they can do the work he hates.’50 The Spanish were said to be ‘a nation of twenty million with a philosophy of drones’;51 they felt ‘an African hatred towards the Basque people’52 and were, all things considered, the natural enemies of the Basque Country, whose ‘main task’ was ‘plundering’ and ‘corrupting’ the Basque people.53 While Basques, according to Krutwig, had links with Europe, Spain had always looked towards Africa, particularly its Arabic parts, and turned its back on the West. Particularly interesting is the fact that Krutwig excluded from the Basque collective those natives who felt Spanish; the fact that many of them had Basque surnames or even spoke Basque infuriated Krutwig, for whom such people ‘reveal[ed] themselves to be prostitutes’.54 Regarding immigrants, he was in favour of considering them Basques, provided they

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were ready to assimilate and join the fight against Spanish oppression: ‘As for the labourers who come to work with us . . . If they are willing to become good citizens of Euskaria, then they will be our ­brothers . . . But  . . . if their intention is to denationalise our homeland, then they are our enemies, the agents of colonialism . . ., the children of the same mother as the capitalist exploiters.’55 The acceptance or rejection of the nationalist creed was therefore the criterion that, together with Basque language acquisition, determined whether immigrants could be included in the national collective. Another author whose work is crucial for understanding the game of oppositions between the Spanish and the Basque established by revolutionary nationalism is José Luis Álvarez Enparantza (‘Txillardegi’). Like Krutwig, this author was one of the founders of ETA, to which he belonged until 1967, when differences with the leadership led him to leave the organization. However, except for a brief period between 2001 and 2007, he retained close links to the political organizations associated with ETA until his death. His main idea was similar to Krutwig’s: the key to the Basque identity was possession of the national language,56 so only Basque speakers could lay full claim to being Basque. Given that, in the 1960s and 1970s, only 15 per cent of Basques fulfilled this condition, Txillardegi – who had begun to study Basque at the age of seventeen – believed that he needed to undertake a campaign, similar to the propagation of Hebrew in Israel, in order to extend the learning of Basque to all children and adults. The locals who showed little interest in his initiative were labelled ‘harkas’ – the term used in Algeria to designate those who collaborated with the French colonial administration. Again, the linguistic criterion was ultimately subordinated to the political one: even for Basque language speakers, regarding oneself as Spanish would have meant automatic exclusion from the community. Hence, the radical incompatibility between Spanish and Basque identities remained unchanged. The rhetoric of radical nationalism in subsequent decades was full of such oppositions, which, as Juha A. Vuori’s analysis of the Chinese Revolution demonstrates,57 frequently serve to legitimize of violence. Following Krutwig, Basques are portrayed nowadays as a combative people, brave, revolutionary, socialist, supportive, egalitarian, rebellious and extremely attached to their ancient tongue. It is the last of these that represents the essence of their traditions, having connected generations of Basques throughout history. In parallel, the members of ETA appear as prototypes of Basque identity, embodying its most characteristic attributes: each of them poses as a warrior-like David challenging the powerful Spanish Goliath. Consequently, their objectives are shown to go far

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beyond the independence of the Basque Country, encompassing social liberation in the broadest possible terms. In this way, the nationalists embrace the cause of all oppressed peoples of the world and the defence of ‘one’s father’s house’ by the ‘gudaris’ (warriors) of ETA, purged of its customary reactionary semantics, turns into a progressive and revolutionary activity. Unlike the Basque historiography of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the later Basque model of revolutionary nationalism promoted by the euskaros and the PNV was generally atheistic and anticlerical, or at least anti-Christian: the recourse to the pagan religion of the pre-Christian Basques is common and popular Basque festivals, such as carnival or San Fermin, are presented as examples of the anarchist, egalitarian and revolutionary spirit that typifies the Basque ethos. Spaniards, on the other hand, are systematically associated with civil guards, police, bankers, businesspeople, corrupt politicians, right-wing terrorists, the mafia, drug dealers, etc., sustaining the equation of ‘Spanish’ and ‘antiBasque’. In spite of the democratic changes in recent decades, radical nationalism continues to identify the Spanish state with Francoism and dispute its democratic character by calling it a ‘pseudo-democracy’, a ‘purported democracy’, etc. Thus, for Francisco Letamendia, a member of Herri Batasuna, Spain is ‘a fascist society sustained by American imperialism’.58 According to one nationalist poster, the Spanish state is nothing less than ‘a murderer’. In addition, Spain is derided as an artificial state devoid of any lineage and sharply contrasted with the indigenous and primeval people of Euskal Herria: ‘The Basques are the indigenous Europeans, . . . the children of the earth . . ., the ancient voices that tell us of another possible world, that speak to us about communion, a communal way of production and life from the earliest times.’59 As for the  Basques  that consider themselves to be Spanish, José M. Esparza, a prominent nationalist historian, predictably calls them ‘Judas’ and ‘leprosy’.60 An interesting example of this type of asymmetry between the concepts of ‘Basque’ and ‘Spanish’ among the nationalist left after Franco’s death can be found in the influential work of the anthropologist Andrés Ortíz-Osés.61 He describes a ‘subconscious Basque collective’ as pre-Indo-European in origin, characterized by its telluric and matriarchal impulses, communalism and the centrality of symbols. He contrasts all this with the much more ‘modern’ Spanish subconscious, common to the Indo-European invaders and marked by patriarchy, narrow rationalism, individualism and the loss of the symbolic. Another reference worth mentioning, in light of its influence upon the Izquierda Abertzale, is the book Españoles y Vascos by Joxe Azurmendi, a professor at the University

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of the Basque Country.62 Azurmendi criticizes the clichés that, in his view, Spanish historiography and culture have used since the Middle Ages to describe the Basques, branding them as a primitive tribe, barbarian, uncultured, coarse and insufficiently Romanized. Furthermore, he describes Spanish identity as a product of counter-reformist Catholicism, which was dogmatic, aggressive, inquisitorial and imperialist, having never respected freedom of conscience and having conceived of the world in essentialist terms. On the subject of this link between the Spanish and the Catholic, one is struck by the contrast with the aforementioned views of Ortíz-Osés, for whom Catholicism was related to the collective Basque subconscious, whilst Protestantism embodied the alternative subconscious of Indo-Europeans. As for moderate, secular nationalism, after Franco’s death it appears to have become stuck in the ambiguous middle ground between essentialism and pragmatism. In 1978, it advocated abstention in the constitutional referendum, but, on the other hand, in 1979, it campaigned for the yes vote in the referendum on Basque autonomy within the constitutional framework. With one exception (2009–12), it has led every autonomous government, recalling now and then that autonomy is not enough and indicating that independence is the real objective. In 1990 and 2014, it voted in the Basque Parliament in favour of the right to selfdetermination, but was cautious and pragmatic when other groups presented motions in town councils favouring independence. It refused to participate in the Spanish government, but, with its votes, supported the investiture and the national budgets of socialist and conservative governments. It explicitly condemned the use of violence in the struggle for self-determination and organized demonstrations against such violence, particularly in the 1990s, suffering harrassment from ETA sympathizers as a result. But, at the same time, the associations of the victims of terrorism accused moderate socialists of indifference, citing their ‘understanding’ concerning the causes of the violence, their lack of cooperation with Spanish security forces and their calls for negotiations with the terrorists, which culminated in the ‘Pacto de Lizarra’, signed in 1998 with the political wing of ETA before the latter had actually laid down its weapons. Meanwhile, in 1986, Eusko Alkartasuna (Basque Solidarity), an essentially social democratic and more openly pro-independence party, split from the PNV, leaving political and social moderates on their own. As regards the oppositions between ‘Basque’ and ‘Spanish, this restrained version of nationalism was generally less visceral than its revolutionary counterpart. However, once in a while, particularly on such symbolic holidays as the Day of the Party or the Day of the Homeland, or during the electoral campaigns, its leaders issued stern declarations

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in which ‘the Basque’ was set against ‘the Spanish’: the claim made by Xabier Arzalluz, the president of the PNV between 1987 and 2004, that Castilians ‘feel hatred of the Basque’ is a case in point.63 Despite the party’s participation in the various general elections since 1977 and its substantial experience of (and participation in) government, it often questions the democratic quality of the Spanish state, its law enforcement agencies being the most popular scapegoat: ‘The police, like in Franco’s time’ was a headline in Alderdi, the PNV newspaper, in 1984. Spain and France are depicted in PNV discourse as putting chains on the Basque Country, preventing it from becoming a free state. In general, the very word ‘Spain’ tends to be avoided, with preference being given either to the expression ‘Spanish State’ or to the habitual synecdoche whereby the capital is substituted for the whole country: in 1984, Alderdi complained about the ‘unjustifiable wrangling to which Madrid has subjected . . . the Basque people’. Successive Spanish governments – both conservative and socialist – are accused in the same source of ‘oppressing, repressing and crushing the Basque people’ (despite the fact that the standard of living in the Basque Country ranks among the highest in Spain). The Basque people were, in their view, the object of incomprehension in Spanish public opinion, which associated them with terrorist violence, when in fact they saw themselves as a peaceful, honourable and hardworking people. Moreover, the PNV often assumed representation of all Basques. For example, their group in the Basque Parliament was given the name ‘Basque group’, despite the fact that it included only about a third of Basque MPs. The manifestly European origins of the Basques was also a commonplace among PNV nationalists. Thus, the aforementioned Arzalluz claimed that ‘we are the primitive Europeans’.64 Although over forty years of terrorism waged by ETA has tarnished the image of the Basques in the rest of Spain, it would be very difficult to find an asymmetry between the concepts of ‘Basque’ and ‘Spanish’ in Spanish political discourse that would match the strong opposition between them perpetuated by Basque media and journalism over the last centuries. Even the tiny far-right fringe of the political landscape defended the good name of the Basques, no doubt remembering the latter’s prominence in early Spanish fascism. In the difficult years of the 1980s, when ETA carried out dozens of terrorist attacks every month, a survey conducted by the nationalist magazine Euzkadi found that 44 per cent of those interviewed in Spain liked the Basques, 20 per cent were indifferent to them and 0 per cent hostile.65 Furthermore, only 14 per cent believed that the Basques supported ETA. To sum up, all political forces in Spain agreed on separating the Basques from the violence committed in their name. It is significant in this sense that the main slogan of the

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most substantial mobilization against the terrorist violence of ETA in the summer of 1997 was ‘Basques yes! ETA no!’ In conclusion, it is worth reiterating that the opposition between ‘Basque’ and ‘Spanish’ does not appear to be rooted in Basque historiography of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but rather was created during the Carlist wars: the supporters of a traditional monarchy described themselves in glowing terms, while the liberals were denigrated as abject beings. Subsequent proto-nationalism and Basque nationalism reproduced these divisions, changing their attribution to Basques and Castilians/Spaniards, and the revolutionary nationalism of ETA further intensified the opposition. However, the characteristics of each group underwent noticeable changes: ‘Basque’ became synonymous with ‘proletarian’ and ‘socialist’, while ‘Spanish’ acquired an affinity with ‘bourgeois’ and ‘fascist’. From the twentieth century onwards, this antagonistic vision has been in sharp contrast to the actual sympathy shown towards Basques in Spanish politics on both sides of the political spectrum. Iñaki Iriarte López is Associate Professor at the University of the Basque Country and has a PhD in Sociology. He wrote Tramas de identidad. Literatura y regionalismo en Navarra (Biblioteca Nueva, 2000), Historia del Navarrismo  (with Á. García-Sanz and F. Mikelerena; Universidad Pública  de Navarra, 2002) and Una cruel antífrasis (Universidad Pública  de  Navarra, 2007) on Rousseau’s theories on language. Since 2015, he has also been an MP in the Autonomous Parliament of Navarre.

