Free Access to the Past 900418029X, 9789004180291

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Free Access to the Past

National Cultivation of Culture Edited by

Joep Leerssen Editorial Board

John Breuilly, Ina Ferris, Patrick Geary, John Neubauer, Tom Shippey, Anne-Marie hiesse

VOLUME 2

Free Access to the Past Romanticism, Cultural Heritage and the Nation

Edited by

Lotte Jensen, Joep Leerssen, and Marita Mathijsen

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2010

Cover illustration: Albertus Verhoesen (1806–1881), Het zuidwestelijk bolwerk van Kasteel Vredenburg te Utrecht. 1826. Oil on canvas (53,5x59,4 cm). Collection Centraal Museum, Utrecht, inv.nr. 4311. Image & copyrights CMU/Ernst Moritz, 2006. his book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Free access to the past : romanticism, cultural heritage, and the nation / edited by Lotte Jensen, Joep Leerssen, and Marita Mathijsen. p. cm. — (National cultivation of culture ; v. 2) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-18029-1 (hbk. : alk. paper) 1. Europe—Historiography. 2. Historiography—Social aspects—Europe. 3. Historicism—Social aspects—Europe. 4. Romanticism—Social aspects—Europe. 5. Cultural property—Social aspects—Europe. 6. Europe—Cultural policy. 7. Collective memory—Europe. 8. Nationalism—Europe. 9. Europe—Social conditions. 10. Europe—Politics and government. I. Jensen, Lotte, 1972– II. Leerssen, Joseph h. (Joseph heodoor), 1955– III. Mathijsen, Marita. IV. Title. V. Series. D352.9.F74 2010 940.072—dc22 2009048079

ISSN 1876-5645 ISBN 978 90 04 18029 1 Copyright 2010 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, he Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhof Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to he Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands

CONTENTS List of Illustrations ............................................................................... Notes on Contributors .........................................................................

ix xi

Introduction ........................................................................................... xv Joep Leerssen

PART ONE

THE APPROPRIATION OF THE PAST 1. he Melancholy of History: Disenchantment and the Possibility of Narrative ater the French Revolution ................. Peter Fritzsche

3

2. he Emancipation of the Past, as due to the Revolutionary French Ideology of Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité .............................. Marita Mathijsen

21

3. Modernising the Past: he Life of the Gauls under the French Republic ................................................................................... Anne-Marie hiesse

43

4. From Bökendorf to Berlin: Private Careers, Public Sphere, and How the Past Changed in Jacob Grimm’s Lifetime ............. Joep Leerssen

55

PART TWO

MONUMENTS FOR THE PAST 5. Public Commemorations and Private Interests: he Politics of State Funerals in London and Paris, 1806–1810 ...................... Eveline G. Bouwers

73

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6. Inventing Literary Heritage: National Consciousness and Editorial Scholarship in Sweden, 1810–1830 ............................ Paula Henrikson

103

7. Literature as Access to the Past: he Rise of Historical Genres in the Netherlands, 1800–1850 ...................................... Lotte Jensen

127

PART THREE

A PUBLIC FOR THE PAST 8. Free Access to the History of Art: Art Reproduction and the Appropriation of the History of Art in Nineteenth-Century Culture ........................................................ R.M. Verhoogt

149

9. Potgieter’s ‘Rijksmuseum’ and the Public Presentation of Dutch History in the National Museum (1800–1844) ........... Ellinoor Bergvelt

171

10. Singing of Conquest? Opera, History, and the Ambiguities of European Imperialism .............................................................. Peter Rietbergen

197

11. Nineteenth-Century National Opera and Representations of the Past in the Public Sphere .................................................. Krisztina Lajosi

227

12. ‘Reaping the Harvest of the Experiment?’ he Government’s Attempt to Train Enlightened Citizens through History Education in Revolutionary France (1789–1802) .................... Matthias Meirlaen

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PART FOUR

PAST AND PRESENT 13. he Past as a Place: Challenging Private Ownership of History in the United States ......................................................... Sharon Ann Holt

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14. Impressed Images/Expressed Experiences: he Historical Imagination of Politics .................................................................. Susan Legêne

291

Bibliography ........................................................................................ Index ....................................................................................................

317 337

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Marita Mathijsen, he Emancipation of the Past, as due to the Revolutionary French Ideology of Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité Fig. 1. Iconoclasm in Holland: destroying the graves of the Stadholders ......................................................................

24

Joep Leerssen, From Bökendorf to Berlin: Private Careers, Public Sphere, and How the Past Changed in Jacob Grimm’s Lifetime Fig. 1. he ‘Bökendorf Circle’ .........................................................

61

Eveline G. Bouwers, Public Commemorations and Private Interests: he Politics of State Funerals in London and Paris, 1806–1810 Fig. 1. A.C. Pugin, Funeral Procession of Lord Nelson Outside St Paul’s Cathedral ...............................................................

86

Paula Henrikson, Inventing Literary Heritage: National Consciousness and Editorial Scholarship in Sweden, 1810–1830 Fig. 1. Illustration on the front page of the folk song edition Svenska folk-visor från forntiden ........................................

115

Lotte Jensen, Literature as Access to the Past: he Rise of Historical Genres in the Netherlands, 1800–1850 Fig. 1. Title page of J.F. Helmers, De Hollandsche natie ........... Fig. 2. Portrait of Jacob van Lennep ..............................................

129 138

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R.M. Verhoogt, Free Access to the History of Art: Art Reproduction and the Appropriation of the History of Art in the Nineteenth-Century Culture Fig. 1. Auguste Blanchard ater Lawrence Alma-Tadema, he Vintage Festival ............................................................. Fig. 2. Marcantonio Raimondi ater Raphael, he Massacre of the Innocents .....................................................................

150 158

Ellinoor Bergvelt, Potgieter’s ‘Rijksmuseum’ and the Public Presentation of Dutch History in the National Museum (1800–1844) Fig. 1. Vaderlandsche Mannen en Vrouwen (National Men and Women) ................................................................ Fig. 2. Jan Asselijn, he hreatened Swan ....................................

174 180

Matthias Meirlaen, ‘Reaping the Harvest of the Experiment?’ he Government’s Attempt to Train Enlightened Citizens through History Education in Revolutionary France (1789–1802) Fig. 1. he examination questions on the Assyrian empire that the pupils of the ‘collège’ of Herve had to answer in 1779 .................................................................................... Fig. 2. Title page of Xavier Millot’s Élémens d’Histoire Générale ..................................................................................

258 269

Susan Legêne, Impressed Images/Expressed Experiences: he Historical Imagination of Politics Fig. 1. Rumphius commemoration medals, design by Johan Huizinga .....................................................................

297

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS Ellinoor Bergvelt, Associate Professor, is chair of the Master Program Museum Studies (University of Amsterdam). She is one of the coordinators of the international research project National Museums and National Identity, Europe and the United States, c.1760–1918. Publications: Pantheon der Gouden Eeuw: van Nationale Konst-Gallerij tot Rijksmuseum van Schilderijen (1798–1896), Zwolle 1998; Co-editor of Kabinetten, galerijen en musea, Heerlen/Zwolle 2005, and of De wereld binnen handbereik, 2 vols., Amsterdam 1992. Eveline G. Bouwers holds degrees in history, art history, and political science from University College Utrecht, the Catholic University Leuven and the University of Amsterdam. She completed a PhD at the European University Institute (2009), comparing public pantheons in Napoleonic Europe. She is currently working as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Bielefeld. Her present research deals with anticlericalism in word, deed, and image in late nineteenth century Europe. Peter Fritzsche has been Professor of History at the University of Illinois since 1987. His most recent publications include Life and Death in the hird Reich (Cambridge, 2008); Nietzsche and the Death of God (New York, 2007), and Stranded in the Present: Modern Time and the Melancholy of History (Cambridge, 2004). He is currently at work on a book about the twentieth-century Berlin diaries of Franz von Göll. Paula Henrikson, Associate Professor, is a Research Fellow at the Swedish Academy, supported by a grant from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, and appointed at Uppsala University. She received her PhD in 2004. She has written books and articles on Romantic literature, drama, and the theory and history of textual criticism. Currently she works on a project about the Romantic reception of Antiquity in Sweden, including Romantic philhellenism. Sharon Ann Holt directs the Sandy Spring Museum near Washington, DC. She earned a Ph.D in American history from the University of Pennsylvania and has divided her professional life between academic

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teaching and museum work. Holt is the author of Making Freedom Pay: North Carolina freedpeople working for themselves, 1865–1900, and a forthcoming study called Constructing a Modern Past: museums, democracy, and the 21st century. Lotte Jensen is Assistant Professor of Dutch Literary History at the Radboud University, Nijmegen. She has published widely in the areas of eighteenth- and nineteenth century Dutch literature, press history, and women authors. Recently she published De verheerlijking van het verleden. Helden, literatuur en natievorming in de negentiende eeuw (Nijmegen 2008), and an edition of J.F. Helmers, De Hollandsche natie (Nijmegen 2009). Krisztina Lajosi received a PhD degree from the University of Amsterdam on a thesis entitled Opera and Nation-Building in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Her main ield of research is the comparative and interdisciplinary study of the cultural history of music and literature. She is at present a lecturer at the University of Amsterdam and Utrecht University, where she teaches courses on literary theory and history. Joep Leerssen is Professor of Modern European Literature at the University of Amsterdam. His research is on national stereotypes, the spread of romantic nationalism, and Irish cultural history. In 2008 he was awarded the Spinoza Premie for his research. Recent publications are National thought in Europe (2008) and (together with Manfred Beller) Imagology (2007). Marita Mathijsen is Professor of Contemporary Dutch Literature at the University of Amsterdam. She has specialized in nineteenthcentury literature and editorial scholarship. In 1998 she received the Prince Bernhard Fund Prize for the Humanities. Her study on the nineteenth century state of mind De gemaskerde eeuw (‘he masked century’) appeared in 2002, followed in 2004 by her history of Dutch literature Nederlandse literatuur in de Romantiek. She is also the author of the standard Dutch introduction to textual scholarship Naar de letter (3rd ed. 2003). She is currently supervising a research group on ‘he construction of the literary past (1800–1850)’.

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Matthias Meirlaen studied history at the KU Leuven (2002–2006). Currently he holds a fellowship of the Research Foundation Flanders, for preparing a PhD on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century history education in Belgium. His research interests include the history of schooling and education, the history of historiography, and the history of historical culture. Peter Rietbergen studied history at Nijmegen, Paris, and Rome. In 1992 he was appointed Professor of the history of Europe and the non-European world, in 2001 Professor of post-medieval cultural history at the Radboud University, Nijmegen. His Europe. A Cultural History (London 1998; rev. edition 2006) was translated into Chinese, Korean and Polish. He also published: Europa’s India (Nijmegen 2007), and six other historical monographs. As Nicolaas Berg he wrote a historical novel about the Dutch EIC and Japan, Dood op Deshima (Amsterdam 2001). Anne-Marie Thiesse, Directrice de recherche (Senior researcher) at the Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientiique in Paris, is a cultural historian. She has published Le Roman du quotidien, Lecteurs et lectures populaires à la Belle Epoque (1984; reprint: Paris: Seuil, 2001), Ecrire la France, le mouvement littéraire régionaliste (Paris: P.U.F., 1991), and La Création des identités nationales: Europe, XVIII°–XX° siècle (Paris: Seuil, 1999). Robert M. Verhoogt graduated in Art History and Law at the Free University in Amsterdam, and received a PhD in Art History from the University of Amsterdam. He has published about Dutch Romanticism, Vincent van Gogh, nineteenth century art reproduction, and the history of copyright. At present he works as a senior advisor for cultural heritage policy at the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. He also writes about nineteenth century art, culture, and copyright.

INTRODUCTION Joep Leerssen hroughout Europe, attitudes towards the past changed in the decades around 1800, rendering, in efect, history a matter of public interest. his process transfers historical sources and interest from private associations, collections, monastic communities, noble estates, and royal palaces (in short: from non-public enclosures) into the public sphere. his change is part of the European modernization process. he shit from private to public occurred both in an intellectual and in a concrete-material sense, involving the establishment of museums, libraries, archives, and university institutes, as well as the dissemination of texts, documents, and historical knowledge by way of text editions, philological studies, historical novels, plays, operas, and paintings, monuments, and restorations. Views of the past changed in the process, sometimes to the point of counterfactual (re-)invention. In their search for fresh sources, antiquaries, philologists, and historians produced a new past. Fragments, remnants, and ruins were cherished as irreplaceable connection points with a receding reality, and were reconstructed or reconigured into what should constitute a coherent and meaningful History. his rendered the past both accessible, a matter of tradition, continuity, and identiication, and foreign, exotic, colourful. An important part of the great intellectual revolutions of Europe had always been played by libraries. he donation of Cardinal Bessarion’s codices to the city of Venice (where they formed the core of the city’s San Marco library) had been an indispensable element in triggering the Renaissance. he dissolution of the monasteries in England under Henry VIII had brought monastic manuscripts into the hands of antiquaries like Leland, Parker, and Ussher, thus contributing to the rise of antiquarianism in the early-modern British isles; and similarly, the secularization of monastic libraries on the European Continent resulted in a damburst of manuscript material on medieval literature which played a formative element in the rise of literary historicism around 1800. Paradoxically, the Enlightenment project, with its culmination in the French Revolution, brought a past into view that

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had been lost from memory. he secularized Jesuit library in Lisbon yielded its manuscript of the Cancioneiro da Ajuda; the texts of the Nibelungenlied, the Chanson de Roland, various vernacular versions of Reynard the Fox: all this was retrieved from holdings which until then were immune from public scrutiny and public access, and whose riches had slumbered in an ontological twilight, unread and as good as non-existent, on neglected out-of-reach shelves. hus an important portion of Europe’s cultural memory became publicly accessible and started to play a fresh role in public afairs.1 Even the rise of the historical novel, which so oten begins with the conceit of the ‘manuscript found in an attic’, can be seen as a spinof of the fact that in real life a great many manuscripts—even the building plans of the abandoned Cathedral of Cologne—were being found in attics. he process can be termed ‘productive reception’: the restoration and eventual completion of Cologne Cathedral being itself a prime example. Public access to culture at large had for a while been on the rise in Europe. he art galleries and libraries of monarchs and princes were, in the course of the eighteenth century, increasingly opened up, at least for a day or two per week, for suitable members of the public. At the same time, the study of the past had become increasingly collectivized and non-idiosyncratic: from the Bollandists and the Benedictines of St. Maur, great church-historiographical and hagiographical endeavours were elaborating the rules of diplomatics and textual source criticism as they went along, with names like Mabillon and Muratori providing examples that shone across Europe. he pursuit of antiquarian learning was being pooled in the sociability of city academies like those of Göttingen and Cortona; and great manuscript collectors like Arni Magnusson in Scandinavia and Lacurne Ste-Palaye and the Marquis de Paulmy in France were slowly drawing dispersed manuscripts together into concentrated holdings. Still, the decades around 1800 represent a ‘tipping point’ in this process, a speeding-up of developments partly as a result of the political 1 Generally for what follows: Peter Burke, Circa 1808: Restructuring knowledges (München: Akademie der Bildenden Künste, 2008); Joep Leerssen & Dirk Van Hulle (eds.), Editing the Nation’s Memory: Textual scholarship and nation-building in 19th-century Europe (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2008); Joep Leerssen, National thought in Europe: A cultural history (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 20062); Anne-Marie hiesse, La création des identités nationales. Europe XVIIIe–XXe siècle (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1999).

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disruption brought by the French Revolution and its many repercussions. Not only was the royal art gallery in the Louvre nationalized in 1793 (and re-stocked with the spoil of artworks looted from everywhere between he Hague and the Vatican), the decommissioned antiquities that lost their private ownership and value in the revolution were collected into Alexandre Lenoir’s Musée des monuments français (1795). Libraries like those of the Marquis de Paulmy and the Parisian monasteries were re-organized into the Bibliothèque de l’Arsénal, which became the treasure-chest and training-ground for every French Romantic historian since the hierry brothers and Michelet; and similar de-privatizations were going on all over Europe in these decades. he libraries of München and Stuttgart were immeasurably enriched by the monastic holdings that lowed into them from Bavaria and Württemberg; these holdings were catalogued by a new type of professional, the state archivist or state librarian (a position occupied by almost every philologist and historian of note in these decades), and in the process medieval manuscripts came to light in previously undreamt-of numbers. he European spread of historicism may be seen as a result of this development. he past became a point of identiication, and increasingly part also of the growing sense of nationality as the premier organizing criterion of the European landscape. We can trace this in the genres of history painting and historical drama, which have an important cultural presence dating from the mid-seventeenth century and are caught up in these developments. History painting, the depiction of scenes from the past, had in European academic painting been rated as the foremost, most prestigious genre. he scenes were invariably drawn from Biblical or Classical antiquity or else rendered in that manner. From the mid-eighteenth century onwards, scenes from national history were increasingly thematized and, while Biblical or Greco-Roman scenes remained a stockin-trade of academic history painting, painters from the late eighteenth century began to turn also to their nations’ medieval and tribal roots as it topics for the genre. he same nationalization occurred in the ield of historical drama. Biblical and classical themes were complemented by the celebration of ‘national’ heroes—initially from a pan-European patriotic pantheon (Henry Brooke’s Gustavus Vasa, Schiller’s Die Jungfrau von Orléans) but increasingly, again, with a gravitational pull towards writers’ own national history. Similar processes afect the new, growing genre of the historical novel. Likewise the museums, once

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they become ‘national’ museums, and the various ‘national’ theatres that are established in the European cities, will start out drawing on a Europe-wide reservoir of cultural heirlooms and references but then slowly but surely exercise a pull towards a canonization of the nation’s own past. What is more, the generally moral-exemplary value of art and narrative from the past (as in, for instance, the Plutarchan celebration of the Lives of Great Men) becomes a predominantly national celebration of virtues that are increasingly constructed as representative of, or in the service of, one’s own nation, and demonstrating a continuity (in terms of growth and permanence) between the nation’s past and its present. he general picture, then, is one of an increasing opening up of the public sphere (access to cultural institutions in public spaces, access to cultural heirlooms in the public sphere) which at the same time emanates from an ongoing modernization process accelerated by the French Revolution, and stands in opposition to it by identifying with the past and refusing to let it fall into oblivion.2 he growth of a public sphere and of a ‘civic society’ dominated by middle-class values of civic virtue, patriotism, and love of the fatherland, has been well charted since the work of Max Weber, Jürgen Habermas, and Benedict Anderson. Such studies were, however, largely concerned with processes of modernization, and tend to disregard the conjunction between social modernization and the rise of historicism in the ield of culture. he extent to which a collective, cultural memory formed part of this public sphere is therefore still something of a lacuna, and some interesting new perspectives are explored in this volume. In many ways, and in a variety of media and pursuits (a good few of which are surveyed in the following pages) a historicist conscience of the past was explored as a matter, not merely of antiquarian ‘curio’ interest, but of public relevance. his historicist interest was disseminated with all the means available in the context of societal modernization and as a result came to sufuse public opinion at large. In exploring this process, the present volume also wants to redeem it from that infrastructural determinism so oten encountered in social-

2 Cf. Peter Fritzsche, Stranded in the present. Modern time and the melancholy of history (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004).

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historical studies of the period. It would be one-sided and supericial to say that the historicist cult of the national past was a mere propaganda instrument concocted by a new elite in order to bolster a loyalty to the nation-state; rather, the nation-state as it envisaged itself was from the beginning positioned in diachronic as well as synchronic terms. he nation was not only seen as a community of fellow-members in a given society, but also as a iliation of ancestors and contemporaries linked in a generational chain of cultural and mnemonic continuity. his could lead to cross-purposes: the rationalization campaigns of Napoleon were strenuously resisted by traditionalists like Savigny, for instance, although both cherished an ideal of national cohesion, one synchronically, the other diachronically. But the conservatism of Burke, Savigny, and Fichte is in the inal analysis as much part of the emergence of the nation as premier human category as is the democratic thought of Rousseau and his followers. his is what makes it possible for national historicism to emerge both within, and in opposition to, post-revolution France, and to survive the collapse of the Napoleonic regime ater Waterloo. he restored regimes of post-1815 Europe will undertake important historicist projects like the foundation of the Ecole des Chartes and of the Monumenta Historica Germaniae, the restoration of the French dynastic abbatial church of St Denis, the Prussian headquarters of the Teutonic Order at the Marienburg, and the Dutch Muiderslot, and thus carry the new paradigm across the fault lines of the many regime changes that occurred in Europe between 1790 and 1815. he celebratory historicism that thus takes root was to have far-reaching ramiications and important consequences in erstwhile monarchies like Scotland, Bohemia, Hungary, and Poland, as well as in the other national minorities of Europe’s multi-ethnic empires. As a result, various types of memory cultivation coexist in one and the same society.3 Each new French regime will have to adapt the commemorative column on the Place Vendôme to its particular iconography, as if the triumph of a given constitutional system must be projected into the public spaces that commemorate the past. he street plan of Paris, including the various technological achievements his is the driving insight behind Pierre Nora’s project on Les lieux de mémoire (7 vols.; Paris: Gallimard, 1984–1992), although the social or intergenerational contestation of memory sites has not always been adequately thematized in its many spin-of projects in other European countries. 3

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of the modernizing nineteenth century such as bridges and metro stations, reads like an accumulation of glories from diferent constitutional epochs: from Merovingian (Tolbiac) to Napoleonic (Austerlitz). In 1840, the corpse of Napoleon was presented to King Louis-Philippe and accommodated with a commemorative shrine of its own in the Invalides, next to the graves of the great generals of Louis XIV. hus the irreconcilable enmity between succeeding regimes was subsumed under the transcendent ideal that each in their day had manifested the glory of a transhistorical, notional ‘France’. History curricula and museums would proclaim a similar Hegelian Auhebung: all struggling oppositions of the past are encapsulated and reconciled in a sanctuary that both abolishes and commemorates them. hat type of Auhebung was not unlike the standard ending of a historical novel in the Walter Scott mode, which generally thematized conlicts in the nation’s history in order to show their reconciliation as the natural progression of a history of ongoing national integration and ‘ever closer Union’. (he use of that phrase in the Treaty of Maastricht indicates that the model is still operative in the European mentalité and now adopted, at least by its proponents, for the project of European integration). More problematic was the relationship between Church and State. he re-building of Cologne Cathedral in the Prussian-dominated Rhineland was not only a gesture of power—a ist brandished westward in the general direction of France, much like the monuments of Waterloo, 1826, and Koblenz, 1897; it was also part of a complex accommodation policy of the Prussian monarchs vis-à-vis their Catholic Rhenian subjects. hat policy foundered in the Cologne crises of the 1840s over mixed-marriage legislation and was to break down completely in the days of the Kulturkampf between Bismarck and Pius IX’s ultramontanism. Other examples of the intractability of Catholicism to the nation-state project abound4—in the Netherlands, in England, in the Swiss Sonderbund wars, and in the struggles over French secularism involving the apparitions at Lourdes and the building of the Sacré Coeur cathedral. An example of the close and uncomfortable cohabitation of inimical memory cultures in one and the same society is given by the fact that

4 A magisterial Europe-wide overview is given in Owen Chadwick, A History of the Popes, 1830–1914 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1998).

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the celebration of Voltaire’s centenary took place on the birthday of Joan of Arc, leading to considerable clashes and to the drive to have the Maiden of Orléans canonized as a saint—and ultimately, one is saddened to add, as the icon for extreme right-wing politics as exempliied in Le Pen’s Front National.5 Most public places in European metropolises can evoke contradictory historical memories. he Royal Palace on Amsterdam’s Dam Square started as the City Hall of what was at that time virtually an independent city republic. he monuments and brasseries on the battleield of Waterloo continue French-English rivalry in contemporary real-estate. he Terror museum in Budapest has one loor dedicated to fascist, one to Communist oppression, the two occupying the same sinister headquarters in Andrassy Street. Rome in various spots gloriies either its papal-ecclesiastical or its Italian-national status. Europe, it may be concluded, is one vast time-share arrangement for the simultaneous remembrance of diferent layers and strands in its past. Indeed, so crowded is this past that one and the same point of remembrance may become invested with an increasing number of historical memories, become historically multi-functional as it were, as a result of what Ann Rigney has identiied as the ‘scarcity principle’:6 there simply are not enough signiiers to cater for all the historical references that are in circulation. As this volume investigates with reference to various concrete manifestations, the development of Europe’s public spaces and of its public sphere involved, from the beginning, their investment with a past that became, by the same token, public. A past that from ca. 1800 was becoming widely and publicly accessible functioned as the rearview mirror to the developing public sphere, in a process that resulted from new channels of mass dissemination and trans-local communication, and that afected (as the essays and articles collected here demonstrate) the development of museums, funerary monuments, the editing of older texts and the writing of new narratives, opera, 5 Gerd Krumeich, Jeanne d’Arc in der Geschichte: Historiographie, Politik, Kultur (Sigmaringen: horbecke, 1989). For another example: Ann Rigney, ‘Divided Pasts: A Premature Memorial and the Dynamics of Collective Remembrance’. Memory Studies 1.1 (2008), 89–97. Generally on memory culture as a social phenomenon: Aleida Assmann, Erinnerungsräume: Formen und Wandlungen des kulturellen Gedächtnisses (München: Beck, 1999). 6 Ann Rigney, ‘Plenitude, Scarcity and the Circulation of Cultural Memory’, Journal of European Studies 35.1 (2005), 11–28.

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and political rhetoric. Formative as these developments were for the nation-building processes of nineteenth-century Europe, they were, as some articles in this collection demonstrate, not restricted to that continent and period. On the contrary: the attitudes that took shape in Romantic Europe are still with us, in any part of the world where civic entitlement and cultural memory are brought in conjunction (in whatever processes of identiication or contestation). In our present-day usage, the concepts of identity, tradition, and heritage have become almost interchangeable, both within and outside Europe. he past and its memorabilia have ceased to belong to people and instead have become something that those people belong to.

PART ONE

THE APPROPRIATION OF THE PAST

THE MELANCHOLY OF HISTORY: DISENCHANTMENT AND THE POSSIBILITY OF NARRATIVE AFTER THE FRENCH REVOLUTION Peter Fritzsche Lynn Hunt has aptly described the French Revolution as a ‘great talking machine’. From the very beginning, the revolution was recognized as a profound epochal event. As such it generated extensive and oten hyperbolic comment. At the end of July 1789, the English Whig leader, Charles James Fox, conidently declared the fall of the Bastille to be ‘much the greatest event’ that ‘ever happened in the world’. Edmund Burke said much the same thing: the revolution was ‘the most astonishing that has hitherto happened in the world’.1 Although many contemporaries believed they were seeing in France a gradual installation of rational rule by law which had already been accomplished in Britain or Holland or the United States, many more came to see the French Revolution as something quite diferent. he slogans scratched in pamphlets and painted on walls—‘Liberty, equality, fraternity, or death’—indicated the conviction that the world could be remade on the basis of ideas. But the absolutist either/or also demanded that people in France and beyond take sides, particularly since revolutionary ideas required violence to realize themselves. Europeans talked constantly about the revolution, its transformative potentialities, and its judgmental demands. It divided people even at home: ‘I side w/ Father—against Mother + Ferdinand’, and against the revolution, confessed Regina Beneke, a young woman in Hamburg, in 1794.2 And it

1 Edmund Burke, Relections on the Revolution in France (New York: Penguin Books, 1981), 92; Lynn Hunt, ‘François Furet, Penser la Revolution française’. History and heory 20.3 (1981), 313–323, here 318; Woodcock, George, ‘he Meaning of Revolution in Britain’. Ceri Crossley & Ian Small (eds.), he French Revolution and British Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 1–14, here 5. 2 Günter Jäckel (ed.), Das Volk braucht Licht: Frauen zur Zeit des Aubruchs 1790–1848 in ihren Briefen (Darmstadt: Agora, 1970), 82; Anne-Charlotte Trepp, Sante Männlichkeit und selbständige Weiblichkeit: Frauen und Männer in Hamburger Bürgertum zwischen 1770 und 1840 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1996), 271–272.