Notes  1. José Luis de la Granja Sainz, El siglo de Euskadi: el nacionalismo vasco en la España del siglo XX (Madrid: Tecnos, 2003); Jon Juaristi, El linaje de Aitor. La invención de la tradición vasca (Madrid: Taurus, 1984).  2. Xabier Zabaltza Pérez-Nievas, Mater Vasconia. Fueros, lenguas y discursos nacionales en los países vascos (San Sebastián: Hiria, 2005).  3. Jon Arrieta, ‘La idea de España entre los vascos de la Edad Moderna’, in Ernest Cebrià, Jon Arrieta Aberdi and Pablo Fernández (eds), La idea de España en la Edad Moderna (Valencia: Real Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País, 1998), 117–39.  4. Antonio Tovar, Mitología e ideología sobre la lengua vasca (Madrid: Alianza, 1980).  5. Julio Caro Baroja, La hora navarra del siglo XVIII (personas, familias, negocios e ideas) (Pamplona: Diputación Foral de Navarra).

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 6. Juaristi, El linaje de Aitor.  7. Miguel Herrero, ‘Ideología española del siglo XVII: concepto de los vascos’, Revista Internacional de los Estudios Vascos 14 (1927), 33–58.  8. Arrieta, ‘La idea de España entre los vascos de la Edad Moderna’.  9. Jon Juaristi, El bucle melancólico. Historias de nacionalistas vascos (Madrid: Espasa, 1998). 10. Jon Arrieta, ‘La idea de España entre los vascos de la Edad Moderna’. 11. Iñaki Iriarte López, Tramas de identidad. Literatura y regionalismo en Navarra (1870–1960) (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 1999), 28. 12. Victoriano Huici, Manual de Gramática Vascongada (Pamplona: Erice y García, 1899), 95. 13. Vincent Garmendia, La ideología carlista (1868–1876). En los orígenes del nacionalismo vasco (San Sebastián: Diputación Foral de Gipuzkoa, 1985). 14. Jordi Canal, El carlismo. Dos siglos de contrarrevolución en España (Madrid: Alianza, 2000). 15. Pedro Chacón Delgado, ‘Introducción a la etapa barcelonesa de Arana Goiri (1883–1888)’, Letras de Deusto 42, no. 134 (2005), 155–82. 16. Antonio Elorza, Un pueblo escogido: génesis, definición y desarrollo del nacionalismo vasco (Barcelona: Crítica, 2001). 17. Iriarte López, Tramas de identidad. 18. Ibid., 115–27. 19. Juan Mañé y Flaquer, El oasis. Viaje al país de los fueros (Barcelona: Roviralta, 1878). 20. Juaristi, El bucle melancólico, 44. 21. Kirill Postoutenko, ‘Asymmetrical Concepts and Political Asymetries’, in Kay Junge and Kirill Postoutenko (eds), Asymetrical Concepts after Reinhart Kosselleck. Historical Semantics and Beyond (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2011), 81–114. 22. Arturo Campión, Contrastes: denbora anchinakoen ondo-esanak (Pamplona: Lorda, 1882). 23. Quoted in Javier Corcuera Atienza, La patria de los vascos. Orígenes, ideología y organización del nacionalismo vasco (1876–1903) (Madrid: Taurus, 2001), 148. 24. Kay Junge, ‘Self-Concepts, Counter-Concepts, Asymetrical Counter-Concepts’, in Kay Junge and Kirill Postoutenko (eds), Asymetrical Concepts after Reinhart Kosselleck. Historical Semantics and Beyond (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2011), 9–50, 25. 25. Angel García-Sanz, Iñaki Iriarte López and Fernando Mikelarena Peña, Historia del navarrismo (1841–1936): sus relaciones con el vasquismo (Pamplona: UPNA, 2002), 87. 26. Elorza, Un pueblo escogido. 27. Lynne M. Murphy and Roberta Piazza, ‘Linguistic Semantics and Historical Semantics’ in Kay Junge and Kirill Postoutenko, Asymetrical Concepts after Reinhart Kosselleck. Historical Semantics and Beyond (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2011), 51–80, 66. 28. Sabino Arana and Antonio Elorza, La patria de los vascos: antologia de escritos politicos (San Sebastián: Haranburu, 1995), 90–93. 29. Ibid., 53. 30. Ibero, Evangelista de, Ami vasco (Bilbao: Arteche, 1906), 57. 31. Ibid., 59. 32. Ibid., 193. 33. Quoted by Antonio Rivera, Señas de identidad: el País Vasco visto por la izquierda histórica (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 2007), 120. 34. Santiago de Pablo, Ludger Mees and José Antonio Rodríguez Ranz, El péndulo patriótico. Historia del Partido Nacionalista Vasco, 1:1895–1936 (Barcelona: Critica, 1999). 35. Juaristi, Jon, El linaje de Aitor, 238–65. 36. Javier Ugarte Telleria, La Nueva Covadonga insurgente: orígenes sociales y culturales de la sublevación de 1936 en Navarra y el País Vasco (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 1998). 37. Iriarte, Tramas de identidad, 59.

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38. Carlos M. Olazábal, Pactos y Traiciones: Los Archivos secretos de la Guerra en Euzkadi (Bilbao: Olazábal, 2005). 39. Federico Sarrailh de Ihartza [Federico Krutwig], Vasconia (Bilbao: Herritar Berri, 2006), 351. 40. José Luis de la Granja Sainz, El siglo de Euskadi: el nacionalismo vasco en la España del siglo XX (Madrid: Tecnos, 2003), 82–84. 41. Pablo, Mees and Rodríguez, El péndulo patriótico. 42. Elorza, Un pueblo escogido. 43. Federico Sarrailh de Ihartza [Federico Krutwig], Vasconia (Bilbo: Herritar Berri, 2006). 44. Ibid., 110. 45. Ibid., 69. 46. Ibid., 34. 47. Ibid., 51. 48. Ibid., 49. 49. Ibid., 91. 50. Ibid., 232. 51. Ibid., 457. 52. Ibid., 232. 53. Ibid., 51. 54. Ibid., 136. 55. Ibid., 458. 56. Txillardegi [José Luis Álvarez], Euskal Herria helburu (Tafalla: Txalaparta, 1995). Tovar, Antonio, Mitología e ideología sobre la lengua vasca (Madrid: Alianza, 1980). 57. Juha A. Vuori, ‘Three Takes on the Counter Revolutionary’, in Kay Junge and Kirill Postoutenko (eds), Asymetrical Concepts after Reinhart Kosselleck. Historical Semantics and Beyond (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2011), 115–40, 136. 58. Quoted by José M. Garmendia, Historia de ETA (San Sebastián: Haranburu, 1980), 153. 59. Jon Landaburu, ‘Un pueblo indígena resiste en Europa’, Gara (2002), 5 August. 60. José M. Esparza, Cien razones por las que dejé de ser español (Tafalla: Txalaparta, 2006), 322–23. 61. Andrés Ortíz-Osés, Las claves simbólicas de nuestra cultura (Barcelona: Anthropos, 1992). 62. Joxe Azurmendi, Espaniolak eta Euskaldunak (San Sebastián: Elkar, 1992). 63. Jon Juaristi, El bucle melancólico. Historias de nacionalistas vascos (Madrid: Espasa, 1998), 338. 64. Xabier Arzalluz, ‘El camino de Europa’, Revista Muga 18 (1980), 21–22. 65. ‘Así nos ven’, Euzkadi 103 (1983), 7–9.

References ‘Así nos ven’, Euzkadi 103 (1983), 7–9. Arana, Sabino, and Antonio Elorza, La patria de los vascos: antologia de escritos politicos (San Sebastián: Haranburu, 1995). Arrieta, Jon, ‘La idea de España entre los vascos de la Edad Moderna’, in Ernest Cebrià, Jon Arrieta Aberdi and Pablo Fernández (eds), La idea de España en la Edad Moderna (Valencia: Real Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País, 1998), 117–39. Arzalluz, Xabier, ‘El camino de Europa’, Revista Muga 18 (1980), 21–22. Azurmendi, Joxe, Espaniolak eta Euskaldunak (San Sebastián: Elkar, 1992).