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continued to divide them right up to the eve of the invasion of Russia in 1812 when Count Pierre Bezukhov and Vicomte de Montemorte clashed over Napoleon at Anna Pavlovna’s soiree in the opening pages of Tolstoy’s War and Peace. hat people talked so much is one signal that events were not self-evident or familiar. Edmund Burke considered the revolution in France to be something ‘out of nature’ precisely because it overruled, as he put it, ‘common maxims’ and ‘matters of fact’.3 his drastic dimension to social description is perhaps the most fundamental outcome of the French Revolution. Of course, drastic description was as much due to thinking about events in terms of revolution as it was due the revolutionary nature of events themselves. And it is this mobilized landscape which drastic description puts into view that I want to explore. Once set in motion, the ‘great talking machine’ let the world looking very diferent because it created new words and new vocabularies. hat homas Carlyle, writing ity years ater the French Revolution, felt the need to fashion neologisms appropriate to his subject: ‘Sansculottism’ (‘What think ye of me?’), a ‘New-Birth of Time’, and ‘the Death-Birth of a World’ is indicative of its shock.4 To detractors who had derided his semantic ‘impurities’, Carlyle answered back: ‘If one has thoughts not hitherto uttered in English Books, I see nothing for it but that you must use words not found there, must make words . . . revolution there [is] as visible as anywhere else!’.5 Carlyle was right; contemporaries did insist on the diference of diference and increasingly made the ‘Death-Birth of a World’ the datum for reorganizing dimensions of time and space. hey relied increasingly on what I refer to as ‘drastic description’ to indicate fundamental discontinuities between past and present, between premodern and modern; to separate out national traditions and accent their incommensurability; and to seal these newly recognized diferences in the temporal and spatial enclosures of modernity and the West. his dramatization of diference at the turn of the nineteenth century adds up to what I want to regard as ‘the conceit of modernity’. he modern point of view is

3 Conor Cruise O’Brien, ‘Introduction’. Edmund Burke, Relections on the Revolution in France (New York: Penguin Books, 1981), 9; Burke 1981, 92, 181–182. 4 homas Carlyle, he French Revolution. A History (3 vols.; New York: Ams Press, 1974. Reprint 1896 London), 1:212, 1:213, 3:311. 5 John Rosenberg, Carlyle and the Burden of History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 30.

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organized around a series of ruptures which enable the assertion of its anachronistic nature. Again and again, it drew attention to itself as something completely new. Modern time is the relentless iteration of this imagined rupture. ‘What think ye of me?’ To introduce the new weight put on familiar oppositions: past and present, modern and premodern, nation and empire, West and non-West, it is worth examining a single letter written by Dorothea Schlegel, the wife of the philosopher Friedrich Schlegel, to a friend in Cologne, in December 1809, just ater Napoleon’s decisive, third defeat of Austria. ‘Time has now become so luidly rapid’, Dorothea Schlegel wrote in autumn 1809 as French soldiers reoccupied Austria: ‘It is not possible to keep up; between one mail day and the other lies an entire historical epoch. I feel like I am watching the most diabolical card tricks’. Over the previous iteen years, French armies had repeatedly appeared across the border, forcing luckless refugees to pack up and lee, or to make unwanted accommodation with new rulers. Like many of her contemporaries, Schlegel felt radically cut of from the past and stranded in the revolutionary present. Unsettled as she was, however, Schlegel took comfort in memoires of the antique landscape of the faraway Rhine Valley she had visited some time earlier. ‘Towers, spires, capitals, and columns’—all ‘evoked memories’ of ‘past greatness’. hanks to these recollections, she ‘forgot the present’, at least for a time. Dorothea Schlegel then went on to contrast these ruins along the Rhine with others she had seen along the Danube, which were ‘confusing’ and ‘raw’ and kept her from forming a meaningful picture of this other past. Diferentiating the Rhine from the Danube, she establishes a border of both western geography and western comprehension which I will get back to. Schlegel concluded the letter by thanking her correspondent, the young art collector, Sulpiz Boisserée, for reminding her that ‘monuments and art objects’ still existed amidst the present-day destruction of war and revolution.6 hese remarks facilitate an exploration of new deinitions of time, space, and of the West at the turn of the nineteenth century. At the outset, Schlegel toys with a new sense of time. Every day, she reports, comes with new surprises. Events appear to crumple up lines of continuity so violently that from one letter to the next one previous

6 Dorothea von Schlegel, Dorothea von Schlegel und deren Söhne Johannes und Philipp Veit. Briefwechsel (2 vols.; Mainz: Kirchheim, 1881), 1:396–399.

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historical epoch has been destroyed and another created, the Holy Roman Empire dismantled, the Napoleonic empire established. he recourse to fantastic imagery to bring into view the eventfulness of the revolution had become quite commonplace. Elsewhere Schlegel refers to feeling like a child frightened by the fairy tale in which ‘the giant with his seven-league boots’ ‘catches up with the poor refugees underfoot again and again’. ‘One makes sense of the day with the sayings of old women’, admitted another observer.7 What these expressions of astonishment indicate is the massive sense of disproportion which the French Revolution introduced to previously authoritative schemes of temporality once so familiar (to old men). Contemporaries repeatedly reported on the fact that everything is becoming so diferent—‘alles wird so ganz anders’8 repeated the historian Johannes von Müller at one end of the revolution; ‘Basta! Everything is going to be diferent’, agreed Rahel Varnhagen at the other.9 he stress on the disjunctures and discontinuities of the present day appeared repeatedly in the years around 1800 and placed new stress on historical writing. It was in the period of the French Revolution that a modern conception of historical time established itself, one in which ‘anticipation of the future worked without deferring primarily to the authority of remembrance’.10 his heightened sense of irstness might well be experienced as disaster; Schlegel herself recognized the impress of the diabolical and the gigantic, and feels trampled. In any case, it implied the growing incommensurability of experience and event, which invited a drastic redescription of time. his recognition of discontinuity, in which past and present loat free of one another, became paradigmatic, with the stress falling—to use Reinhart Koselleck’s helpful terms—on anticipation and uncertainty, rather than on experience and calculability. Whereas Enlightenment thinkers conceived of the present as the most forward point in 7 Josef Körner (ed.), Krisenjahre der Frühromantik: Briefe aus dem Schlegelkreis (3 vols.; Brünn: R.M. Rohrer, 1936), 2:168; Ernst Moritz Arndt, Geist der Zeit. Sämtliche Werke (Magdeburg: Magdeburger Verlagsanstalt, 1908), 1:53. 8 Johannes von Müller, Briefe in Auswahl (Ed. Edgar Bonjour, Basel: B. Schwabe, 1954), 212. 9 Rahel Varnhagen, Rahel Varnhagens Briefwechsel (Ed. F. Kemp, 4 vols.; Munich: Kösel, 1979), 4:80. 10 Reinhart Koselleck, Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1985), 275–276; Rudy Koshar, Germany’s Transient Pasts: Preservation and National Memory in the Twentieth Century (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 18.

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a great continuum of progress that pushed itself on and on, ater the French Revolution, observers were more apt to think of the present as a point of transition, one which moved away from the past.11 At the same time, the future was no longer conceived as the place where the trends from the past culminated, but as a space in which the new and unexpected would be encountered: transition instead of continuum, encounter instead of culmination. Rahel Varnhagen conceived of the future as coming up from behind in a moment of surprise, ‘an idea that is breaking my head apart’.12 he notion that the present day is characterized by the ceaseless iteration of the new has, of course, lots to do with the attempt of French revolutionaries to remake self and society, but it subsequently served as a new, quite unprecedented means to see subsequent change in drastic terms, so that the violent transformations of the French Revolution exploded again and again in the European time zone. But this was so not so much because of the latency of the trauma of the revolution or even because the French Revolution of 1789 became a series of French Revolutions in the nineteenth century—1830, 1848, 1871—but rather because the revolution had the efect of dramatizing temporal sightlines that caught and modiied objects throughout Europe. Again and again, commentaries on the French Revolution—Chateaubriand, Toqueville, Carlyle—concluded with a vast convulsive devouring image in which the speciicities of revolution, the terror, and Napoleon merge into a general upheaval of economic, political, and psychological conditions. ‘here will be no separate revolutions’, Chateaubriand wrote in the last lines of his memoirs, only ‘the great revolution approaching its end’.13 his identiication of the spirit of the age with revolution and the insistence that it is revolution that distinguishes the nineteenth century and rips it from the continuities of history up to 1800 and also the strutting about of the self-consciousness of living in such a seismic period adds up to ‘the conceit of modernity’. It is very diicult to get

11 Ingrid Oesterle, ‘Der Führungswechsel der Zeithorizonte in der deutschen Literatur. Korrespondenzen aus Paris, der Hauptstadt der Menschheitsgeschichte’. Dirk Grathof (ed.), Studien zur Ästhetik und Literaturgeschichte der Kunstperiode (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1985), 11–75, here 20. 12 Varnhagen 1979, 2:355. 13 François-René de Chateaubriand, he Memoirs of François René Vicomte de Chateaubriand (Trans. Alexander Teixeira de Mattos, 6 vols.; London: Putnam, 1902), 6:255.

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out of this mobilized view of the contemporary world, and, of course, this history is also written in such a conceited mode. Closer attention to what Michel Foucault has called the ‘irruptive violence of time’ around 1800 had the efect of making life wild again and of providing evidence of abrupt extinctions and sudden transformations.14 his permitted a far-ranging periodization of the historical and biological record which set aside neat developmental schemas in favor of speciic ruptures based on diference. he common plane of experience on which the ancient Greeks, the Renaissance Italians, and eighteenth-century Frenchmen had for hundreds of years encountered each other broke apart, depositing the Greeks, Italians, and French each into their own self-enclosed worlds separated not simply by time but by the passing of time in a way that established deinitive cultural diferences. History became more archaeological: a succession of separate, even incommensurate cultural traditions whose appearance and demise conirmed the violence of temporal passages. But all the diferences among the distinct periods of history from ancient Greece to contemporary France were subordinated to the fundamental distinction between the premodern and the modern, which possessed for itself the experience of the constant iteration of the new and the knowledge that this profoundly unsettling experience set contemporaries around 1800 apart from their ancestors and also the insistence that this knowledge of dispossession, loss, and disenchantment was the foundation of modern subjectivity. he drama of historical self-consciousness also had the efect of propelling Europeans to interact with each other as contemporaries who mutually recognized each other and took interest in each other as diferently situated, but nonetheless emplotted protagonists in the historical drama of modernity. Contemporaries saw themselves as historical actors. hus Dorothea Schlegel’s letter is pertinent evidence of the authority that personal, subjunctive forms of historical testimony had acquired. Moreover, the letters were tokens of mutual recognition. Writers knew that their readers would understand the general import of the local events the letters described. In other words, correspondents related to each other as contemporaries who shared the same turbulent time zone. he literary critic Elizabeth Deeds Ermarth comments on

14 Michel Foucault, he Order of hings: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences (New York: Vintage, 1971), 132.

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the ways that history functioned as a mass medium which reconigured social interactions in this postrevolutionary period: ‘he collection of voices’, she writes, in ‘a novel like War and Peace all “agree”—not in the trivial sense of agreement about particular issues but in the most powerful sense of constructing and inhabiting the “same” time, which is to say, a medium in which what happens in one moment has inluence upon another moment’.15 Events were synchronized without holding out the exact same meaning, a context in which vernacular and personal renditions could and did gain legitimacy. Not to be part of this drama was to be diminished, or banished to the periphery. he Mexican writer, Octavio Paz, on the occasion of his acceptance of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1990 writes about inding himself ‘In Search of the Present’. He refers to World War I, not the French Revolution, but the point is the same: ‘I must have been about six’, he relects: ‘One of my cousins . . . showed me a . . . magazine with a photograph of soldiers marching down a wide avenue, probably in New York. “hey’ve returned from the war”, she said. . . . But for me, the war had taken place in another time, not here and now’. What Paz felt was ‘that the real present was somewhere else’; ‘For us’, he concluded, ‘this present was not in our own countries: it was the time lived by others—by the English, the French, the Germans’.16 he invention of this time zone was exclusive, as Paz reports; it generally excluded non-Europeans. But the consciousness of inhabiting it was also the precondition for the consumption and production of countless testimonies to what took place there: Schlegel’s letters, and the memories, diaries, and autobiographies of even the most ordinary Europeans. Precisely because history became a mass medium through which individuals could recognize each other’s losses as part of shared narrative, it had the efect of giving their misfortunes and travails social poignancy. Self-consciously living through history, Europeans established broad emotional connections among themselves. Conceived in this way, history is melancholic. It is written on the open road, along which fugitives and refugees travel and take stock of their displacement as they survey scenes of terrible destruction and imagine the homes they once possessed. he witnesses to history Elizabeth Deeds Ermarth, Sequel to History: Postmodernism and the Crisis of Representational Time (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 28. 16 Pascale Casanova, he World Republic of Letters (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004), 92–93. 15

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are, in the end, exiles and emigres and strangers. hey will not return to their homes or to their former lives. he melancholy of history is rooted in the recognition of loss. Since the past was no longer taken to be an extension of the present, it was also increasingly unknowable and opaque, even if it became an object of increasing attention. his epistemological crisis is another dimension to the melancholy of history: its accounts will always remain incomplete and provisional. However, the travellers on the open road are fellow travellers. hey make sense of their dislodgings together and do so by means of a common vocabulary that creates shared narrational structures that are written against the evidence of disintegration and dispersion. History recognizes the tragedy of the individual as a collective fate; in Timothy Brennan’s words, it accounts a ‘longing for form’.17 he sense of being among contemporaries rested on the knowledge of loss, which pulled people together in the present even as it separated them from subjects in the past. Nation and Empire he second order of diference constituted by modern history is the distinction between nation and empire. While Schlegel is writing under the duress of military defeat and French occupation, she counterposes her anguished displacement by the events of the revolution with her imagined connection to faraway ruins along the Rhine, the ‘towers, spires, capitals, and columns’ that ‘evoked memories’ of ‘past greatness’. he fact that the present is in ruins has the efect of exposing the ruins of the past. What exactly is going on here? he old things Schlegel conjures up are the remains of castles, churches, and abbeys; some of these have been destroyed by French armies, but most were the quite speciic, long moldering evidence of Germany’s medieval past. Schlegel is not interested in a sublime aesthetic of ruins, eighteenth-century conventions which certainly would have been familiar to readers at the time; in fact, she deliberately contrasts ruins on the Danube, which she cannot or will not read and which she dismisses, with those on the Rhine which to her signify ‘past greatness’.

17 Timothy Brennan, ‘he national longing for form’. Homi Bhabha (ed.), Nation and Narration (London: Routledge, 1990), 44–70.