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Campión, Arturo, Contrastes: denbora anchinakoen ondo-esanak (Pamplona: Lorda, 1882). Canal, Jordi, El carlismo. Dos siglos de contrarrevolución en España (Madrid: Alianza, 2000). Caro Baroja, Julio, La hora navarra del siglo XVIII (personas, familias, negocios e ideas) (Pamplona: Diputación Foral de Navarra, 1969). Chacón Delgado, Pedro, ‘Introducción a la etapa barcelonesa de Arana Goiri (1883–1888)’, Letras de Deusto 42, no. 134 (2005), 155–82. Corcuera Atienza, Javier, La patria de los vascos. Orígenes, ideología y organización del nacionalismo vasco (1876–1903) (Madrid: Taurus, 2001). Elorza, Antonio, Un pueblo escogido: génesis, definición y desarrollo del nacionalismo vasco (Barcelona: Crítica, 2001). Esparza, José M., Cien razones por las que dejé de ser español (Tafalla: Txalaparta, 2006). García-Sanz, Angel, Iñaki Iriarte López and Fernando Mikelarena Peña, Historia del navarrismo (1841–1936): sus relaciones con el vasquismo (Pamplona: UPNA, 2002). Garmendia, José M., Historia de ETA (San Sebastián: Haranburu, 1980). Garmendia, Vincent, La ideología carlista (1868–1876). En los orígenes del nacionalismo vasco (San Sebastián: Diputación Foral de Gipuzkoa, 1985). Granja Sainz, José Luis de la, El siglo de Euskadi: el nacionalismo vasco en la España del siglo XX (Madrid: Tecnos, 2003). Herrero, Miguel, ‘Ideología española del siglo XVII: concepto de los vascos’, Revista Internacional de los Estudios Vascos 14 (1927), 33–58. Huici, Victoriano, Manual de Gramática Vascongada (Pamplona: Erice y García, 1899). Ibero, Evangelista de, Ami vasco (Bilbao: Arteche, 1906). Iriarte López, Iñaki, Tramas de identidad. Literatura y regionalismo en Navarra (1870–1960) (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 1999). Juaristi, Jon, El bucle melancólico. Historias de nacionalistas vascos (Madrid: Espasa, 1998). –––, El linaje de Aitor. La invención de la tradición vasca (Madrid: Taurus, 1984). Junge, Kay, ‘Self-Concepts, Counter-Concepts, Asymetrical Counter-Concepts’, in Kay Junge, and Kirill Postoutenko (eds), Asymetrical Concepts after Reinhart Kosselleck. Historical Semantics and Beyond (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2011), 9–50. Landaburu, Jon, ‘Un pueblo indígena resiste en Europa’, Gara (2002), 5 August. Mañé y Flaquer, Juan, El oasis. Viaje al país de los fueros (Barcelona: Roviralta, 1878). Murphy, Lynne M., and Roberta Piazza, ‘Linguistic Semantics and Historical Semantics’, in Kay Junge and Kirill Postoutenko, Asymetrical Concepts after Reinhart Kosselleck. Historical Semantics and Beyond (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2011), 51–80. Olazábal, Carlos M., Pactos y Traiciones: Los Archivos secretos de la Guerra en Euzkadi (Bilbao: Olazábal, 2005). Ortíz-Osés, Andrés, Las claves simbólicas de nuestra cultura (Barcelona: Anthropos, 1992). Pablo, Santiago de, Ludger Mees and José Antonio Rodríguez Ranz, El péndulo patriótico: historia del Partido Nacionalista Vasco (1895–2005) (Madrid: Crítica, 1999).

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Postoutenko, Kirill, ‘Asymmetrical Concepts and Political Asymetries’, in Kay Junge and Kirill Postoutenko (eds), Asymetrical Concepts after Reinhart Kosselleck. Historical Semantics and Beyond (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2011), 81–114. Rivera, Antonio, Señas de identidad: el País Vasco visto por la izquierda histórica (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 2007). Sarrailh de Ihartza, Federico [Federico Krutwig], Vasconia (Bilbao: Herritar Berri, 2006). Tovar, Antonio, Mitología e ideología sobre la lengua vasca (Madrid: Alianza, 1980). Txillardegi [José Luis Álvarez], Euskal Herria helburu (Tafalla: Txalaparta, 1995). Ugarte Telleria, Javier, La Nueva Covadonga insurgente: orígenes sociales y culturales de la sublevación de 1936 en Navarra y el País Vasco (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 1998). Vuori, Juha A., ‘Three Takes on the Counter Revolutionary’, in Kay Junge and Kirill Postoutenko (eds), Asymetrical Concepts after Reinhart Kosselleck. Historical Semantics and Beyond (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2011), 115–40. Zabaltza Pérez-Nievas, Xabier, Mater Vasconia. Fueros, lenguas y discursos nacionales en los países vascos (San Sebastián: Hiria, 2005).

Conclusion

Beyond ‘Hellenes’ and ‘Barbarians’ Kirill Postoutenko

Preamble

T

his volume constitutes a collective attempt to unfold the convoluted notion of ‘asymmetrical counter-concepts’ (AC) proposed by Reinhart Koselleck. After some ironing out and occasional stitching, this novel category was tried out on broad swaths of European public ­discourse  – from medieval poems to modern musical criticism. Invariably, this transition from the small sketch to the large canvas entailed not only the general  verification of broad hypotheses but also some adjustments to and extensions of the original analytical apparatus. As all these procedures have been summed up in the Introduction and spelled out in the subsequent chapters, there is probably little need to revisit them. Yet the distinctive feature of a really big theory is not just the big splash but also the waves it makes: however impressive, the long list of references to AC across the humanities and social sciences is of little lasting value if it is not complemented by studies leading Koselleck’s discovery beyond the horizon.1 In other words, the unforeseen features of AC, their previously unobserved properties and their unanticipated mutations are arguably a better testament to the historian’s vision than mere diligent quoting. In this sense, the conclusion is focused on summarizing the developments of AC beyond the original blueprint.

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Agreeing to Disagree or the Other Way Around: Counter-Concepts between Symmetries and Asymmetries Koselleck is quite explicit about the relations between symmetry and asymmetry in conceptual semantics; in this regard, the examples of consensual (‘employer’ vs ‘employee’) and non-consensual (‘exploiter’ vs ‘human material’) other-references seem to speak for themselves.2 At the same time, he is rather taciturn in relation to sliding scales and smooth transitions between both categories, aside from a passing remark about conceptual pairs existing ‘before their polar coordination’ and an example of an asymmetrical ideological label (‘conservatism’) belatedly achieving its referent’s ratification in the mid-nineteenth century.3 As has been said before, it made perfect sense for Koselleck not to go into further detail in his short text, but it would be decidedly unambitious if this collection had left the question at that. As Luis Fernández Torres and Ana Isabel González Manso clearly demonstrate, the oscillations between conceptual symmetry and asymmetry could not be reduced to unidirectional and unidimensional processes; rather, the transformations of AC into their symmetrical variations and back are ongoing developments subject to the simultaneous pressures of multiple social, political and cultural factors. A common scenario is the ­ratification of the originally pejorative labels by the originally disadvantaged communicators in return for the general stabilization of their  social status at a mutually tolerable level:4 the case in point is the term ‘plebs’ in nineteenth-century Spain (Pablo Sánchez León). Contrariwise, the communicators with the monopoly on asymmetrical ascriptions could relinquish their dominance in exchange for the reputational boost generated by the civilizational value of consensus: nineteenth-century Greeks’ approving qualifications of their ­archenemy – the Ottoman Turks – probably fall into this category (Alexandra Sfoini). A more intricate scheme involves some long-term thinking and the ability to cooperate with adversaries in hedging common risks: in this way, the unratified branding of communists as ‘anti-democratic forces’ in Holland after the Second World War was prevented by small political groups that feared similar exclusion in the future (Wim de Jong). Last but not least, the strength of AC can, in Koselleck’s words, ‘fade’ when they cease to be convenient vehicles for semantic delimitation and discrimination: the opposition between good and evil is very much alive in the Song of Roland and the Song of Alexander (eleventh century), but it is no longer conveyed by the customary conceptual contradistinction ‘Christians’ vs ‘Pagans’ lurking deep in the background (Paul Paradies).

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This last example draws attention to the fact that AC are not only able to change in various directions (towards symmetry and back), but can also consist of multiple semantic layers exhibiting various degrees of (a)symmetry. In other words, unilateral self- and other-ascriptions, in addition to being able to form privative oppositions with universally accepted terms, are capable of absorbing and knotting together semantic contradistinctions, asymmetrical or not, attached to them by various sociocultural traditions. This practice, registered and deconstructed in several chapters of the volume, merits a separate discussion.

‘Sacred Light’ and ‘Profane Darkness’: The Bundling of Contradistinctions in AC As has been mentioned in the Introduction, some AC are offered to language users in the form of a super-saver pack: the staunch defence of corporeal and mental identity is often accompanied by the confinement of truth and rightness to the defended territory. This conflation of assumed physical, epistemic and deontic superiority over others can become a concentric extension of the ruler’s body (as in the France of the Sun King) or it can be transferred from individual bodies to such city-states as the Greek πόλις or the Roman civitas (Heli Rantala).5 At the same time, asymmetrical (and symmetrical) contradistinctions should not necessarily just mimic the systemic identities of their users: they can also get tied together in the process of discursive cross-fertilization, particularly when different ‘time layers’, sociocultural fields and sign systems collide (Wiktor Marzec, Ana Isabel González Manso).6 Sometimes the prominent catchwords work together in the same text, amending and reinforcing pre-existing asymmetrical contradistinctions: in this way, Thomas Hobbes blends together the semantics of ‘paganism’ and ‘barbarity’ (as opposed to ‘Christianity’ and ‘civilization’ respectively).7 In other cases, the combined effect is achieved by the parallel deployment of different symbolic codes. Thus, in Preface to the Complete Edition of My Works . . . (op. 123), composed by Dmitri Shostakovich in 1966 for bass voice and piano, the pejorative asymmetrical semantics of the term ‘foreign’ (‘zarubezhnyï’) is aggravated by the use of a diminished fifth, commonly perceived in European musical culture as the ‘devil’s interval’ (Kirill Kozlovski). Certainly, Shostakovich’s unmistakable irony somehow dampens the strength of this ideologically proscribed outburst in response to the hostile ideological environment. A common – but distinct – case with profound evolutionary roots is the superimposition of situationally relevant AC upon some of the

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most universal symmetrical contradistinctions involving orientation or functional differentiation. For example, the merger of mutually ratified universal oppositions involving geography (‘Europe’ vs ‘Asia’) and monotheistic religion (‘Christianity’ vs ‘Islam’) with asymmetrical self- and other-ascriptions (‘civilization’/‘freedom’ vs ‘barbarism’/‘slavery’) contributed to the polarization of the opposition between Greeks and Turks in the nineteenth century, simultaneously styling the asymmetrical contradistinction as the natural effect of socially shared delimitations (Alexandra Sfoini). In general, such a practice resembles the old custom of imbuing fundamental orientational oppositions (‘right’ vs ‘left’, ‘hot’ vs ‘cold’, or ‘darkness’ vs ‘light’) with moral valuations (‘sacred’ vs ‘profane’).8 The crucial difference is the strategic deployment of communicative dominance in AC: whereas archaic societies jammed binary oppositions together for the sake of achieving societal cohesion and reducing internal semantic complexity in the face of threatening exterior forces, their modern descendants were concealing their usurpation of communicative privileges by dressing up their unilateral evaluations of the outside world in the cloak of objectivity. However, the halo of impartiality obtained by AC through their association with symmetrical conceptual binaries comes at a price. When Herodotus describes the inversion of customary gender roles among Barbarians (see Introduction), he inadvertently hints at the reversibility of AC themselves as well. If two seemingly disparate concepts are separated – at least in one respect – by a single distinctive feature that exhibits considerable logical symmetry (‘female = non-male’ ≈ ‘male = non-female’), why not treat them as equal interchangeable opposites? This idea, which had surely crossed Herodotus’ mind, has remained popular ever since: the barbarity of civilizers has been a common topic in French cultural discourse since Montaigne (Nere Basabe and María Luisa Sánchez-Mejía); in his Battle of Hermann (1808), Heinrich Kleist sums up the centuries-old tradition of treating Romans and Germans as two kinds of Barbarians East and West of the Rhine.9 Hence, it made sense to explore the paradoxical reversibility of AC in some depth and detail.