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What has now become important are the speciic geography and the particular history of ruins: not ruins, but German ruins. Schlegel sets up a homology of Germany versus France, past versus present, but she does more than that. She also experiments with a new parameter of diference by opposing national memory to imperial forgetfulness, and counterposes the historical possibilities embedded in the past to the etermal present of the empire. Napoleon’s empire and the French occupation of Austria is not, for Schlegel, a further, powerful installment of universal Francophone culture, but is now regarded as the profound jeopardy of Germany’s cultural dispossession. In a letter some months earlier, in October 1809, Schlegel introduced a somewhat diferent interpretation of the demoralization she saw around her. Her great fear she wrote in a letter to Boisserée was that her sons would escape French empire by going into exile in the United States and thereby ‘leave behind their mother’s grave in a wasteland inhabited by barbarian hordes’.18 Schlegel saw history at work on an international scale, and it appeared as a dangerous force that menaced both her home and her grave. Schlegel’s reference to her unvisited grave indicates that what is at stake in the global operations of war and empire is memory, either her oblivion in the empire or her memorialization in a place not occupied by the French, in a German national culture her sons would have consequently not abandoned, but rather cherished and preserved. She associates the idea of Germany with her own tended grave, just as the idea of Germany has, to her mind, rescued the ruins on the Rhine from the forgetful, eternal present of the French Empire. It is the national form that gives Schlegel her idea of home, and makes the distant ruins on the Rhine familiar while sites closer at hand, on the Danube, remain strange to her. And it is the imperial form which threatens the distinction of national culture, the commemoration of the past, and the cultivation of self. To resist French empire, she creates a new circuitry up and down the Rhine which exposes the particulars of the German past. In this way, ruins reanimated the past and provided evidence for alternative modes of being, a reservoir of otherness located in the past but available for the future. To be sure, ruins were part and parcel of

18 Günter Hartmann, Die Ruine im Landschatsgarten: Ihre Bedeutung für den frühen Historismus und die Landschatsmalerei der Romantik (Worms: Werner, 1981), 374–375.

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the European landscape and a special object of afection for eighteenthcentury landscapers. But the ruin in the garden of the ancien regime had no particular provenance and told no particular story. It was oten set against waterfall or overgrown groves and embellished the story of the transience of all things.19 It evoked the cycle of death and birth, degeneration and regeneration, and thus the operation of harmonious wholes. But seen through the lenses of historical periodicity, ruins looked very diferent. Taken out of natural time and reconigured in historical time, the ruins of the past could be taken as particular evidence of political and religious confrontations, of defeats and occupations, and of undeveloped political and national alternatives. History was thereby reconstituted as a scarred ield of diference which comprised diferent horizons separated as much by the unnatural break of political defeat as by the accident of natural disaster. he fragmentary nature of the ruin, ‘the accidents and particularities of its broken proile, became the marks of its individuality and therefore autonomy’.20 Ruins were repositioned so that they were no longer the wreckage of inevitable transformations, but the telling evidence of former wholes. And they evoked not obsolescence, but cultural survival. In this view, they acquired a ‘half-life’. hey spoke through history in a way that the silence of nature’s reclamation had not permitted. Ruins had ghost stories to tell. In the context of the French Revolution, ruins were particularly useful in order to suggest alternatives to the fact of French empire, which had announced itself as the culmination of history. If there was no going back to the ancien regime, other cultural traditions could be set in motion as alternatives to France. For their otherness to be evoked, however, it was necessary to pay particular attention to the speciics of time and place, that is, to provenience. A good example of the growing authority of contextual historical methods is the archaeological site of Pompeii, which was discovered in 1748, but only much later, in the nineteenth century, excavated with an eye toward understanding the customs and manners of the Stabian cities in the year 79, their Hellenism, for example, rather than plundered for exemplary art objects as had been the case in the eighteenth century. ‘Attention’, the art historian Hugh Honour

19

Hartmann 1981. Joseph Leo Koerner, Caspar David Friedrich and the Subject of Landscape (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), 25. 20

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argues, ‘shited from the eternal to the transient; from the merits of works of art . . . to the clues’ of former lifeways, or as Stephen Bann puts it, from specimens to recovered relics.21 Careful scholarship that was attentive to context would not only recover the speciicity of other lifeways, which made Germany, for example, diferent from France, but also the speciic reasons for French dominance over Germany, all of which worked to recover German autonomy. Germany could now be envisioned as separate from and equal to France; more precisely, Germany’s medieval ruins could now be regarded as cultural entities separate from and equal to French Classicism. he method of archaeology stripped away the authority of older developmental schemas in which German culture was peripheral and superseded. he credibility of context and the poignancy of the fragment was a dramatic revision of the past, which suddenly appeared as a rich record of dispossession and thus of possible repossession. he evidence of alternative lifeworlds existed in fragmentary form only. Only the fragment could tell a jagged, irregular, rich story of dispossession and possible repossession. his too is part of the melancholy of history, which tells about jeopardy, destruction, and the stress of survival. he alternative national narrative moves forward by continuously lirting with its own extinction. Moreover, this rediscovery of the past, because it rested on ruins, demanded a whole new class of experts, historians, and archaeologists who attempted to establish with precision the provenience of time and place and to interpret the particular case. New institutions such as archives and museums were predicated on organizing fragments in terms of provenience in order to make them talk. he past became loquacious, and ofered new cultural relationships. It promoted any number of stories to ill out a complex, entangled universe. ‘No continent, no culture, no rank or condition of social being would be considered too small or too simple’ for the writing of this kind of history, observes Ranajit Guha, one of the founders of subaltern studies.22 But the primary form that the historicization of social being took was the nation, and the nation continually subverted

21 Hugh Honour, Romanticism (New York: Harper and Row, 1979), 208; Stephen Bann, he Clothing of Clio. A Study of the Representation of History in Nineteenthcentury Britain and France (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 86. 22 Ranajit Guha, History at the Limit of World-History (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 22.

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more transnational operations of mutual recognition. Ultimately, the work of provenience privileged the national form. he stress on provenance had the additional consequence of making the particulars of cultural custom, domestic traditions, and household interiors, the signiiers of the speciicity and periodicity of the historical case. he nation was in the details. As James Chandler argues in his book, England in 1819, it was at the ‘convivial table’ and around the ‘domestic hearth’ that the historical became legible.23 Once the rural, the old-fashioned, and the homespun came to be recognized as markers of national identity, rather than outposts of economic development, the national form was open to a far-reaching democratization. he pastoral aesthetic in England is a good case in point. Indicted for being nostalgic, which it was, and for leaving out huge parts of Britain, the North, for example, the scenes of the vanishing countryside quickly embodied the very essence of Englishness. Yet ‘the histories, poems, and pictures’ of rural life depended on making the ordinary cultural telling, thereby validating the experience of common people.24 his literary enfranchisement introduced a new and unsettling political roominess. In the end, it was the idea of the nation that created bounded intimacies among ordinary people, enfranchised them as national exemplars, and facilitated the exchange of emotional empathy and social solidarity across translocal boundaries, a remarkable development really. Provenience and periodization worked together to make local contexts culturally eloquent and politically potential. he drastic dimension to social description was evident in the emphasis placed on temporal discontinuity, on the ceaseless eruption of the new, and on the cultural variedness of speciically local artifacts which were increasingly regarded as parts of diferent national traditions. he world looked extremely diferent from this perspective and held out the possibility of new, national homes to alleviate the danger of displacement and exile. History, written with a sensitivity to the particulars of time and place, was necessary to create both efects. It made collective subjects circumstantial, but also imagined their animation. Expressed in this way, history trembled.

James Chandler, England in 1819: he Politics of Literary Culture and the Case of Romantic Historicism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 148–150. 24 Elisabeth Helsinger, Rural Scenes and National Representation: Britain, 1815– 1850 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), 28. 23

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West and non-West he new alertness to historical change had the inal efect of making historical self-awareness, the anxiety about mutability and revolution, stand as the fundamental distinction between Europeans and nonEuropeans. Elaborating the distinctions between West and non-West is the third and inal order of diference constitutive of modern historical narratives. Schlegel circles around this theme by distinguishing legible ruins along the Rhine from illegible ones along the Danube, which she found ‘raw’ and ‘confusing’. Schlegel is concerned to rescue memory of the nation from the eternal present of empire, but she also sets up an opposition between the Rhine and the Danube, between history and emptiness. Both places have ruins, yet Schlegel recognizes only the historical depth of the Rhine, while the sights along the Danube, which she identiies as near Budapest, are ‘tartary wild’, remnants of a power that ‘dominates the land but does not give it form’. he Danube is no longer contained in Schlegel’s opposition between German history and French empire, but in a more fundamental East-West divide between savagery and civilization, between the Oriental tartary of prehistory and the European reinement of historical form. he reference to the Danube that Schlegel smuggles in thus anticipates the ways in which history in the nineteenth century was constituted in opposition to a non-historical ‘other’ in the form of the the non-West, the traditional, and the ‘premodern’. When Heidegger asserted a century later that ‘what distinguishes the essence of the modern age’ is ‘the fact that the world becomes a picture’, he means that historical self-dramatization and self-consciousness of historical subjectivity is new.25 he awareness of being dispossessed and of living in a disenchanted world becomes the register of history, the marker of modernity, and ultimately—it is presumed—the destination for all people. It is at this point that Europe assumes itself to be ‘the scene of the birth of the modern’. At once, history before 1800 is lattened out as historically unself-conscious and, as Dipesh Chakrabarty has shown, the rest of the world is analyzed in the terms of the European history—in the melancholy register of disenchantment—that it

25 Martin Heidegger, he Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays (New York: Harper and Row, 1977), 130.

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too will ultimately experience, but has not yet.26 he master narrative of disenchantment were literary and historiographical gestures that inevitably colonized the stories of others. he French Revolution detonated in this way as well: it made revolution—and more speciically, knowledge of revolution and of the displacement of tradition—the key experience of being European. For Hegel the disenchanted discovery of history was the foundation of interiorized subjectivity and consciousness. his self-consciousness— that is, the ability to see history, to name developments, to know about discontinuity, to participate in the mutual recognition of historical processes—argued Hegel, was the attribute of Europeans, while Africa, in Hegel’s notorious paragraphs in the Philosophy of History, remained undeveloped in ‘a succession of contingent happenings and surprises’. While Hegel relied on prevailing Enlightenment distinctions between savagery and civilization, the dramatization of historicity in the years ater the French Revolution put additional weight on what seemed to be diferent in Europe, which was the identiication of cultural consciousness with historical understanding. Germaine de Staël, too, counterposed history to empire in ways that relied on making the non-West non-historical. Napoleon’s empire represented a trespass on France, on Paris, and on de Stael’s own memories of home. Napoleon was born in Corsica, she explained, ‘practically within Africa’s savage sway’ and thus without the claims to patrie that situated and entitled de Staël.27 Identiied as African, Napoleon is not only not French, but is without history. It is very telling how, again and again, the national work of the resistance to empire in the years around 1800 also produced the opposition West/non-West. For Hegel this opposition is the very index to the historical self-consciousness that the French Revolution has achieved and the Europe/non-Europe divide in 1800 is only the next installment of earlier conlicts between Greece and Persia and Christianity and Islam. Here Hegel’s freedom serves as a justiication for the non-freedom of others. It is interesting that contemporaries around 1800 not only set themselves apart from the non-West but displaced their fears of political

26 Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial hought and Historical Diference (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000). 27 Germaine de Staël, Ten Years in Exile (Ed. Doris Beik, New York: Saturday Review Press, 1972), 138; Susan Buck-Morss, ‘Hegel and Haiti’. Critical Inquiry 26 (2000), 821–865.

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extinction onto the colonial world they themselves oversaw. In some ways, this was already a sign of the ‘empire striking back’. For the French writer Chateaubriand, the French Revolution was horriic not so much for creating ruins—killing a king or washing up emigres such as himself on foreign shores—but for destroying the evidence of the past, for ruining the ruin. He turned repeatedly to the tombs of the French kings at the abbey in St. Denis, which Jacobin revolutionaries had plundered in August 1793. his profanity becomes part of the larger disaster of modernity, for the demolition at St. Denis is also what is at work in North America, where European colonists were in the process of destroying the graves of Native Americans and thereby efacing ‘the proofs of their existence and of their annihilation’.28 Not only did the colonists drive out the Indians, as Chateaubriand recognized, but they denied the connections between indigenous peoples and the historical monuments they had let behind. Non-western histories were repeatedly emptied out, so much so that the colony stood out as the very incarnation of the absence of history. he architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel, for example, described a Prussia without its monuments as a place that would be ‘unfamiliar, naked, and shorn, like a new colony in a previously uninhabited land’.29 In much the same way, revolutionary events pushed the ships of observers such as Chateaubriand along ‘an unknown coast’, an interesting image in which the revolution and, more precisely, its annihilation of the evidence of the past threatened to turn metropolitans into colonials.30 Behind these words—‘naked and shorn’, or ‘unknown coast’—is knowledge of European empire, an acknowledgement of the cultural violence it entailed, and also, more robustly, the suspicion that to lose history, to ruin the ruin, was to enter a colonial relationship. he revolution threatened to bring colonial dispossession home, which is why Europeans invested in the notion of historical depth and retrieved their national identities through reanimated historical trajectories and also hardened the opposition between the primitive and civilization, between East and West.

28

Chateaubriand 1902, 1:231. Joachim Gaus, ‘Neugotik und Denkmalsgedanke’. Otto Dann (ed.), Religion– Kunst–Vaterland: Der Kölner Dom im 19. Jahrhundert (Cologne: J.P. Bachem, 1983), 229–47, here 34. 30 François-René de Chateaubriand, An Historical, Political, and Moral Essay on Revolutions, Ancient and Modern (London: H. Colburn, 1815), 4–5. 29

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Of course, Hegel could have seen plenty of evidence that would have suggested to him that political subjectivity was not a European attribute. As Susan Buck-Morss shows in her recent article ‘Hegel and Haiti’ events in Haiti were widely discussed throughout Europe; Toussaint L’Ouverture was very much an outsized igure.31 BuckMorss simply calls Hegel stupid. But I think the East/West divide rests less on hegemonic notions of European superiority or even on Europeans’ fears in the wake of the revolution of becoming culturally dispossessed and thus colonial subjects themselves, than it does on the emphasis that historical self-consciousness placed on disenchantment. his alertness to loss becomes the premise for new knowledge, a post-traditional, post-revolutionary vantage point that was regarded as distinctly European. here is considerable power in the ability to name a thing ‘tradition’ and to imagine, even assert its passing. he explicit idea of ‘tradition’, once enunciated, makes profound assumptions about immutability, nature, and the gods. It is precisely the universalization of the ‘principle of the disenchantment of the universe’ in the guise of modern history to which non-western historians object because, writes Chakrabarty, disenchantment is ‘not the only principle by which we world the earth’.32 We think of historicization as critical thought, but it is also a lethal exterminator. he writing of modern history as ‘European history’ continues to orient itself according to rupture and thereby to seal of vast areas of time as premodern and vast areas of space as non-historical. his is as much disregard for the heteronomy of others as it is recognition of the violence of what happened to non-European populations around the globe ater 1800. But if drastic description elides, it also enables. In contrast to Chakrabarty, I think the register of disenchantment opened up new ways to think about re-enchantment and new realms to ‘world the earth’, which was part of the project of European Romanticism. he idea of periodization and provenience and the separateness of national development promoted thinking about the particulars of the past as potential alternatives to the present. It put into view locquacious ruins and admonitory ghosts. History writing thus uses situations of boundedness—this time, this place, this trajectory—in order to create and recreate political subjectivity, to resist empire and to pos-

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Buck-Morss 2000. Chakrabarty 2000, 111.

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tulate nationhood. To construct a bounded subject is to create agency, responsibility, and judgement, a myth-making role for history that we need to cherish. To inhabit a collective myth is to enter a world of action. I believe we need historical subjects and political action, just as we also need critical acknowledgement of the premises excisions and violence that goes along with creating subjects, all of which would carry us a great deal further than Hegel’s poor choices.

THE EMANCIPATION OF THE PAST, AS DUE TO THE REVOLUTIONARY FRENCH IDEOLOGY OF LIBERTÉ, EGALITÉ, FRATERNITÉ Marita Mathijsen Calendar When, as little children, we begged my granddad to reveal his age, he used to respond: ‘Why don’t you make the sum yourselves? I was born in the year one hundred’. Granddad was born in 1892, and it pleased him to make his grandchildren exert their brains. At that age we did not fully capture what was behind it all, even though granddad explained to us that in 1792 the French had introduced a new calendar to demonstrate that a new age had come about. On 20 September 1793 Charles-Gilbert Romme, one of the delegates to the National Convention in Paris, had addressed the meeting in full session. Romme declared that the customary calendar had been the chronology of cruelty and lies, of falsity and servitude. he past should be closed, a new chronology should serve as a sign of the rupture with the past. He had already prepared it in full. A couple of days later the Convention adopted the new calendar. It was made retroactive to the irst day of the republic, 22 September 1792. Romme, mathematician and revolutionary politician, designed the new calendar as a mathematical system. Each month counted thirty days, each week ten days. he day was divided into ten hours of one hundred minutes each, which in their turn counted one hundred seconds.1 his let each year with ive supernumerary days, leap years with six. hese became national holidays, known as the ‘sans-culottides’. With its point of departure taken in the decimal system, Romme’s design was also an ode to the primacy of scientiic rationality over tradition and backward historical knowledge. It ran in parallel with the unitary proposals for the metric system that the revolutionaries introduced as well. In Romme’s

1 Clocks with a dual system, for ten hours as well as twelve, may on occasion be spotted at antique auctions and in museums.

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scheme the months of the year were given names to commemorate the revolution, with names like Peuple, Jeu de Paume, la Bastille.2 Contradictions: he past destroyed yet celebrated We encounter here one of those contradictions that history so oten presents us with. Romme wants to renounce the past; by means of his new calendar the revolutionary government wants to make a clean break with the past. But Romme uses the names of the months to write history, for although the history is recent, it is history nonetheless. he names that Romme uses for his calendar serve to commemorate certain events. he very act of commemorating past events is nothing but a template itself adopted from the past, so we ind Romme thinking historically ater all. Even so, the names that he proposed were not adopted by the Convention, because the delegates could not come to an agreement. heir failure to agree did not concern the historical turn as such, but rather the historical names selected—these would ixate too much things still very much in lux, as so much history might still be expected to take place. he Convention settled for a compromise. It derived the names of the months from nature, and that is how Wine month came about, and Fog month, and Cold month, and Nivôse, Snow month. It is not just the new calendar that testiies to the paradoxical relationship that the Revolutionaries maintained with the past. hey destroyed without mercy archival collections and historical buildings, abbeys, and churches. Louis XV’s bronze equestrian statue was pulled down from its pedestal and melted down, the way Saddam Hussein’s was in our day.3 Tens of thousands of prints were distributed that represented how Louis XVI was beheaded on the Place de la Concorde

2 See for the calendar and the plea by Romme: Mark Elchardus, ‘De Republikeinse kalender . . . “niets minder dan een verandering van religie” ’. Onderzoeksgroep TOR (Tempus Omnia Revelat), De opstand van de intellectuelen. De Franse revolutie als avant-première van de moderne cultuur (Amsterdam: Wereldbibliotheek, 19891), 102–139, here 131–132; Robert Gildea, he Past in French History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), 40–41. 3 Cf. for the destruction of statues by the Revolutionaries: Gildea 1994, 21; Dominique Poulot, Musée, nation, patrimoine 1789–1815 (Paris: Gallimard, 1997), 136–139. he same occurred in he Netherlands. Cf. J.R. Kuiper, Een revolutie ontrafeld: politiek in Friesland 1795–1798 (Franeker: Van Wijnen, 2002).

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(then called the Place de la Révolution), with that empty pedestal demonstratively at the back of the scene. When Belgium was occupied in 1792, this meant among numerous other cases the destruction of Saint Mary’s church in Ghent and the cathedrals of Bruges and Liège. All over France and the occupied territories abbeys were plundered, and statues of princes were pulled down. In Paris the Notre Dame was turned into the Temple of Reason. Everything had to be changed, even the plum that goes by the name of reine claude was renamed the claude verte, and to play cards with King/Queen/Jack was formally proscribed.4 In the Netherlands revolutionaries damaged the tombstones of noblemen: wherever the expression ‘lord’ or ‘count’ had been chiseled, the title was struck out with force.5 Similarly, the name of the court city ’s-Gravenhage was changed into Den Haag, so as to get rid of the word ‘graaf ’, which means count. here is great respect for the past all the same. At times the contradiction stands united in one and the same individual, for instance in Abbé Henri Grégoire. He went so far as to oppose the destructive mania, in particular where the churches were concerned. He was a solid revolutionary, yet he kept wearing his priest’s frock even under the reign of Robespierre. He wrote a report in three volumes about the destruction of art, entitled Rapport sur les déstructions opérées par le Vandalisme (1790). Here he pointed out that the arts of the past belong as much to the ideals of the revolution as the others do: ‘barbarians and slaves hate the sciences and destroy the monuments of the arts. Free men love and preserve them’.6 he word ‘vandalism’ is his invention. Even so he is the very man who aimed to ban all dialects. In his 1794 report to the Assemblée he disparaged the historical signiicance of the thirty-three patois-languages that he distinguished, and he proposed to give a monopoly to Parisian French. In his Rapport sur la Nécessité

Mark Elchardus, ‘Inleiding: Het veranderen van de tijden’. Onderzoeksgroep TOR (Tempus Omnia Revelat), De opstand van de intellectuelen. De Franse revolutie als avant-première van de moderne cultuur (Amsterdam: Wereldbibliotheek, 19891), 15–26, 232, here 15. 5 his occurred in 1795, when the stadholder lied to England. Cf. Kuiper 2002. 6 See on Grégoire and his opinions: Dario Gamboni, he Destruction of Art, Iconoclasm and Vandalism since the French Revolution (London: Reaktion Books, 1997); Dominique Poulot, ‘Revolutionary “Vandalism” and the Birth of the Museum: he Efects of a Representation of Modern Cultural Terror’. Susan Pearce (ed.), Art in Museums (London: Athlone, 1995), 192–214; Henri Baptiste Grégoire, Rapport sur les destructions opérées par le vandalisme, et sur les moyens de le réprimer (S.l.: s.p., 1790), 27. 4

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Fig. 1. Iconoclasm in Holland: destroying the graves of the Stadholders. From: David Hess, Hollandia Regenerata [1797]. Nijmegen: Vantilt, 2007.

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et les Moyens d’anéantir les Patois et d’universaliser l’Usage de la Langue française, he called the uniied language of a nation the language of freedom, whereas dialects support and maintain suppression.7 Explanation: he adoption of the template All the while the past was thus being demolished, the nation went through a cult of commemoration of unprecedented dimensions. National holidays were instituted, national colors were worn in the cocarde, the Marseillaise was sung, national museums were opened, state funerals were instituted. Even before Napoleon ordered a start to be made for his megalomaniac range of monuments, the Revolutionaries had already begun to create their own Lieux de Mémoire. hey adopted unchanged the templates of earlier history. By this I mean those structures that of old lie at the heart of remembering and commemorating. When a regime wants a certain victory or a certain hero to keep playing a role in the memory of the community, certain tools for commemoration present themselves. he tombstone, the megalith, the menhir, the pyramid have all been designed for commemoration. he Romans built triumphal arcs, erected statues, and invented the pantheon where the full panoply of deities was held on display. hey named their roads ater the consul or emperor who had overseen their construction. he Roman culture of commemoration was adopted in later centuries, and adapted to local circumstances. Christians designed holy days in the literal sense. Kings adopted the cult of statues. We see the same analogy in the French Revolution. What history is commemorated is of course new, revolutionary even, yet the pattern remains quite the same. Whatever seems it to activate people’s memory is deployed, only, the older, concrete memories are no longer

7 ‘Une langue universelle est, dans son genre, ce que la pierre philosophale est en chimie. Mais au moins on peut uniformer le langage d’une grande nation, de manière que tous les citoyens qui la composent puissent sans obstacle se communiquer leurs pensées. Cette entreprise, qui ne fut pleinement exécutée chez aucun peuple, est digne du peuple français, qui centralise toutes les branches de l’organisation sociale et qui doit être jaloux de consacrer au plutôt, dans une République une et indivisible, l’usage unique et invariable de la langue de la liberté’. Henri Baptiste Grégoire, Rapport sur la nécessité et les moyens d’anéantir les patois et d’universaliser l’usage de la langue française (Paris: s.p., 1794). Joep Leerssen, National hought in Europe. A Cultural History (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 20062), 138.

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allowed to take part. Days of commemoration, jubilees, name days, monuments, tombstones, names given to streets and city squares, all these old patterns are adopted.8 So history is not being scorned at all, only, the revolutionaries, like dogs in the street, provide it with a scent of their own. Right from the start there is a glorious sense of creating history. he very thing the people had always been let out of, history, has now fallen in their own hands. hey can now make history themselves. Two theses: Continuity and the public sphere I wish to propose two principal theses. I maintain that between the revolutionaries and those later anti-revolutionaries who were in due time to write the ‘nouvelle histoire’ there is no rupture in the valuation of the past. To the contrary, I shall demonstrate that it was precisely the revolutionaries who made possible the new history of the great historians of the 1830s, like Augustin hierry and Jules Michelet. Whereas my irst thesis argues for continuity in this particular respect, my second thesis makes a case for wholesale rupture—we owe it to the revolution that history became the property of everybody; that is, history let the private sphere and entered public space. Before, history was a privilege, a luxury product for scholars, for philosophers, for the elite, and this now altered for good. Joep Leerssen and others have reminded us that a new kind of interest in history began in the eighteenth century, and that that is where the beginnings of the later Romantic historiography must be situated.9 But here we focus not on the starting points but on the transition from limited usage to general usage. In my view that particular process starts with the French Revolution and its striving for equality. No longer is history reserved for

Gildea 1994, 17. Leerssen follows Isaiah Berlin, hree Critics of the Enlightenment: Vico, Hamann, Herder (Ed. Henry Hardy, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), in regarding Giambattista Vico as the starting point. Cf. Joep Leerssen, he Cultivation of Culture. Towards a Deinition of Romantic Nationalism in Europe (Amsterdam: Working Papers European Studies Amsterdam 2, 2005), 20; Joep Leerssen, ‘Literary Historicism: Romanticism, Philologists, and the Presence of the Past’. Modern Language Quarterly 65 (20041), 221–243; Joep Leerssen, ‘Ossian and the Rise of Literary Historicism’. Howard Gaskill (ed.), he Reception of Ossian in Europe (London: hoemmes, 20042), 109–125. 8 9

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the happy few; everyone is entitled to history. Ordinary people may suddenly change their point of view, in that it now gets infused with history. hat is, the meaning of ‘old’ could from one day to the next turn from ‘worn out and therefore worthless’ to ‘historical and therefore precious’. On their daily walk past the ruins of the ‘Gravensteen’ in the city centre, the inhabitants of Ghent paid no attention to its origins as an early medieval castle. hey built factories in the reception halls, where roaring steam engines drowned out the calm of history. Part of the fortress was steamrolled over, and houses were built alongside. And then, suddenly, an awareness came up that these were not just old buildings but a medieval fortress, and large-scale restoration ensued. From one day to the next the worthless may become valuable, once one has acquired the historical point of view. Examples of continuity A couple of examples may serve to demonstrate the high respect in which, for sure, the Revolutionaries held history. One of the irst deeds of the Assemblée Nationale was to institute a national archival service. hey did so already on 29 July 1789. In the Déclaration des Droits de l’homme et du citoyen of 26 August 1789 an article was inserted that all citizens are entitled to inspect the civil service, and, hence, archival documents, too. Quickly the Revolutionaries began to pay attention to older archives, deposited at a variety of places. A committee was appointed to design a law for the archives, as part of its labors toward a constitution. he majority felt that to honour historical rights ought to be part of the new constitution. Historical origins and the evidence for them in the documentary record served to underscore and legitimate people’s rights and claims. On 12 September 1790 the Assembly adopted a decree on how to ile acts, which ought to be deposited in archives ready for inspection.10 he National Archive was given a comparatively autonomous statute. In principle, the national archivist could not be deposed, as an archive ought to be secure and inviolable. Even more importantly, it ought

10 hese factual data about the archives are taken mostly from: A.E.M. Ribberink, ‘De overheid opent haar archieven 1766–1829’. Nederlands Archievenblad 84 (1980), 440–451.