‘Hellenes’ as ‘Barbarians’ and Vice Versa: The Reversibility of AC The symmetry of binary oppositions, which generally allows them to shift markedness from one pole to another without changing the semantics of the difference, provides an agreeable graphic explanation of their reversibility: with some qualifications (discussed in the

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Introduction), the difference, say, between information and noise could be equally well expressed by the oppositions ‘information’ vs ‘non-­ information’ and ‘noise’ vs ‘non-noise’.10 A somewhat deeper elucidation of this phenomenon’s popularity demonstrates that the inverted binaries perform their original functions in the respective systems almost as well as the non-inverted ones. In any case, living beings born with their internal organs reversed (situs inversus) are generally as healthy as everybody else and American democracy, whatever its current difficulties might be, remains in relatively good shape, despite Democrats and Republicans having repeatedly traded sides on major issues in the twentieth century.11 Especially in light of the last example, it is little wonder that asymmetrical semantics in AC has often been reversed, particularly in cases in which the terms in question were explicitly interlocked with the opposed counter-terms. As in other cases, such reversals could be implemented at various semantic and semiotic levels. The simplest variation has been the swapping of the secondary oppositions between the poles under the auspices of the invariable asymmetrical linguistic and communicative structure. Whereas ‘the Turks’ in the philhellenic discourse or ‘the Spanish’ in the Basque discourse retained their mythological associations with the absolute evil, the specific semantic properties of these unilateral Otherascriptions could well change places with their respective opposites in the Self-characterizations ‘Greek’ and ‘Basque’ (Alexandra Sfoini, Iñaki Iriarte López). A somewhat more complex but related scenario involves the rotation of AC in accordance with the transfer of communicative privileges from one adversary to another: as soon as early twentiethcentury Polish conservatives or revolutionaries could lay hold of the printing press (or command attention in a public setting), they would link themselves to ‘order’ and associate their respective opponents with ‘anarchy’ (Wiktor Marzec). Arguably the most sophisticated – and the least conspicuous – strategy of the turning AC around involved the parallel fabrication of homonymic asymmetrical conceptual pairs with the opposite modalities: in nineteenth-century Spain, the liberales and serviles were wrestling with each other for the semantics of both AC, trying to invest the ratified identity tags with the non-consensual meanings of Self-superiority and Other-inferiority (Luis Fernández Torres, Ana Isabel González Manso). This last case sheds light on a couple of related practices associated with the use of AC in competitive discursive environments: while the meanings of some conceptual asymmetries can be hotly – and sometimes ­successfully – contested, others are divided into barely distinguishable opposites endowed with the opposite valuations correspondingly

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reserved for the complementary self- and the derogatory other-­ascriptions. Although AC do not necessarily occupy centre stage in these processes, the impact of dissociation and contestation on their history could be more significant than it seems.

‘Christianity’ vs ‘Christendom’: Dissociations and Contestations of AC Dissociation is most easily achieved by the asymmetrical contraposition of the former synonyms with the new divergent semantics embracing the relevant political, ideological, social or cultural divide. 12 Whereas in eighteenth-century France the patriotic ‘citizen’ became opposed to the unpatriotic ‘bourgeois’, in Spain at roughly the same time the cooperative notion of ‘party’ was distinguished from the divisive concept of ‘faction’ (Luis Fernández Torres).13 In the same country a century later, the terms ‘people’ and ‘plebs’ stopped being substitutes for each other and ‘popular’ novels became distinguishable from ‘vulgar’ ones as a result (Pablo Sánchez León). The previously discussed differentiation between Soviet ‘internationalism’ and foreign ‘cosmopolitanism’ should probably be assigned to this category as well (Kirill Kozlovski). Two other common strategies are the slight modification of the original term, producing its epistemic and (eo ipso) moral opposite, and its double syntagmatic extension, dividing the originally neutral concept into a pair of deontic opposites.14 Søren Kierkegaard’s contradistinction between the ‘true’ Christianity (‘kristendom’) and the ‘false’ Christendom (‘kristenhed’), and the nineteenth-century Greek opposition between the ‘right’ ‘philhellenism’ and the ‘wrong’ ‘mishellenism’ serve as illustrations of the first strategy (Aleksandra Sfoini).15 The second strategy is exemplified by the nineteenth-century retroactive differentiation between the ‘old Spanish’ and the ‘old European nobility’ popular in nineteenth-century Spain (Ana Isabel González Manso), as well as by the customary Bolshevik opposition of the ‘socialist’ and the ‘bourgeois democracy’ readily employed by Dutch communists after the Second World War (Wim de Jong). The attempts of communicatively underprivileged groups to redefine the meanings of their externally applied identifications (such as ‘plebs’ or ‘liberals’) highlight the most confrontational tactic of redefining asymmetrical semantics. For all its unmistakable bias, dissociation offers at least some superficial institutionalization of semantic differences, splitting the bone of contention down its axiological middle and assigning opposite valuations to its parts. Alternatively, contestation usually claims conceptual semantics in toto, striving to prevent its alternative valuation

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by any other language users: in this sense, the struggle between various branches of nineteenth-century Spanish liberals for the meaning of the term ‘nobility’ was an attempt to turn a standard reference to the past into an AC par excellence and establish a semantic monopoly on the concept (Ana Isabel González Manso).16

What’s Next? The question chosen for this last subheading could arguably be answered in many more ways than could be put on paper in a brief volume summary. The study undertaken in this volume is more akin to an exploratory voyage in uncharted waters than a thorough land survey. One of its obvious deficits is the chronological disparity, reflecting conceptual history’s current fixation on modernity: apart from some material in the Introduction and Chapter 1, none of the textual complexes discussed is older than three hundred years. Another deficit is the inordinate amount of attention paid to identity tags at the expense of other categories; in this sense, the attempt to venture off the path trodden by Koselleck was only moderately successful. Also, aside from a couple of samples, there is no proper quantitative analysis of AC up to the present day.17 All these possibilities point at a wide field for future studies, for which this volume could hopefully serve as a starting point. Kirill Postoutenko is Senior Researcher in the Special Research Area 1288 (Practices of Comparison) at Bielefeld University, Germany, and Adjunct Associate Professor (Docent) of Russian Literature and Culture at the University of Helsinki, Finland. He has held research and teaching appointments at the universities of Munich and Constance (Germany), Columbia University and the University of Southern California (USA), IEA and ENS/Rue d’Ulm (France), Queen Mary, University of London (United Kingdom), the University of the Basque Country (Spain), the University of Helsinki (Finland) and the Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies (Denmark). He is the author and editor of eight books and ninety articles devoted to the history of Russian poetry and literary criticism, the history of media and communication in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, conceptual history and the social history of identity.

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Notes  1. See notes 5–16 in the Introduction.  2. Reinhart Koselleck, ‘Zur historisch-politischen Semantik asymmetrischer Gegen­ begriffe’ (1975), in Reinhart Koselleck, Vergangene Zukunft. Zur Semantik geschichtlicher Zeiten (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1989), 211.  3. Reinhart Koselleck, ‘“Neuzeit”. Zur Semantik moderner Bewefgungsbegriffe’, in Koselleck, Vergangene Zukunft, 341.  4. See Alois Hahn, ‘Die soziale Konstruktion des Fremden’, in Walter M. Sprondel (ed.), Die Objektivität der Ordnungen und ihre kommunikative Konstruktion: Für Thomas Luckmann (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1994), 151.  5. See also Louis Marin, Le Portrait du roi (Paris: Minuit, 1981), 49–108; Norbert Elias, Die höfische Gesellschaft (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1983), 63–101; Ralph Giesey, ‘The Two Bodies of the French King’, in Robert L. Benson and Johannes Fried (eds), Ernst Kantorowicz (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1997), 239.  6. See Pierre Bourdieu, Les règles de l’art. Genèse et structure du champ littéraire (Paris: Seuil, 1992); Reinhart Koselleck, Zeitschichten: Studien zur Historik (Frankfurt am Main, 2003).  7. See Philip Manow, ‘“We are the Barbarians”: Thomas Hobbes, the American Savage and the Debate about British Antiquity’, in Kay Junge and Kirill Postoutenko (eds), Asymmetrical Concepts after Reinhart Koselleck: Historical Semantics and Beyond (Bielefeld: transcript, 2011), 142.  8. See Rodney Needham (ed.), Right and Left: Essays on Dual Symbolic Classification (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973).  9. See Kirill Postoutenko, ‘From Asymmetries to Concepts’, in Kay Junge and Kirill Postoutenko (eds), Asymmetrical Concepts after Reinhart Koselleck: Historical Semantics and Beyond (Bielefeld: transcript, 2011), 195; Peter Strohschneider, ‘Fremde in der Vormoderne. Über Negierbarkeitsverluste und Unbekanntheitsgewinne’, in Anja Becker (ed.), Alterität als Leitkonzept für historisches Interpretieren (Berlin: AkademieVerlag, 2012), 404–5; Kirill Postoutenko, ‘Pfiffikon! Iphikon!’, or ‘Hellenes’ and ‘Barbarians’: Counter-Concepts and Conceptual Asymmetries in Heinrich Kleist’s Drama ‘The Battle of Herrmann’ (1808) (a manuscript, 2017). 10. See Nikolai S. Trubetskoy, Grundzüge der Phonologie (Prague: Cercle linguistique de Prague, 1939), 67–68. 11. See Gregory Bateson, Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1979), 163; Benjamin O. Fordham, ‘The Evolution of Republican and Democratic Positions on Cold War Military Spending: A Historical Puzzle’, Social Science History 31, no. 4 (2007), 603. 12. See Chaim Perelman, The New Rhetoric: A Theory of Practical Reasoning, in Patricia Bizzell and Bruce Herzberg (eds), The Rhetorical Tradition (New York: Longman, 2001), 1399–400. 13. See Koselleck, ‘Neuzeit’, 334. 14. See Harold D. Lasswell, ‘Language of Politics’, in Ruth Nanda Anshen (ed.), Language: An Inquiry into Its Meaning and Function (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1971), 282. 15. See Poul Erik Tøjner, Joakim Garff and Jørgen Dehs, Kierkegaards æstetik (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1995), 118. 16. See Walter B. Gallie, ‘Essentially Contested Concepts’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 56 (1956), 172; Michael Freeden, Ideologies and Political Theory: A Conceptual Approach (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 75–78; Klaus Gloy, ‘Recht haben. Ein Umweg zu einer Linguistik des Streitens’, in Karin Böke, Matthias Jung and Martin Wengeler (eds), Öffentlicher Sprachgebrauch. Georg Stötzel zum 60. Geburtstag gewidmet (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1996), 359–77.