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to be accessible for all. hree full days a week the archive should be opened ‘pour répondre aux demandes du Public’. he law further prescribed the making of inventories. he constitution of 1791 widened all this into granting the community the right to make every public servant accountable for his deeds. A ritual that took place on 4 October 1791 shows how much historical signiicance was attached to the national archive. hat day the provisional Assemblée Nationale Constituante was replaced by the Assemblée Nationale Législative. On that 4th of October the twelve eldest members of the Assemblée (note here, too, the respect for history) betook themselves to the archive, and produced the Constitution. Armand-Gaston Camus, then the national archivist, entered, accompanied by messengers, by companies of the Garde Nationale and of the Gendarmerie, and with the constitution placed upon a silken cushion. With their hands on the constitution the delegates swore the oath. Camus kept looking on like a watch-dog throughout the ceremonies, and once they were over the constitution was solemnly returned to the archive, accompanied by the same honours as before. he entire ritual was copied from the medieval accolade, so the early practice of creating knights was being adapted here to the new times. Under the Terror the characteristic, seemingly paradoxical movement in the opposite direction manifests itself as well. he delegate Marie Jean Condorcet addressed the Assemblée Nationale as follows: ‘Reason ought to burn those immense volumes of books that testify to the incorrigible vanity of the noble class. here are still traces thereof in public libraries and in audit oices. All those repositories must be demolished’.11 When the terror was at its zenith, on the same day that the poet André Chénier was put to the guillotine, 25 July 1794, more than 150 tonnes of paper were burned on the Place des Piques (now the Place Vendôme), among them numerous medieval manuscripts. Just a few juridical and regional documents remained.12 Under Napoleon the high valuation of the archives returned. He invested the keeping of public records with a large amount of autonomy, and placed it under the minister of the interior. He even wished Cited in R.P.A. Dozy, Over den gunstigen invloed, dien de omwentelingen in Frankrijk, sedert 1789, hebben uitgeoefend op de studie der middeleeuwse geschiedenis (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1850), 4. 12 Dozy 1850 and Ribberink 1980 give diferent dates; I follow Ribberink 1980. 11

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to build an immense Record Palace for them on the Seine quays, but his disastrous Russian campaign prevented that.13 Another manifestation of the historical urge of the Revolutionaries was the institution of the state funeral, and the accompanying establishment of the Panthéon. Rome provided the model. he old Roman temple which in the seventh century had been turned into a Christian church, was reconstructed during the Renaissance to serve as a national cemetery for prominent Italians like the painter Raphael. he Revolution, too, wanted la patrie reconnaissante to ofer such an ostentatious resting place to its grands hommes. A pompous neoclassicist church built under Louis XV, the church of St-Géneviève, was claimed for the purpose.14 he irst to receive a state funeral and be buried in the Panthéon was Honoré Gabriel de Riqueti, Comte de Mirabeau, in 1791. He had been one of those eloquent revolutionaries who had exerted themselves to get the inlexible King Louis XVI so far as to make a few concessions to the people. Poor misshapen Mirabeau was honoured like a hero, not least because as a count he had chosen the side of the revolutionaries and also because his noble father had more or less disowned him as a child. He died young, probably in view of his libertarian way of life, even though rumours also went around that he had been poisoned. In spite of his misshapen body and his pockmarked face he was able to attract numerous mistresses to his side. He regularly visited the Netherlands, in good part with a view to publishing his libertine, not to say pornographic books. But to him happened what happened to the archives: Under the Terror his bones were removed from the Panthéon in view of alleged, excessive collaboration with the king. Voltaire, reburied iteen years ater his death in the Panthéon, was allowed to stay there, but Jean-Paul Marat, buried there in 1793 with much ostentation, was ejected within two years, when his incomparable thirst for blood no longer met with approval. Many more examples serve to underscore the historical consciousness of the Revolutionaries. he Palais du Louvre was made public property in 1791, and from 1793 onward it was called the Musée Central

13 Data taken from (2 January 2008). 14 Cf. Gildea 1994, 21.

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des Arts. What had once been the royal collection was now put on display, and much coniscated art was housed there, too, in particular when Napoleon set out on his raids of cultural robbery. hat is why in 1803 the Museum was named ater him. It was made accessible for free, to the public on their free Sundays and over the entire week to artists who wished to examine the works of their great forebears. he museum served to the Revolutionaries as a showpiece, but it also came in for some ierce criticism. Alexandre Lenoir, one of the revolutionaries who exerted themselves for the preservation of early art, argued nonetheless that the Louvre did not relect French history. His own eforts produced the Musée des monuments françaises, Europe’s irst Museum of National History. So in spite of all the destruction wrought upon reminders of the past, we observe a large amount of attention paid by the Revolutionaries to history. True, their attention was coloured a great deal by concentration upon the revolution itself and upon those who were regarded as its principal perpetrators. Voltaire’s reburial speaks volumes in this respect. he tools of commemoration were adopted in part from the ancien régime, or they were borrowed from medieval rites and adapted to present needs. But the prime model of the culture of commemoration was the Roman Republic and Empire. he periods of the Directoire and of Napoleon, in particular, abound with cases in point. he leaders called themselves consuls, and Napoleon, who took Alexander the Great for his prime exemplar, built a triumphal arc ater every victory. he building style, and even fashion, were inspired by their Roman counterparts. So there is more continuity in the attention paid to history than is apparent at the surface of events. Conventional wisdom has it that in the eighteenth century attention to the past emerges, which then lies at rest for a while until by the time of the Restoration the large-scale upswing truly begins.15 Stephen Bann speaks of the ‘historical-mindedness’ of that later period, a ‘desire for history’, with history turning

Berlin 2000 has pointed at the signiicance for Romantic historiography of the Italian philosopher/historian Vico. Leerssen 2005 has called attention in this regard to the link between the philosopher of law, Carl von Savigny, and Jacob Grimm. Cf. note 7. 15

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into a substratum for cultural activity of just about any kind.16 he explosive growth is a sure fact, yet in my view the development was far more gradual, along this line of the maintenance of a well-established template of history and commemoration. he public sphere By telling contrast, we may speak indeed of a large-scale turnabout in respect of the public nature of history. Here the adoption of historical templates meant providing them with radically new content, which broke decisively with the ancien régime. From the very beginning the constitution is aimed at making everything public. Politics itself ought to be moved from closed rooms to the public space. he same applied to past politics—records of administrative deeds ought to be accessible. At this point we may link things up with Jürgen Habermas’ famous study Strukturwandel der Öfentlichkeit (1962). He signalized the irst structural transformation of the public sphere in the period of the Enlightenment. hat is when a transition took place from court culture to a bourgeois culture marked by rational debate. Authorities were now held accountable by the citizenry, and in all those countless pamphlets of the period the various issues involved were discussed at length and in depth. One consequence of the demand for accountability was that administrative documents were made public, and this is what was granted almost on the irst day of the Revolution. Soon the same posture was widened to all cultural domains. Already in 1692 the French Royal Library was made accessible to the public in a limited sort of way, but again it is in the irst year of the revolution that it is turned into the National Library and that entrance is both guaranteed and made easier. he library beneited enormously from the coniscation of the book collections of abbeys, church-ailiated institutions of higher learning, and colleges. All kinds of hidden, unknown materials came to light thereby. ‘Free access to history’ became even more exciting, now that the collections had expanded so much.

16 Stephen Bann, Romanticism and the Rise of History (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1995), 7.

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Something similar happened all over Europe with princely art collections. We have already seen how this happened in France. In the Netherlands the irst minister of the treasury during the so-called Batavian Republic, Alexander Gogel, established a National Art Gallery, which housed all that remained of the collection of the stadhouder ater he had led the country. However, the inest paintings had been taken to Paris by the French liberators. As one consequence, the Gallery acquired more of an educational than an artistic function. he minister took for his principal aim to create a pantheon of heroes in Dutch history. In Gogel’s irst design he still spoke of a Sanctuary of the arts that ought to be instituted. In his view it ‘would smell of barbarism if one were to except the products of the ine arts from the concern and the good oices of the government’.17 A long time would still have to pass before the National Art Gallery turned into the Rijksmuseum, yet the foundations had been laid. Much efort had likewise to be spent before the robbed pieces of art returned to the Netherlands. he worthy Parisian citizenry jeered at the soldiers who served as escorts for the paintings; they screamed ‘thieves!’, and workers willing to transport them were sought in vain. By the way, of the two hundred paintings stolen, seventy-ive may still be reclaimed.18 Access opened to the public at large is symptomatic for all that followed. In this respect we are without question entitled to speak of a paradigm shit, brought about by the French Revolution. History itself used to be reserved to the elite. Now history is for everybody, but more happened than just its being forced out into the open. It became part of a media circus. As Peter Fritzsche has written: ‘he emerging historical consciousness was not restricted to an elite, or a small literate stratum, but was the shared cultural good of ordinary travelers, soldiers, and artisans. In many ways history had become a mass medium connecting people and their stories all over Europe and beyond’.19 Another historian, Jo Tollebeek, speaks of the epidemic nature of this historical movement. In his words, ‘in

17 See for this episode Ellinoor Bergvelt, Pantheon der Gouden Eeuw. Van Nationale Konst-Gallerij tot Rijksmuseum van Schilderijen (1798–1896) (Zwolle: Waanders Uitgevers, 1998), 31. 18 Cf. Bergvelt 1998, 89. 19 Peter Fritzsche, Stranded in the Present. Modern Time and the Melancholy of History (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004), 13.

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the 1820s everything seems to be provided with a historical touch’.20 Fritzsche links this up with the sense of rupture and the discontinuity people experienced ater the French Revolution. Stephen Bann, too, notes an experience of historical discontinuity.21 I am not disputing this thesis—without doubt a collective trauma had taken hold of the whole of Europe due to the revolution. In the Netherlands, for example, this leads to a conciliatory culture ater the French have let.22 he Society for Public Utility is founded, with a view to bringing about liberty, equality, and brotherhood in a gradual manner by means of education.23 And yet there is too much continuity in the experience of history between the time of the revolution and the Restoration to reduce the unprecedented lourishing of historical interest to just this sense of rupture ater the revolution. I have already argued for that continuity and illustrated it in a variety of ways. I add that numerous large shits in the use made of history took place precisely during the Revolutionary period. What remained the same in any case before and ater the Revolution and also during the Restoration are the underlying patterns, those templates of the culture of commemoration. What changed, and this happened already in course of the Revolution, is the experience of history, its appropriation. he common people must have felt like Monsieur Jourdain in Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme when his philosophy teacher pointed out to him that he was speaking prose. ‘Now is that prose? Upon my honour! I have already been speaking prose for more than forty years without my even knowing it’.24 Or, ittingly transposed to the circumstances I am addressing: ‘Is that history? Dash it! For more than forty years I have been making history without my even knowing it’. Camille Desmoulins, the revolutionary author of the pamphlet La France libre, distributed in millions of copies, compared

Jo Tollebeek, De illusionisten. Geschiedenis en cultuur in de Franse Romantiek (Leuven: Universitaire Pers Leuven, 2000), 2. 21 Bann 1995, XI. 22 On this conciliatory culture see especially: N.C.F. van Sas, De metamorfose van Nederland. Van oude orde naar moderniteit, 1750–1900 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2004). 23 See on the Society for Public Utility, the ‘Maatschappij tot Nut van ’t Algemeen’: W.W. Mijnhardt & A.J. Wichers (eds.), Om het algemeen volksgeluk. Twee eeuwen particulier initiatief 1784–1984 (Edam: Maatschappij tot Nut van ’t Algemeen, 1984). 24 Second act, scene 4: ‘C’est de la prose? . . . Par ma foi! il y a plus de quarante ans que je dis de la prose sans que j’en susse rien’. In Molière, Le bourgeois gentilhomme. http://www.site-moliere.com/pieces/bourg204.htm. 20

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the 14 July 1789 rising with the victory over Carthago: ‘l’histoire ofre rien de pareil’—‘history ofers nothing like it’.25 he citizen began to feel that history may also be a do-it-yourself product. What gave him that sense was the recent past, to which he had contributed himself. Now he goes on to appropriate to himself the earlier history as well. he irst item of change is this process of active appropriation. he second item rests in the number of people interested. An audience comes up with an eager desire for history, and historians, sculptors, architects, editors, and literary authors lock to meet the demand. In short, the amount of those who actively cultivate history grows in proportion to the number of passive history bufs. A third and inal item of change I want to call attention to is the domain expansion that history now undergoes. History is no longer accessible only by reading about it in history books; it may now also be ‘read’ as it were in literature, in the ine arts, in architecture. If we now take these three items together, we get at the core of what it meant to see history on the move from a space enclosed into the public sphere. We should not consider these three items in isolation from each other. Appropriation has to do directly with the French Revolution, that is, with this singular phenomenon that the citizens saw history change before their very eyes so directly as to make it their own. he growth of interest is a natural consequence thereof. Furthermore, the revolution facilitated the very step toward appropriation. No exclusive privileges had been let. he third item in its turn, domain expansion, had a direct impact upon the growth of interest and made it mediagenic. Ann Rigney calls this the topological principle. She thinks that the cultivation of history may proceed in two distinct ways, either revisionist or topological. In the one case the historian corrects his predecessor, in the other he shits his attention toward another domain of reality, toward a subject not yet treated before.26 She inds the latter case exempliied in particular with the new Romantic historians, for instance with Jules Michelet and homas Macaulay. Neither writes ‘revisionist history’ with its ongoing correction of predecessors. Rather, they expand the domain of history by vast stretches in that they pay Camille Desmoulins, La france libre (S.l.: s.p., 1789), 7. Ann Rigney, ‘De stiltes van de geschiedenis. De grenzen van de historische kennis als romantisch erfdeel’. Jo Tollebeek, Frank Ankersmit, Wessel Krul (eds.), Romantiek & historische cultuur (Groningen: Historische Uitgeverij, 1996), 129–146, here 130. 25