Conclusion

333

17. See Kirill Postoutenko, ‘Asymmetrical Concepts and Political Asymmetries: A Comparative Glance at 20th Centuries Democracies and Totalitarianisms from a Discursive Standpoint’, in Kay Junge and Kirill Postoutenko (eds), Asymmetrical Concepts after Reinhart Koselleck: Historical Semantics and Beyond (Bielefeld: transcript, 2011), 94–95; and also the Introduction to this volume.

Bibliography Bateson, Gregory, Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1979). Bourdieu, Pierre, Les règles de l’art. Genèse et structure du champ littéraire (Paris: Seuil, 1992). Elias, Norbert, Die höfische Gesellschaft (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1983). Fordham, Benjamin J., ‘The Evolution of Republican and Democratic Positions on Cold War Military Spending: A Historical Puzzle’, Social Science History 31, no. 4 (2007), 603–36. Freeden, Michael, Ideologies and Political Theory: A Conceptual Approach (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996). Gallie, Walter B., ‘Essentially Contested Concepts’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 56 (1956), 167–98. Giesey, Ralph, ‘The Two Bodies of the French King’, in Robert L. Benson and Johannes Fried (eds), Ernst Kantorowicz (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1997), 225–39. Gloy, Klaus, ‘Recht haben. Ein Umweg zu einer Linguistik des Streitens’, in Karin Böke, Matthias Jung and Martin Wengeler (eds), Öffentlicher Sprachgebrauch. Georg Stötzel zum 60. Geburtstag gewidmet (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1996), 359–77. Hahn, Alois, ‘Die soziale Konstruktion des Fremden’, in Walter M. Sprondel (ed.), Die Objektivität der Ordnungen und ihre kommunikative Konstruktion: Für Thomas Luckmann (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1994), 140–63. Koselleck, Reinhart, ‘“Neuzeit”. Zur Semantik moderner Bewefgungsbegriffe’, in Reinhart Koselleck, Vergangene Zukunft. Zur Semantik geschichtlicher Zeiten (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1989), 300–48. –––, Zeitschichten: Studien zur Historik (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2003). –––, ‘Zur historisch-politischen Semantik asymmetrischer Gegenbegriffe’ (1975), in Reinhart Koselleck, Vergangene Zukunft. Zur Semantik geschichtlicher Zeiten (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1989), 211–59. Lasswell, Harold D., ‘Language of Politics’, in Ruth Nanda Anshen (ed.), Language: An Inquiry into Its Meaning and Function (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1971), 270–84. Manow, Philip, ‘“We Are the Barbarians”: Thomas Hobbes, the American Savage and the Debate about British Antiquity’, in Kay Junge and Kirill Postoutenko (eds), Asymmetrical Concepts after Reinhart Koselleck: Historical Semantics and Beyond (Bielefeld: transcript, 2011), 139–62. Marin, Louis, Le Portrait du roi (Paris: Minuit, 1981). Needham, Rodney (ed.), Right and Left: Essays on Dual Symbolic Classification (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973).

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Perelman, Chaim, The New Rhetoric: A Theory of Practical Reasoning, in Patricia Bizzell and Bruce Herzberg (eds), The Rhetorical Tradition (New York: Longman, 2001), 1384–409. Postoutenko, Kirill, ‘Asymmetrical Concepts and Political Asymmetries: A Comparative Glance at 20th Centuries Democracies and Totalitarianisms from a Discursive Standpoint’, in Kay Junge and Kirill Postoutenko (eds), Asymmetrical Concepts after Reinhart Koselleck: Historical Semantics and Beyond (Bielefeld: transcript, 2011), 81–114. –––, ‘From Asymmetries to Concepts’, in Kay Junge and Kirill Postoutenko (eds), Asymmetrical Concepts after Reinhart Koselleck: Historical Semantics and Beyond (Bielefeld: transcript, 2011), 195–250. –––, ‘Pfiffikon! Iphikon!’, or ‘Hellenes’ and ‘Barbarians’: Counter-Concepts and Conceptual Asymmetries in Heinrich Kleist’s Drama ‘The Battle of Herrmann’ (1808) (a manuscript, 2017). Strohschneider, Peter, ‘Fremde in der Vormoderne. Über Negierbarkeitsverluste und Unbekanntheitsgewinne’, in Anja Becker (ed.), Alterität als Leitkonzept für historisches Interpretieren (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 2012), 387–416. Tøjner, Poul Erik, Joakim Garff and Jørgen Dehs, Kierkegaards æstetik (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1995). Trubetskoy, Nikolai S., Grundzüge der Phonologie (Prague: Cercle linguistique de Prague, 1939).

Index

A Abd El-Kader, 182, 184, 187, 190 Academy of the Basque Language, 312 Acción Nacionalista Vasca, 310 Acropolis, 151–52 Adam, 310 aesthetics, 209 Afghanistan, 18, 51 Africa, 11, 53, 70–9, 155, 157, 182–94, 315 Africans 64, 67, 70–9, 82, 307 North Africa, 182–3, 189, 192 Alava, 298, 310, 312 Alexander the Great, 51 Alexanderlied – The Song of Alexander, 41, 43, 48, 51–3 Algeria, 11, 181–98, 201 America, 73, 165, 190, 287, 289, 293–4, 317 American democracy, 329 American imperialism, 317 American Indians, 68 Americans, 16, 64, 68–72, 75–6, 78–9, 159 North America, 194 Amstel, Hans van, 263 Anacreon, 150 anarchism, 143, 308

anarchy, 11, 96, 128, 130, 157, 163, 211–14, 218, 225–250, 329 Ancien Régime, 159, 197 Andalusia, 312 anticapitalism, 273, 277 Antichrist, 12, 154, 169 anticommunism, 258–279 antiquity, 2, 11, 13, 82, 153, 155, 182, 205, 211, 300–1 antisemitism, 233–238 Apocalypse of St. Andrews, 12 Arabic, language, 301, 305, 315 Arabs, 173, 183–9, 193–5, 201, 301 Arana, Sabino, 19, 303, 306–10, 314 Aranzadi, Manuel, 309 Aristophane, 10 Aristotle, 60, 78, 102 Arnao, Vicente González, 302 Arroyal, León de, 127 Arwidsson, Adolf Ivar, 112 Arzalluz, Xabier, 319 Asia, 68–73, 79, 104, 151, 155, 157, 159, 161, 163–4, 173, 250, 328 Asians, 64, 68–73, 79, 186 East Asia, 68 Astashkin, Dmitri, 293 atheism, 155, 278, 313 Athens, 10, 150–2, 165, 167

336

Atlantic, 277 Austria, 93, 286, 291–3 Austrians, 154 authoritarianism, 275, 277, 315 autocracy, 232, 236, 239, 241, 244, 251 Avecilla, Ordax José, 212 Azurmendi, Joxe, 317–8 B Bachelard, Gaston, 56 Bal, Mieke, 106 Balparda, Gregorio, 313 Baltic Sea, 114 banditry, 233, 240 Banning, Willem, 266 Baroja Pio, 310 Bartholdy, Jacob Ludwig Salomon, 152, 156 Basque, Basques, 12, 21, 298–320, 329 Battifora, Garelli y, 95 Baude, Jean-Jacques, 183 Baumeister, Roy F., 87 Begriffsgeschichte, 56 Belgium, 280, 286 Berbers, 184, 184–7, 193, 201 Berlin, 241 Berlin Wall, 275 Bernier, Francois, 60 Bezukhov, Pierre, 17 Bilbao, 302, 308, 311 Bildung, 61, 101, 106, 108–13, 116, 118 binary oppositions, 13, 160, 164, 219, 328 black, 18, 64, 67–9, 72, 82, 128, 152, 186 Blumenbach, Johann Friedrich, 67 Boer, Pim den, 109, 117 Bolshevik Revolution, 261–3 Bolshevism, Bolshevik, 263, 270, 330 Bonaparte, Charles-Louis-Napoléon, 192, 194, 179 Bonaparte, Napoleon, 92, 135, 192 botany, 64, 73 Bourbons, 301–2 Bourdieu, Pierre, 93 bourgeois, bourgeoisie, 17, 110, 211,

Index

214, 233, 242, 252, 264, 266, 269, 274, 287, 290–5, 314–5, 320, 330 bourgeois democracy, 330 bread, 233 Brennan, Mary, 265 Britain, British, 191, 291 British constitutional practice, 139 Broberg, Gunnar, 76, 81 Brussels, 286 Buffon, Georges-Louis de, 67 Bugeaud, Thomas, 182, 195 Bulgaria, 289, 295 Bulgarians, 295 Burger, Jaap, 274 Burgos, 308 Burke, Edmund, 16–7, 19, 194 Bussy, Genty de, 185, 190, 195, 199 Byron, George, 160 Byzantine Empire, Byzantium, 151, 152, 154, 157, 160, 173 C Cabrera, Benegas y, 96 Cadiz, 92, 95, 125, 129–30, 139 Caesar, 158 California, 308, 331 Calvin, John, 135 Camper, Petrus, 67 Campión, Arturo, 305–6, 308–9 Canguilhelm, Georges, 56 Cantabria, 312 capitalism, 225, 230–241, 243, 250, 265, 271, 273, 276–8, 296, 309 Carlism, 125, 127, 133, 302–5, 309–10, 320 Carthage, 183 Castilian, language, 300–1, 303–5, 315 Castilians, 301, 304–6, 219–20 Catalonia, 302 Catherine the Great, 150 Catholicism, Catholic, Catholics, 93, 95, 171, 212, 262–6, 268, 270–4, 301–3, 310–13, 318 Catholic People’s Party, 270 Catholic Workers Movement, 266 Celtic, language, 308 chaos, 2, 5, 10–1, 183, 225–47, 253, 305

Index

Charlemagne, 43–45 Charles V, 96 Chateaubriand, 151, 158, 161, 164, 171, 174 Checkpoint Charlie, 276 Chernyshevsky, Nicholay, 232 Chevalier, Michel, 188, 191–2 Chilton, Paul, 292 China, 73, 286, 295–6 Chinese revolution, 316 Choiseul-Gouffier, Marie-GabrielFlorent-Auguste, 151 Christ, 45, 51–3, 159, 193 Christianity, Christendom, 42, 44–6, 50–52, 73, 75, 78, 131, 140, 157, 159–160, 162, 164–165, 273, 307, 327–8, 330 Christian democracy, 311 Christian theology, 43 Christians, 2–5, 11–12, 20, 41–52, 58, 75–76, 78, 85, 131, 134–5, 138, 153–6, 159–160, 164, 199–226, 315, 326 Chulaki, Mikhail, 286 citizen, citizenship, 24, 64, 74, 102, 114, 141, 153, 155, 158, 205–11, 214, 217–18, 220–1, 259, 263, 265–9, 271, 276, 278, 315–6, 330 city, 10, 52, 64, 103, 113–4, 125, 159, 165, 169, 211, 225, 229, 240, 244, 252, 327 Clarke, Edward, 291 Class, 124, 137, 141, 209, 215, 216, 229, 233–4, 240–2, 249, 251, 261, 269 class struggle, 222, 240, 268, 313 classicism, 150, 160 climate, 59, 67–9, 74–77, 79, 114–15, 151, 173, 199 Cold War, 258, 266, 276 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 112 collective memory, 86 colonialism, 59, 82, 191, 316 colonization, 79, 181–5, 192, 199 communism, communists, 18, 143, 213, 258–79 Communist Party, 261, 263–9, 277–8, 290

337

community, 86, 95, 124, 126, 132, 191, 196, 206, 214, 216, 225, 228, 259, 260, 261, 263, 265–66, 272, 275, 277–8, 300, 307, 316 conceptual binary, 42, 133 Condor, Legion, 311 Condorcet, Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, 103, 108 conflict, 7–8, 48, 139, 142–3, 149, 182, 206, 208, 218, 227, 223, 239–42, 245, 267, 271, 282, 302, 314 conquest, 51, 95, 150, 152, 158, 160, 181, 184, 190–8, 201, 299, 310 conservatism, conservatives, 135–6, 139–42, 155, 159, 166, 207–8, 220, 230, 243, 279, 310, 326, 329 Constantinople, 150, 152, 154, 159 Constitution of 1837 (Spain), 95–6, 208 Constitution of 1845 (Spain), 95, 208 Constitution of Cádiz (1812), 92, 95, 207 Constructivism, 86 contingency, 226, 245, 259 Conversation Analysis, 86,91 Corinth, 52 corruption, 158, 163, 208, 210, 250 Cortés, Donoso, 214, 221–2 Cosmopolitism, 18, 291 counter-revolution, 214, 221 countryside, 103 cowardice, 151, 165, 303 crime, 232, 239, 308–9 criminonym, 307 crisis, 166, 212, 214, 221, 230, 232, 236, 245, 276 Critical Discourse Analysis, 86, 91 crusade, 42, 45, 155–60, 171–3, 183, 264 cultivation, 61, 76, 79, 108–9, 111–113 cultural sociology, 42, 246 Cynics, 78 Czechoslovakia, 274, 286, 289–90, 292, 295 D D’Eichthal, Gustave, 186, 199 Darwin, Charles, 307 David, 316 Dąbrowa Basin, 229

338

decadence, 78, 153 Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, 155 Dekkers, Wilfried, 262 demagogy, 211–8, 221–2 democracy, 128, 141, 158, 165, 197, 207, 211–7, 221, 250, 258–66, 272–9, 289, 290–2, 295–6, 312–3, 215, 317, 329, 330 democratization, 241, 244, 249, 289 Democrats (American party), 329 Denmark, 105 derogation, 89 Dèsjobert, Amedée, 182, 184, 187–9, 191, 194–5 despotism, 58, 73, 151, 156, 159–66, 187, 196, 209, 211, 250 dictatorship, 212, 214–5, 272–3, 295, 312–3 Diderot, Dennis, 191 Didot, Ambroise Firmin, 160 Dijk, Teun A. van, 86 diligence, 163 disorder, 11–2, 158, 209, 211, 214, 216, 218, 225, 230–247, 247, 250, 261, 265, 268 Dolokhov, Fyodor, 17 Drees, Willem, 267, 269 Duke of Angoulême, 92 E East, 9, 74, 76 79, 159–60, 167, 173, 188, 192–3, 195, 197, 258, 328 middle East, 42 near East, 159 École Polytechnique, 182 Edda (Icelandic epos), 28 educational qualifications, 218 Egypt, 51, 84, 164, 192, 199 Eisenhower, Dwight, 276 El Tribuno del Pueblo Español (newspaper), 93 Elias, Norbert, 106–8, 112 elite, 92, 105, 154, 190, 211, 214, 217, 221, 225, 259, 261, 309, 312 Ems, Rudolf von, 43 Encyclopedia Britannica, 72

Index

Encyclopédie, 72–3 Endecja. See National Democracy Party (Poland) Enfantin, Prosper, 182–6, 191, 193, 195 Engels, Friedrich, 16, 213–6, 222, 250 England, 114, 126–8, 163, 172, 191 English, 72, 104, 106–7, 113, 118, 128, 151, 159, 160, 161, 172, 247, 293 English parliament, 95, 126 New England, 74 Enikel, Jans, 43 Enlightenment, 61, 88, 103, 107, 111–112, 116, 150–4, 156, 159, 173, 191, 220 Enparantza, José Luis Álvarez, 316 entropy, 238 Erasmus, 153 Esparza, José M., 317 essentially contested concept, 26 ethnic groups, 60, 64, 74, 88, 307, 314 Etzel, the Hun king, 48–51 Euripides, 150 Europe, 2, 8, 11, 1842–3, 47, 53, 58–9, 64, 67–82, 93–4, 104, 111, 114–7, 149–53, 157–70, 185–91, 197, 199–201, 205–6, 211–12, 218, 221, 225, 230, 247, 249–50, 259, 262, 266, 273–75, 277, 285–7, 292, 295, 302, 305, 308, 312–9, 327–30 Central Europe, 211, 246 Eastern Europe, 103, 164 Europeans, 11, 53, 64, 68–75, 78–80, 152–3, 160–1, 185–7, 191, 194, 317, 319 Western Europe, 191, 287, 291 Euskaria, 304, 316 Euskaros (literary movement), 303–6, 317 Eusko Alkartasuna (Basque Solidarity, political party), 318 Eve, 311 exoticism, 166 Extremadura, 312 F faction, 312–3, 330, 124, 126–7, 130, 140, 185, 211, 214, 261, 266, 309

Index

family, 105–6, 157, 160, 162, 184, 187, 207, 264, 271–2, 276, 300, 302, 306, 314–5 fanaticism, 130, 155–6, 160, 162–3, 185–6, 191, 208 fascist, fascism, 265, 272–3, 277, 311, 315, 317, 319–20 Fauriel, Claude, 162 fear, 44, 115, 134, 163, 165, 172, 197, 208–11, 214, 218, 225, 234, 238, 242, 259, 261–2, 264, 267, 271, 326 feelings, 4, 19, 86, 128, 150–1, 161, 188–9, 192, 194, 230–31, 233, 242, 245, 259, 294, 299 Ferdinand VII, 92, 95 Ferdinand, the king of Castile and Aragón, 299 Feres, João, 57–8, 88, 144 Fernando VII, 130, 140 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 108, 110 Finland, 102–5, 109, 110, 112–4, 116, 120 Finns, 11 Finnish (language), 101, 103–6, 109–10, 113, 115 Grand Duchy of Finland, 104–5, 110 First Carlist War, 125 First World War, 107–271 Fisch, Jörg, 108 folk music, 295 formalism, 18, 290–1, 295–6 France, 21, 48, 91–3, 126, 128, 135, 153, 155, 158, 161, 168, 181–3, 187, 189, 191, 194–5, 197–8, 211, 298–300, 308, 314, 319, 327, 330–331 French (language), 107 167, 171, 181–197, 328 French civilization, 112 French Revolution, 108, 111, 125, 128–9, 133–4, 152–5, 159, 161, 221, 315 franchise, 208–9, 217 Franco, Francisco, 273, 315, 317–9 Francoism, 311–2, 317 Franzén, Frans Michael, 114 Frederic II of Prussia, 150 freedom, 95–6, 107–8, 114, 132, 141, 149,