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attention to everyday life, to the people, to customs and habits. Before the revolution history looked like an invertebrate worm, and ater acquired features of an octopus. he new historians leave aside earlier chronicle writing, with kings and battles at the centre.27 In what follows I shall give a couple of examples of my second guiding thread. he transition of history from a closed environment to the public sphere is where the three items—the appropriation of history, a growing interest, and domain expansion—actually took place. Appropriation Several changes were required to awaken a sense that history involves yourself, that it is not just an external afair of specialists.28 he revolution had an immediate impact upon people’s lives, and gave them a feeling that they could themselves make history. his is not true of the French only. In all of Europe the efects of the revolution made themselves readily apparent. hey were succeeded without a pause by the Napoleonic wars and by the national movements that, in turn, followed in their wake. Whether Prussian or Englishman or Flemish or Dutchman or Italian, everyone in Europe got involved one way or another in revolutionary movements or wars in course of the nineteenth century. his produced the idea that history is your own. But the turn toward earlier history is not yet made thereby. Appropriation produces a dual attitude toward the past. People are simultaneously subject and object. You are history, and you can make a narrative out of it.29 hat way you enter a web of mutually related stories, in the present but also in the past. An awareness to be part of a larger process leads to a desire to seek for resemblances. Historians had meanwhile

Remarkably, already J. Wagenaar’s twenty-one-volume history of the Netherlands, which appeared between 1749 and 1759 and was quite inluential, dealt with the history of the people and of liberty. See P.B.M. Blaas, Geschiedenis en nostalgie. De historiograie van een kleine natie met een groot verleden. Verspreide historiograische opstellen (Hilversum: Verloren, 20003), 10–11; Auke van der Woud, De Bataafse hut. Verschuivingen in het beeld van de geschiedenis (1750–1850) (Amsterdam: Meulenhof, 1990), 24–25. 28 Cf. Bann 1995, 5. He argues that historical consciousness is a product of Romanticism: ‘for the irst time historical data became meaningful not only to a small band of passionately committed “antiquarians” but to a mass reading public’. 29 he idea of the subject/object position of history stems from Hegel’s Philosophy of History. See on this subject Bann 1995, 11–16. 27

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come to a conviction that the present must be understood from the past. And now a search started for resemblances, not rational explanations so much, but rather times and circumstances that might evoke emotions comparable to one’s own. hat is, you seek for what belongs properly to you in what is distant and far away. For such a way of dealing with the past it is minimally required to gain access to the sources of history. I have already pointed out how rapidly a law was adopted in France that secured public access to the archives. Only Sweden had preceded the revolutionary assembly in this regard, but that is because Sweden had already in the eighteenth century undergone a velvet revolution, due to which the king had been robbed of his legislative powers. So here it was already in 1766 that a law was established which regulated access to the archives. Further, already before the revolution the Jansenists in France had insisted upon public access in their Maximes du droit public français, of which a second, expanded impression appeared in Amsterdam in 1775. Among the authors was Camus, whom we have met already as, later, the irst national archivist of France. In the Netherlands the problem of archival collections did not arise until the third decade of the nineteenth century. Here public access was regulated by law in 1829. It has served others as an example in its turn.30 Public access to the libraries runs in parallel, and this gave an enormous boost to the cultivation of history. he French Royal Library was turned into a national library. Studies that in the irst decades of the nineteenth century were devoted to medieval literature, to Provençal lyrics, or to oriental issues, can be traced back without exception to new sources thus becoming available. Not that this point of departure was particularly loty, as what new items now appeared did not so much emerge from the cellars of the royal library, but rather from the book collections of smashed abbeys and monasteries, or from booty the French army had captured abroad. Incidentally, part of these monastic possessions became subject in the end to the forces of the free market, like earlier the possessions of the Society of Jesus, which had been abolished already in 1773.31 hat is where and how antiquarians and other amateurs grabbed the chance to build their private collections.

30 hese factual data about the archives are taken mostly from Ribberink 1980 (passim) and Blaas 20003, 17. 31 Leerssen 20041 also points this out.

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Many of these collectors were only too pleased to present themselves in public with their precious possessions, and oten they let them to a national library. Take for instance Karel van Hulthem, a Flemish bibliophile who purchased numerous books and manuscripts that stemmed from abolished abbeys. When the times quietened down, he founded a city library to which he let his collection. It has in its turn become the foundation of Ghent University library. Van Hulthem had in his possession one of the most precious manuscripts studded with Dutch medieval texts, and it has properly been named ater him. Larger audiences he process of appropriation caused far larger numbers than before to come within the spell of history. But it also caused people to face past riddles and mysteries that fascinated precisely because they looked insoluble. Much curiosity was evoked by peculiar relicts from the past, and pop-science journals arose which published articles about them. Geology and classic archaeology developed as distinct disciplines, and found an immense resonance among the public at large. Geology, although incidentally cultivated before, came up as a new scientiic specialty. In 1785 James Hutton showed a learned society in London a handful of stones, explaining that the Earth could not but be far older than the bible indicated. A debate followed about the origins of basalt, with Plutonists and Neptunists throwing as it were stones at each other which should prove their origin in volcanic or oceanic action, respectively. Fossils made for a discipline of its own, and William Smith drew the irst geological map of England, while Leopold von Buch did the same for Germany. Perhaps the most spectacular crowd puller was the decipherment of hieroglyphic script. In 1798 general Napoleon conquered Egypt. His primary objective was expansion of the French realm and of the ideals of the Revolution, but at the same time there was a large interest in the secrets of this old nation. In the footsteps of the army followed a group of historians and archaeologists. Already during the revolution an Oriental school of higher learning had been founded in Paris, and Napoleon recruited his scholars from among the men who studied various younger and older languages there. In Cairo they established the Institut de l’Égypte, which investigated the far-away past. In 1799, occupied with tearing down a fortress in the neighbourhood of Rosetta, soldiers

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discovered a curious stone with Greek inscriptions and also unknown ones. hey realised its value at once and, so the story goes, put down their hatchets and dug up the stone with their bare hands. he stone of Rosetta was moved to the institute in Cairo. In 1802 British troops successfully invaded Egypt and beat the French. he antiquities collected in the Institut gave rise to a serious conlict. he French even threatened to burn them all, but the British managed to get hold of the stone and transported it to England, where it ended up in the British Museum. It has since been on the move twice. In the First World War it was hidden in a subway station. In 1972 it was granted a one month stay in the Louvre. But Egypt, that wants its stone back, has not received for its pains more than a replica, and even that not until 2005. he deinitive decipherment of the hieroglyph script on the stone has been the work of the Frenchman Jean-François Champollion, and his discovery brought about a new boost of oriental studies. he entire chain of events, from discovery through transportation to ultimate decipherment of the stone gained much attention from the media. Quite possibly the fascination of literary authors and painters like Byron and Delacroix for products and people of the Orient has something to do with the enormous attraction exerted by the stone of Rosetta. Domain expansion in history Historiography experienced an unprecedented lourishing and renewal in the years 1823–1827, when the ‘nouvelle histoire’, or Romantic history writing was launched by authors like Amable Barante and Augustin hierry. heir approach to history truly difers a great deal from their eighteenth century predecessors.32 hierry goes farther than any of the others. He is oten counted as the man to discover the Middle Ages—long before Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie. He took his predecessors to task for impoverishing history—in their accounts inspiration, a soul, life itself were lacking. Furthermore, their way of writing history failed to narrate true history, the history of citizens and of their striving for liberty. he new historiography ought to be unconventional, not rhetorical, not pompous, but rather in full light. No one has phrased

32

For Romantic historiography I follow Tollebeek 2000.

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these sentiments in iner words than Alfred de Vigny, who wrote that history is a novel, with the people for its author.33 hese Romantic historians saw history as a rhythmic succession of periods of lourishing and decay, with oten large crises in between. In this manner they gave a suitable place in history to the French Revolution, which could now be compared with earlier crises, such as notably the period of the large migrations when barbarians kept invading the Roman empire. Metaphors borrowed from nature, like earthquakes and volcanoes, served to describe these crises, and their explosions were taken to be invested with a healing power. he new historian who took it upon himself to describe these processes was comparable to Champollion: his task was to decipher secret codes.34 As soon as history ceases to consider battles only, much new history presents itself ready-made for being described.35 Not only history from a new point of view, but also history of language, of literature, of popular music, of customs and habits. As Anne Marie hiesse has shown, in course of the nineteenth century new histories appeared on all these subjects, which in most cases may be linked up with nationalism.36 Expansion concerned even more than the subjects that were henceforward held it to be examined by scholars. Ongoing appropriation of history meant that artists, too, felt entitled to occupy themselves with the past. he experts of the eighteenth century formed a closed circle, and at the end of the nineteenth this shall happen all over again, when professionalisation becomes predominant. But in the irst half of the century the most prominent historians are artists. Walter Scott, héodore Géricault, and Victor Hugo have contributed more to how history was experienced than Leopold von Ranke or Augustin hierry. Historically informed painting was in its heyday. he Revolutionary government quickly used it as a tool to make its programme known. he impact of paintings like héodore Géricault’s ‘he rat of I owe this to Tollebeek 2000, 56, 64. On the metaphorics of the new historian and his decoding task, see P.B.M. Blaas (ed.), De burgerlijke eeuw. Over eeuwwenden, liberale burgerij en geschiedschrijving (Hilversum: Verloren, 20001), 63–70 and Tollebeek 2000. 35 In 1826 King William I of the Netherlands set up a prize competition for a new national history of the united kingdom. More than forty entrants submitted an outline. Before any of them could sit down to commit the full work to paper the kingdom fell apart. With the Netherlands and Belgium separated, the new national history came to naught. Cf. Blaas 20003, 17. 36 Anne-Marie hiesse, La création des identités nationales. Europe XVIIIe–XXe siècle (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1999), 133–158. 33 34

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the Medusa’ and Jacques-Louis David’s portrait of a heroic Napoleon was immense. Here we must take into account as well the technological advances that the nineteenth century produced. he invention of lithography made it possible to distribute reproductions on a large scale. he opening of what had once been royal collections was surely important, as I have indicated, but less so than the development just mentioned, which enabled mythical representations of patriotic heroes to spread all over Europe. In the Netherlands much popularity was gained by a print of an early medieval lady, Genoveva of Brabant—a faithful spouse who was falsely accused of inidelity and who lived for seven years with her little son in a cave.37 In literature it all comes together he most substantial contribution to all these deeds of expansion comes from literature. As soon as literature throws itself upon history, genuine massiication ensues. Insofar as this concerns literature in German, French, and English, the efects are Europe-wide, as successful books in these languages are translated almost immediately. Friedrich Schiller reaches a European audience in French and English, in Italian and in Dutch. His historical drama Don Carlos, that deals with the Dutch Revolt against Spain, became a source of inspiration for freedom ighters in countries that sought to get rid of a dictatorship or of foreign rule. Even so, the true Napoleon of historical literature is without any doubt Walter Scott. In his work the three aspects of the ‘free access to history’ come together. His attention to the regional or national past enabled the reader to identify with his presentation. He communicated to his readers a sense that history deals with yourself, with your own territory, he made it clear that you cannot walk a forest path or cross the heath without contemplating the steps your forebears have once made there. he division in chronological layers that geologists had designed for stones and fossils was applied by Scott to historical localities. Underneath the path you walked on you felt the hoobeat See for the inluence exerted by the new, nineteenth century techniques upon reproductions of works of art: Robert Verhoogt, Art in Reproduction. NineteenthCentury Prints ater Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Jozef Israëls and Ary Schefer (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2007). 37

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produced by the horses of medieval knights who had once upon a time been riding there. His historical novels were not predominantly cognitive or moralistic, as was customary before. He aimed to play upon people’s hearts and minds and emotions by evoking empathy with the past, and in this manner he brought about an increase in the number of history adepts. his did not happen the direct way only. A good deal of the new interest was due to authors inspired by Scott. In the Netherlands the most popular historical novelist was Jacob van Lennep, who never sought to cover up the inluence he had undergone from Walter Scott. Finally, Scott attained a widening of the domains of history by means of his attention to couleur locale. A ruin, a tombstone, a costume, an old pipe are more interesting objects for historical attention than the chronicles that earlier literary authors used when they wrote about the past. Literature, then, put the seal on free access to the past. By its means history gained the attention of audiences that had come to participate in cultural life on a larger scale than before due to a range of innovations in printing techniques. he past let the sphere of antiquarians, of elite collectors behind and became public property. All this was conirmed in education, where from the nineteenth century onward history became obligatory, and the universities created the irst chairs in national history. It has since become a truism: history belongs to everyone. At least in Europe, history has won its own battle for liberté, fraternité, and égalité. If we compare the human mind to a house, then this is the picture emerging: Before the revolution, history inhabited a cellar that was opened but rarely. Ater the revolution the cellar has become a self-evident loor in the house of the mind. My granddad sensed this when he sought to imprint our little heads with the temporal caesura brought about by the French Revolution.