339

151, 153, 156–8, 160, 163, 165, 183, 186, 189, 191, 207–8, 211, 221, 233, 240, 272, 293, 307, 308, 310, 328 freedom of conscience, 318 freedom of the press, 133, 207 freedom of speech, 268, 272, 277–8 Frente Popular, 311 future, 94, 103, 105, 110, 116, 132, 136, 184, 193, 313, 326 G Galen, 64, 66, 69 Galicia (Spanish province), 308 Gallastegi, Eli, 309–11 Garibay, Esteban de, 300 Genelun, 44–7, 51 generative structures, 18, 227, 244, 246 geographical location, 76–7, 128 Germany German Academy of Language and Poetry, 22 German Democratic Republic, 259 German epics, 41–55 German (language), 104, 106–7, 112 Germans, 2, 174, 328 German academic debate, 161 Germany, Western, 277 Gerretson, Carel, 273, 276 Geuss, Raymond, 107 Gobineau, Arthur de, 190 God, 44, 60–1, 74–6, 79, 136, 154, 157–8, 163, 165, 172, 192, 222, 304 Goedhart, Frans, 274 Goliath, 316 González, Antonio, 96 González, Vicente Arnao, 302 Gothic, language, 305 Goths, 42 Granada, 95 Greco-Persian wars, 42 Greece, 51, 149, 162–7 Greece, ancient, 61, 64, 78, 150–60 Greek polis, 103, 196 Greek Revolution, 149, 151, 153, 155, 157, 162, 171 Greek, ancient, 87, 174 Greeks (see Hellenes)

Index

340

Guipuzcoa, 298, 300, 305–6, 311–2 Guizot, François, 113, 186, 188 Gunther, the king, 48–9 Gustav III, 112

humoralism, 59, 64–5, 67–8, 74 Hungarian Uprising of 1956, 268 hunger, 235, 238, 308 Huns, 195

H Habsburgs, 301 Hachaturyan, Aram Hagen, the Marshal of the Burgunds, 49, 51 Hague, 313 Hase, Karl Benedict, 162 Hawaii, 308 heathen, 3, 20, 41–52, 58, 75–8, 80, 85, 102, 131 Hebrew, language, 316 hegemony, 207, 217 Heintze, Michael, 46 Hellenes, 1–2, 5–6, 10, 12–16, 41, 57–8, 64, 75–8, 80, 85, 87, 102–3, 131–8, 151–3, 182, 187, 196, 226 Hellespont, 159 Henry of Bourbon, 299 Heraclitus, 8, 14 Herder, Gottfried Johann, 67 hero, 43, 46, 48–9, 53 Herodotus, 14, 328 Herri Batasuna, 313–7 hierarchical relationship, 57–8, 69, 207, 292, 294 historical change, 124 Hitler, Adolf, 20, 311 Hobbes, Thomas, 245, 327 Höijer, Benjamin, 108–11, 119 Holland, 30. See also Netherlands Holy Alliance, 92, 149, 155, 158 Holy Scripture, 78 homo sapiens, 59–61, 78–9 honour, 43, 136, 184, 193, 207, 272 Hottentots, 71–7, 82 House of Commons, 16 Huesca, 312 Huici, Victoriano, 312, 323 humanity, 14, 41, 61, 68, 74, 76, 111–3, 116, 153–8, 160, 163, 165, 170, 190, 240, 289, 305 humiliation, 151

I Iberians, 300, 304 Ibero, Evangelista de, 308 Ibrahim Pasha, 165 Idealism, 8, 108 ideology, 86, 161, 218, 247–8, 261, 264–5, 272, 275, 298 Iktinos, 152 illiteracy, 225, 249 imperialism, 191, 196–7, 317 independence, 96, 124, 130, 156, 163–6, 184, 270, 299, 303, 307–9, 312–4, 317–8 India, 69, 165, 186 Indians, 68, 201 individual autonomy, 189 Indonesian War of Independence (1945–1949), 270 industrialization, 225, 249 injustice, 163, 231, 265 intelligentsia, 225, 242, 249, 250, 289 Internacional Demócrata Cristiana, 312 internationalism, 18, 261, 291, 330 Iron Curtain, 274 Isabella II, 95, 210–1 Islam, 169, 185–6, 328 Israel, 51, 316 Italy, 173, 211–2, 286, 294 Izquierda Abertzale, 313–4, 317 J Jacobins, 141, 155 Jews, 160, 233, 238, 244, 249, 301 Jordheim, Helge, 104, 113–4 Jouffroy, Achille de, 155 Judaism, 157 Judeo-Christianity, 42 Judt, Tony, 275 July Monarchy, 181, 211 Junge, Kay, 57, 81

Index

K Kabalevsky, Dmitri, 286 Kabyles, Kabylians. See Berber Kames, Lord (Henry Home), 71 Kanaris, 164 Kant, Immanuel, 11, 67–9, 71, 107–9 Katartzis, Demetrios, 153 Keevak, Michael, 68, 73 Kellgren, J. H, 111 Khrennikov, Tikhon, 286, 292, 294 Khubov, Georgi, 295 Khyber pass, 294 Kierkegaard, Søren, 330 Kimmage, Michael, 260 king, 10, 44, 45, 48, 52, 92–3, 134–6, 140, 157, 211, 299, 304, 327 Kingdom of Poland. See Poland Kleist, Heinrich, 328 Kodrikas, Panagiotis, 154 Komintern, 262 Koran, 155 Koselleck, Rheinhart, 2, 4–5, 7–9, 13–7, 41–2, 44, 47, 51, 53, 56–8, 63, 67, 74, 78, 85–7, 89–90, 102, 125, 130–3, 136, 138, 143, 149, 182, 196, 205–6, 219, 226–8, 245, 247, 287, 290, 296 Kriemhild, 48, 50–1 Krop, Frederik Johan, 264 Krug, Wilhelm Traugott, 161 Krutwig, Federico, 314–6 Kultur, 101, 104, 106–9, 112, 116 L labour unions, 230, 265 Laibach, 155 Lamoricière, Juchault de, 183, 191, 286 Lamprecht, Karl, 51 Lapène, Edouard, 183 Lapland, 114 Latin, 75, 102, 109 211, 300, 305, 307, 311 law, 11, 70–2, 179, 153, 160, 171, 184, 186, 188, 199, 302, 319 natural law, 214 leaflets, 227, 230–2, 235, 238–9, 247 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 69 Leipzig, 161 Lenin, Vladimir, 232

341

Leninism, 313 Leonidas, 150 León, 308, 326 Letamendia, Francisco, 317 liberalism, 2, 92, 93–4, 135, 143, 159, 166, 187, 197, 205–6, 212, 262, 265, 271, 302, 303 liberty, 114, 159, 205, 209 libre bando, 133 Linnaeus, Carl, 11, 18, 58–80 Linnaeus, Critica Botanica, 73, 75 Linnaeus, Systema naturae, 59, 64, 69, 72, 75 Lista, Alberto, 93 Livy, 183 Llorente, Juan Antonio, 302 lockout, 241 Logroño, 312 London, 161, 270 Lönnrot, Elias, 115 Luther, Martin, 134, 153 Łódź, 229, 240, 242–3 M Maccabees, 134 Mackert, Christoph, 51 Madrid, 305, 319 Maeztu, Ramiro de, 310 Magna Carta, 92 Malte-Brun, Conrad, 156, 161 Mamluks, 164 mammals, 60–1, 81 Manow, Philip, 79 market, 93, 211, 231 Marquis of San Felices, 150 Marshall Plan, 294 Marsilie, the king, 44–5 Martel, Carlos, 96 Martínez Marina, Francisco, 95, 302 Martynov, Ivan, 286 martyr, 43 Marx, Karl, 213–6, 250 Marxism, 231, 266, 268–9, 271, 273, 275, 282, 313–4 Matthew, the apostle, 158 Mazower, Mark, 160 Mazzini, Guiseppe, 212

Index

342

McCarthy, Joseph, 267–8, 276 McCarthyism, 258, 260, 267–70, 277 medieval epics, 42, 48, 53 Mediterranean Sea, 64 Mehmet II, 154 memoirs, 166, 174, 230 memories, 86–7 Menander, 150 Mergel, Thomas, 260–1 Miaoulis, 164 Middle Ages, 42, 44, 51, 92, 155, 183, 187, 220, 318 middle classes, 209, 216, 234 migration, 53, 106 Miltiades, 150 Mirabeau, 103 Mirande, Jon, 314 Misanthropy, 167 Mishellenism, 163, 166–7, 330 misogyny, 167 mob, 207, 221, 235, 268, 306 modern times, 78, 167, 182 modernity, 23, 124, 131 197, 212, 216, 218–9, 228, 243, 245–6, 247, 249, 332 modernization, 229, 243, 252 monarchy, 74, 95–6, 130, 137–9, 140, 144, 153, 165, 171, 181, 207, 211, 215, 299–302, 320 monotheism, 18, 307 Montaigne, Michel de, 19, 78, 195, 328 Montesquieu, Charles Louis de Secondat, 67, 78, 163 Moors, 72, 305 Moscow, 232, 262–3, 269 Muhammad, 193 Müller, Jan-Dirk, 47 Murphy, M. Lynne, 71, 85, 307 museum, 160, 288 music, 285–7, 289–91, 295 Muslims, 3, 42, 155–6, 160, 183 N Napoleon. See Bonaparte, Napoleon Napoleon III. See Bonaparte, Charles-Louis-Napoléon narrative plot, 86

National Democracy Party (Poland), 234, 236, 243, 244, 249, 251 National Socialism, 11, 22, 89, 144, 258, 265–6, 268, 275, 313, 331 National Society against Revolution, 262 National Workers Union, 232, 234–6, 238, 249 Nationalism, 234, 251, 261 291, 298, 303, 306, 308, 310–4, 316–20 natives, 68, 74, 182–4, 189–90, 306, 315 natural law, 214 Navarino, battle of, 165 Navarra, 298–304, 312 Navarran-Aragonese, language, 300 Nazis, Nazism. See National Socialism Neapolis, 158 negation, 5, 13, 18, 138, 196, 226, 228, 229, 245, 253, 272 negative attribution, 89 Negro, Negroes, 72 Netherlands, the, 53, 259, 260, 261, 263, 264, 266–7, 270, 275–8, 326 Neuzeit, 228 New Deal, 260, 270, 277 Nibelungenlied – The Song of Nibelungs, 41, 43, 47, 48, 50, 51–3 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 15, 16, 20 Noah, 68, 300 nobility, 87, 91–6, 221, 300–1 nomadic concepts, 101, 106 Non-Aryans, 131 Non-Human, 12–6, 19, 41, 76, 85, 102, 131, 138, 205–6, 219 Nordic countries, 113–4 people, 72, 74, 76, 101–5 North, 74, 76, 78, 101, 113, 116, 120, 195, 261 Norway, 105 Numidians, 183–5 Nuti, Leopoldi, 266 O objectification, 86, 98 Occitan, language, 300 October Manifesto (1905), 233

Index

Old Regime, 91–2, 94 Old Testament, 52 oligarchy, 210 Olivier, 44–5, 201 Orientalism, Orientalists, 186, 192 Ortíz-Osés, Andrés, 317–8 otherness, 11, 17, 21, 78, 80, 197, 206, 226 Ottoman Empire, 149, 152, 154, 156, 162–3 Ottoman Turks, Ottomans, 154–5, 164, 166, 326 Oulu, 114 ownership, 163, 185, 199, 210 P paganism, pagans, 2, 4, 7, 12–3, 19, 73 157, 326–7 Palencia, 308 Palestine, 51 Paligan, 44–5 Pamplona, 302 Pando, Terreros y, 134 Paris, 103, 114, 154, 161 Paris, Jean Joseph, 162–3 Partido Integrista, 303 partido libre, 133 partisanship, 130, 141 Paul, the apostle, 165 peasants, peasantry, 115, 229, 232, 234–6, 315 Peloponnese, 151, 161 Peninsular War, 132, 144 Persian Wars, 8, 42 Pheidias, 152 Philanthropy, 164, 166, 201 Philhellenism, 253 Piazza, Roberta, 71 Piemonte, 158 Pious IX, the pope, 211 Plato, 15, 78, 150, 193 Plautus, 16 plebs, 2, 205–10, 215–9, 222, 326, 330 Plutarch, 11, 19 pogroms, 233–4, 250 Poland, 225, 227, 229–33, 242–3, 246, 252, 286, 292, 295

343

Polish Socialist Party, 231–2, 243, 249–50 Polybius, 183 Pope, 157, 159, 211–2, 264 populism, 217–8, 222 Portugal, 124, 158, 273, 277 Positioning Theory, 86 post-structuralism, 246 poverty, 209, 235, 238, 239, 293 Poza, Andrés de, 300 Pradera, Victor, 311 Prague coup of 1968, 275 Prague Spring, 274 President, 211–2, 220, 319 progress, 11, 20, 61, 78–9, 103, 107–8, 160–1, 166, 173, 186–8, 208, 304 proletariat, 214, 216, 232, 263, 314 property, 82, 186, 193, 218, 220, 311 Protestantism, Protestants, 259, 262, 271–2, 274, 318 Proudhon, Pierre Joseph, 314 providence, 163, 194 Prunhild, 48, 50–1 Prussia, 150, 152 public sphere, 142, 217–8, 230 Pyrenees, 81, 96, 230 Pyrrhus, 10–1, 19–20 Q Queen, 21, 48, 50, 95, 207, 331 Quintilian, 16 R race, 20, 57–8, 80, 96, 160–1, 163, 186, 188–91, 193, 307–8, 314 racism, racist theories, 16, 58, 79, 190, 314 radicalism, 131, 185, 222, 234, 275 reaction, 214, 234, 244 Reagan, Ronald, 275 realism, 18, 290–1, 295–6, 314 Renaissance, 205, 285 Republicanism, 143, 207, 310 Republicans, 209–10, 213, 308, 311–2 Republicans (American party), 329 Restoration, 139, 181, 209, 304, 309 Revolution of 1905, 225, 234, 244, 247

344

Reynaud, Péllisier de, 182, 190 Rhine, 114, 328 Richard, Charles, 182, 187–9, 192 Roland, 20, 41–6 326 Rolandslied – The Song of Roland, 41–53 Roman Empire, 100, 328 Romans, 16, 18, 42, 73, 78, 163, 173, 183, 186, 301, 328 Romanticism, 108, 166 Rome, 42, 157, 173, 211–2, 221, 264 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 20 Rosa, Martínez de la, 95 Rosenstein, Nils von, 111 Rotterdam, 17, 267 Rouquette, Michel Louis, 91 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 10, 78, 184 Royal Statute of 1834, 95–6 royalist, royalists, 139, 155–7, 171 rule of law, 11, 190 Russia, 2, 21, 154, 169, 225, 227, 229, 232, 235–6, 241–3, 151, 262, 266, 275, 285, 287, 295–6 Russian Empire, 105, 191, 356 Russian-Japanese War (1904–1905), 244 Russian Orthodox, 152, 154, 156 Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774), 150 S Saint-Simonians, 182, 186, 188, 192–3, 195, 197 Salomon, 52 Sami (people), 76–8 San Sebastián, 310 Saracens, 96 Sattelzeit, 197 savagery, savage, 42, 158, 184, 186, 237, 250 Scandinavia, 75, 109 Schermerhorn, Willem, 266 Schlegel, Friedrich, 108, 119 Schmitt, Carl, 10, 23 219, 253 Sebastián, Javier Fernández, 93 Second World War, 18, 259, 326, 263–6, 271, 277–8, 312, 330 secularism, 273, 310

Index

Seidl, Stephanie, 42–3, 48, 51 Seljuk, 159 semiotics, 242–53 senate, 96, 208 serfdom, 68, 157 Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 160 Shostakovich, Dmitri, 285–7, 288, 293 Siegfried, 26, 48–50 sign system, 14, 246, 248, 327 slavery, 130, 134, 136, 151–7, 164–5, 198 slaves, 64, 95, 150, 184, 191 Slavonic, 262, 295 Snijders, Cornelius, 262 Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania, 231, 249 Social Democrats, 239, 243, 259, 260–78 Socialism, 16, 143, 191, 214, 221, 243, 249, 251, 268–9, 272, 275, 278 utopian socialism, 191 Society of Basque Studies, 312 Socrates, 150 Solidarity, 166, 235, 267, 270, 318 Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr, 275 Sophocles, 150 South, 74, 76, 79, 185, 263, 265, 298 Soviet Union, 17, 22, 266, 274–5, 286–9, 291–6, 331 Spain, 44, 87, 91–7, 124–7, 127–37, 140, 158, 191, 206–7, 211–4, 273, 298, 299–304 307–19 Spaniards, 134, 136, 307, 310–7 Spanish Civil War, 309–12 Spanish Constitution of 1812, 207 Spanish War of Independence (1808–1814), 124 Sparta, 151, 165 Spijkenisse, 17 Spinoza, Baruch, 8 Stalin, Joseph, 32 Staten Island, 68 Stoddard, Lothrop, 15–6, 20 Stoics, 74 Stokman, Jacobus G., 270 Storrs, London, 270 Strabo, 183 strike, 229–30, 232–5, 239–40, 265–7, 269 student movement, 274

Index

suffrage, 171, 206, 210–3, 217–8 Sultan, 154, 157–8, 161 Super-Human, 2, 15–6, 19, 41, 58, 85, 102, 131, 138, 226, 287 Suurhoff, Jacobus, 267 Sweden, 78, 103, 105, 108, 110–5 Swedish (language), 75, 101, 104–10, 114–5 Swedish monarchy, 74, 105 symmetry, 4, 10, 45, 59, 74, 85, 88, 90, 94, 102, 326–8 Syria, 51 T Tacitus, 183 Tapia, Eugenio de, 133 Tasso, Toquato, 183 Tautz, Birgit, 73 tax, 151195, 206, 231, 300–1 temperament, 56, 69, 70, 76, 80 Tengström, Johan Jakob, 110–3 terrorism, 163, 318–9 Third International, 262 Third Reich, 314. See also National Socialism Thucydides, 11–78 Tiberius, 164 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 182, 185, 187–90, 194–8 Toledo, 308 Torres, Luis Fernández, 326, 329 totalitarianism, 248, 266–7 trade unions, 262, 265, 269 Traggia, Joaquín, 302 transcendental idealism, 8 transfer, 106, 196, 329 transformation, 59, 106, 162, 188, 190, 193, 210, 310 translation, 1, 72, 104, 106, 108, 248 transmission, 106 Trézel, Camille, 190 Troelstra, Pieter, 261 Trotskyism, 313 Truman, Harry, 277 truth, 13, 45, 131, 139–40, 166 327 tsarism, tsarist regime, 230–6, 239, 243–4, 249

345

Túbal, a grandson of Noah, 300 Turkey, 51, 164 Turks, 149–63, 166, 169, 172, 183–4, 187, 195, 326, 328 Turku, 105, 110, 112–4 Txillardegi, 316. See also Enparantza, José Luis Álvarez tyranny, 151–2, 157–64, 188, 209–18 U Übermenschen. See Super-Human Unamuno, Miguel de, 310–1 under-humans, 2–3, 7, 11, 15–6, 19, 41, 85, 131, 226 unemployment, 239 United Kingdom, 286, 294–5 United States, 20, 126, 128, 220, 261, 266–7, 274, 276–7, 286, 292–6 United Workers Union (Netherlands), 267 Unmenschen, 226 Untermenschen. See under-humans Uppsala, 105, 108, 110, 114 Uprising, 166, 229, 268 Urbain, Ismayl, 186 Urban, the pope, 159 USA. See United States USSR. See Soviet Union Utrecht, 274 V Valencia, 302 Valera, Juan, 210 Vandals, 42, 195 Vascongados, 301. See also Basques Vasconia, 304–5, 314 Vatican, 211–2 Velestinlis, Rigas, 154 Vélez, Rafael de, 136 Venetians, 154 Verkuyl, Johannes, 274 Vienna, 161 Virgil, 151 Visigoths, 301 Vizcaya, 298, 300, 306–7, 311 Vliegen, Willem, 262 Voltaire, 150, 155

Index

346

Vondeling, Anne, 274 Vorrink, Koos, 266 vulgar, 154, 210, 306, 330 W Warsaw, 229 West, 74–6, 9, 152, 157, 159–60, 165, 167, 169, 173, 187, 188, 192–3, 197, 258–9, 275, 291, 315, 328 White, 64, 67–8, 71–2, 159 Wilders, Geert, 17 Wolff, Larry, 103 workers, 229–35, 239–44, 249, 262–3, 265–7, 270, 272–3

World War II. See Second World War X Xenophon, 150 Y yellow, 64, 68–9, 73, 306 Ypsilantis, Alexandros, 156, 162, 165 Z Zaldibia, Juan Martínez de, 300 Zimmermann, Julia, 43 Zuzok, Vladislav, 266