MODERNISING THE PAST: THE LIFE OF THE GAULS UNDER THE FRENCH REPUBLIC Anne-Marie hiesse Heritage Days are among the recently developed European traditions. Created by former minister of culture Jack Lang in 1984, Heritage Days have experienced great success in France (in 1991 the Council of Europe incited the forty-nine states that had signed the European Cultural Agreement to organise a similar event). During the third weekend of September, everybody in France has free access to historic buildings that are normally used by private owners, irms, or political institutions. About iteen thousand monuments can be visited over the whole territory of France. Some of these buildings are prestigious, like the National Assembly or the Palais de l’Elysée (the residence of the French president, who every year serves as a museum guide). But one can also visit convents, old industrial buildings, private mansions, and so on. his ‘free access to the past’ has become one of the most important public events in the French calendar. In September 2007, there were about twelve million visitors during Heritage Days, many more than those attending the Christmas mass. Another use of the past gave rise to much debate in France in 2007. Soon ater his election, Nicolas Sarkozy announced that his irst decision as French president would be to initiate a national commemoration of Guy Môquet, a young Communist resistant who was executed by the Nazis in 1941. For decades, Guy Môquet had been an icon of the Communist party. President Sarkozy decided that the last letter written by Guy Môquet to his parents should be read in every class of French high schools. Some days later, the president formed his government, which was characterised by the notable fact that it included several let-wing politicians. he so-called politique d’ouverture (political opening), which was launched by the right-wing president and has seriously shaken the opposition, had been prepared by a ‘political opening’ in the French national past. hese two examples taken from recent public life in France correspond to the main uses of past in European modernity. Modern

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citizens are frequent users of the past. Visiting the past has become part of our mass culture. However, it relates not only to monuments or museum visits because the past is also largely used in novels, movies, television programs, and video games. he past is our next-door exoticism1 and a leisure consumption. It is also the usual framework of everyday life: the names of streets or subway stations and the statues in public spaces are constant reminders of the past. Nowadays in France, more than forty thousand buildings are oicially registered as ‘historic monuments’ and are under state protection. he number of these historic monuments has never ceased to grow since the nineteenth century. Europeans cannot imagine a proper town without an old town, with its picturesque areas renovated ‘in the old style’. he recent evolution in central and eastern European towns provides new examples of this European conception of a ‘pleasant’ past as the necessary core of modernity. Numerous housing estates have been built in the suburbs, and architects have imagined solutions to reshape the sad uniformity of the buildings made during the Soviet era. However, at the same time, old areas have been restored: they are now overcrowded touristy places and residential neighbourhoods for rich people. We use the past as rich fodder for our imagination and aesthetic sensations and as a proof of well-being. We also use the past as a reserve of clues to explain the present and change it. We think that the past provides us free lessons about the way we should understand current problems and how we should act. hat is why history is taught at school, why the past is an issue in political debates. his brings to mind the recent ‘memory wars’ concerning, in the French case, state policy during the Nazi occupation or colonialism. hese battles about the past are clearly linked to the current problems of immigration and the status of foreigners. hus the museum dedicated to the history of immigration (Cité de l’Immigration, located in a building erected for the colonial exhibition held in 1931) was involved in a political struggle in 2007, since the creation by the new government of a Ministry of Immigration and National Identity was denounced by many historians as oicially condoning xenophobia and as a radical contradiction with the aims of the museum. he museum was opened

1 David Lowenthal, he Past is a Foreign Country (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).

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in October 2007, but there was no inauguration, which shows clearly that the past is a crucial element in current politics. One of the main characteristics of our modernity is that the past is omnipresent. he past invades the present. Yet it is constantly invaded by the present. he border between past and present is porous. Past and present relect each other as in a mirror. his relationship between past and present is a cornerstone of our modernity. Taking action on the past means taking action on the present. he drastic changes of the two past centuries have been linked with a complete reshaping of the past. Our past is a modernised past. he modern conception of the nation, as it was expressed by the French philosopher Ernest Renan, clearly considers past and present as the two sides of a same coin, or a Janus face: Une nation est une âme, un principe spirituel. Deux choses, qui à vrai dire, n’en font qu’une, constituent cette âme, ce principe spirituel. L’une est dans le passé, l’autre dans le présent. L’une est la possession en commun d’un riche legs de souvenirs, l’autre est le consentement actuel, le désir de vivre ensemble. . . . Avoir des gloires communes dans le passé, une volonté commune dans le présent, avoir fait de grandes choses ensemble, vouloir en faire encore, voilà les conditions essentielles pour la constitution d’un peuple.2

Modern nations that were created since the end of the eighteenth century have their real origins in a break with their past. he French Revolution stressed this rupture with the invention of a new calendar: the new era was declared to start with the proclamation of the First Republic in September 1792. he revolutionary calendar was abolished thirteen years later. In reality, however, modern nations have been built on and rooted in a reshaping of the past rather than on its abolition. A new past has been produced, which matches the changes of modernity. he people of the nineteenth century had faith in progress while worshiping the past. he road to the future was then conceived as the return to genuine roots, to ancient origins. he metaphor of

2 Ernest Renan, ‘Qu’est-ce qu’une nation?’. Conférence donnée en Sorbonne le 11 mars 1882. Paris: Agora Pocket, 1992. ‘A nation is a soul, a spiritual principle. Two things, which, in truth, are really one, constitute this soul, this spiritual principle. One is in the past, the other in the present. One is the possession in common of a rich legacy of memories, the other is the present day consent, the desire to live together. . . . To have the glory of the past in common, a shared will in the present, to have done great deeds together, and want to do more of them, are the essential conditions for the constitution of a people’.

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Sleeping Beauty, of the nation that must be awakened, was commonly used in the name of nationalistic movements during the nineteenth century: Risorgimento, Renaixança, and so on. If the future was presented as a necessary return to the past, it implied, of course, that this modern past was properly forged to match this goal. he modernisation of the past that occurred during the nineteenth century was based on new values ascribed to the past. he new past had to be true and rational. It had to be beautiful and pleasant. Moreover, the past was nationalised.3 he national past deserves respect, worship, and love. It has been established as a collective master narrative and a wonderful common heritage. Modern uses of the past, such as a political reference or individual or collective consumption, are not independent. hey are in fact closely tied. he modernisation of the past was accomplished simultaneously by means of intellectual, scientiic, and aesthetic processes. Of course, artists, scholars, associations, or political leaders were not using the same procedures: sometimes they were competing. Nevertheless, their eforts and results reinforced each other in the reshaping of the past. Gauls as Modernisation of the Past he modern history of the ancestors of the French—that is, the Gauls—can be taken as an illustration of this modernisation of the past. ‘Autrefois, notre pays s’appelait la Gaule et ses habitants s’appelaient les Gaulois’.4 Since the creation of the Republican school system in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, millions of French children have learned the history of their ancestors at an early age. But when the long-selling textbook Histoire de France by Ernest Lavisse was irst published (1884), ‘our ancestors the Gauls’ had not occupied this position for two thousand years. heir length of service did not exceed two republics—that is, a little less than a century.

3 Anne-Marie hiesse, La création des identités nationales. Europe XVIIIe–XXe siècle (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1999). 4 Ernest Lavisse, Histoire de France, cours élémentaire (Paris: Librairie Armand Colin, 1884), 1. ‘In the ancient times our country was named Gaul and his inhabitants the Gauls’.

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In fact, the Gauls had already played a role in the political controversies of the Ancien Régime.5 When the king of France started to reinforce his power against the aristocracy and expressed his will to control their privileges, some spokesmen of the aristocrats declared that these privileges had been won by the ancestors of the aristocrats, the Franks, when they conquered the territory of Gaul. hey claimed that the king was then not allowed to suppress these privileges. Even if the French aristocracy was not able to prevent absolutism, this argument was a irst expression of a theory that was reused when the French Revolution occurred. It was the theory of a bi-ethnic composition of the French population: on the one hand, there were the descendants of the Franks, that is, the monarch and the aristocracy, and on the other hand, there were the descendants of the Gauls, that is, the hird Estate. In the pamphlet Qu’est-ce que le Tiers Etat? (What is the hird Estate?), published in 1789, the revolutionary Abbé Sieyès declared that the true French nation, that is, the Gauls, should purify itself and expel to the forests of Germany the foreign oppressors, that is, the aristocracy. At the time of French Revolution, the rooster came to symbolise the French nation.6 Since this animal was named ‘gallus’ in Latin, it was associated with the Gallic origins of the French nation. Nevertheless, references to the Gauls were rather uncommon in the revolutionary speeches. Because of their education, Republican leaders were prone to understanding the New World through the classical model of the Roman Republic. But the times were changing in favour of the barbarians; the French life of the Gauls was dawning. In 1802, Josephine de Beauharnais, the wife of Napoleon Bonaparte, irst saw the dining room of her new mansion, La Malmaison. On the wall she could admire her glorious husband, followed by his troops, entering the Ossian Paradise. Bonaparte had ordered this painting to be done by Girodet in 1801. he painting was named he Shadows of French Heroes Greeted by Ossian in the Celestian Elysium. he French queens had been used to admiring their royal husbands among the gods of the Olympus or the angels of the Christian heaven. he pantheon into which Bonaparte and his generals entered belonged to a much more modern antiquity, so modern that the painter Girodet, when he Krzysztof Pomian, ‘Francs et Gaulois’. Pierre Nora (ed.), Les lieux de mémoire (7 vols.; Paris: Gallimard, 1984–1992), 3.1:41–105. 6 Michel Pastoureau, ‘Le Coq gaulois’. Pierre Nora (ed.), Les lieux de mémoire (7 vols.; Paris: Gallimard, 1984–1992), 3.3:507–539. 5

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presented his painting at the Salon in 1802, provided a several-page description to explain the scene. Bonaparte was fond of the Scottish epic, and he was said to carry the text with him, in the Italian translation, on all battleields. he Ossian antiquity was the most valued antiquity in Europe at the time. Yet it was not a French antiquity. his was a problem—particularly in 1802. In fact, the United Kingdom, the strongest enemy of Napoleonic France, was already appropriating the Ossian epic as part of its own heritage. It is not cautious to borrow one’s heroic past from one’s biggest enemy. France needed an antiquity of its own. It had to ind Celtic ancestors like the heroes of the Scottish epic, but they had to be speciic to France. he Gauls received the position. An academy dedicated to enhancing French antiquity was founded in Paris in 1805 and was named ‘l’Académie Celtique’.7 Since the French nation was predestined, as its leaders believed, to be the irst among the European nations, it was then declared to have the best ancestors and to have maintained the closest ties to these prestigious origins.8 Part of the population of Brittany spoke Celtic dialects at the time: Brittany was then considered a living museum of Gaul, a kind of ‘open-air museum’ of the national origins (that is why the village of Asterix le Gaulois is now located in Brittany. Knowledge about the Gauls was at the time rather poor, deriving mostly from the writing of Julius Caesar, De Bello Gallico (he War against the Gauls). Like every general having to justify a long and expensive war, Julius Caesar had described his enemies as extremely courageous and good warriors. hat was a good characteristic for the Gauls, or rather, for their reinvention as national ancestors. But it was necessary to know more about their culture. he Académie Celtique opened a new ield of research, corresponding to the new ways of exploring the national past. he peasantry was then considered part of the nation that had remained deeply rooted in the genuine culture of the ancestors. his original culture was said to have been transmitted over a period of centuries through tradition. Ethnographical 7 Nicole Belmont (ed.), L’Académie celtique (Paris: Editions du Comité des Travaux Historiques, 1996). 8 héophile Malo Corret de La Tour d’Auvergne, Origines gauloises, celles des plus anciens peuples d’Europe puisées dans leur vraie source ou Recherches sur la langue, l’origine et les antiquités des Celto-Bretons de l’Armorique, pour servir à l’histoire ancienne et moderne de ce peuple, et à celle des Français (Paris: s.p., 1797; Hamburg: s.p., 1801); Jacques Cambry, Voyage dans le Finistère (Paris: Imprimerie-librairie du Cercle Social, 1799).

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enquiries were then conceived of as archaeological excavations into the national past. he Académie Celtique launched a wide-ranging questionnaire about popular customs, dialects, and sayings.9 Until the mid-nineteenth century, French folklorists oten described popular rituals or even dress as relics of Gallic culture. Art and Literature Reshaping the Gauls At irst, representations of the Gallic culture were directly inspired by Ossianism (for example, in the novel Les Martyrs, by Chateaubriand, whose heroine was the druidess Velleda, or in the opera Norma, by Bellini, which was staged for the irst time in 1831 in Paris). But progressively, a speciic Gallic culture took shape under the inluence of historical research and the evolution of the French nation. he idea of a bi-ethnic population of France was still supported by the historian Augustin hierry10 and the politician Guizot11 under the Restauration regime. In his book, Guizot depicted the French Revolution as a war for freedom. his conception of the French nation was also at the core of the thousand-page novel Les Mystères du Peuple by Eugène Sue, the famous author of the Mystères de Paris, who had become a Socialist-Republican activist. Ater the revolution of June 1848, desperate because of the ‘fratricidal’ struggles between the bourgeoisie and working class, Sue wanted to explain that the members of the former hird Estate were in fact brothers, sharing the same interests and having the same aristocratic enemies in common. he novel was then conceived as a saga, following the same Breton family through two thousand years of French history, from the primitive Gaul before the Roman conquest until 1848. Interestingly, this historical novel presents numerous footnotes that quote historians and refer to written documents and objects that are given as evidence of the events described in the iction.

9 Mona Ozouf, ‘L’invention de l’ethnographie française: le questionnaire de l’Académie Celtique’. Annales ESC 36.2 (1981), 210–223. 10 Augustin hierry, ‘Sur l’antipathie de race qui divise la nation française’. Le Censeur européen, 2 avril 1820. 11 François Guizot, Du gouvernement de la France depuis la restauration et du ministère actuel (Paris: Ladvocat, 1829).

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Historical research was then beginning to deine its new methods. Modern history presents itself as a quest for the true past based on documents and material sources. In the irst decades of the nineteenth century, secular literati devoted themselves to the new science, and specialised institutions were created to collect, protect, and study the documents of the past. hese documents, purported to provide evidence of the national past, were then seen as a kind of public property. he Monumenta Germania were set up by Herr von Stein in 1819; the French Ecole des Chartes, dedicated to the study of old documents, was founded in 1821. At the same time, the novels written by Walter Scott, soon translated in many European languages, presented a new poetic and intellectual pattern, which was greeted as the best basis for the desired new master narrative—that is, national history. he irst History of the Gauls was published in 1828. he author was Amédée hierry, the brother of Augustin hierry, a great admirer of Walter Scott. In this book, the public could discover the irst hero of French history, chronologically speaking. Vercingétorix was a Gallic nobleman who brought together divided Gallic tribes and launched a campaign against the Roman troops. He won a battle in Gergovia (a site now close to the town of Clermont-Ferrand), but he was defeated in Alesia (now in Burgundy). Vercingetorix was mentioned by Julius Caesar, but he never played a big role in Roman historiography, and he had been rather forgotten until 1820.12 In fact, his late resurgence as a national hero was related to the need to have a French counterpart to the new national German hero, Arminius. Arminius, mentioned in Germania by Tacitus, was a German chief who won a battle against the Roman troops in the year 9 A.D. He was rediscovered in the eighteenth century when German literati, like Klopstock, tried to come up with a glorious past for a divided Germany. Arminius, whose name was germanised as Herrmann, became a famous national hero in Germany at the time of the Napoleonic wars. He was celebrated as a leading igure for the national resistance against the French invaders. Ater the Vienna Congress, France needed such a hero, symbolising the new values of the liberals: love for freedom, unity of the people, and self-sacriice for the sake of the community.

12 Christian Goudineau, Le Dossier Vercingétorix (Arles: Actes Sud, 2001); Jérôme Prieur, Vercingétorix (DVD, Arte Video, 2007).

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During the nineteenth century, historical and artistic works moulded Vercingetorix into a rich character. In 1864 he was the theme of the poetic contest organised by the Académie française. he following year, the historian Henri Martin published Vercingétorix, Drama in 5 Acts, where the Gallic chief and Julius Caesar were arguing in verse. Sculptors gave also shape to Vercingetorix. Bartholdi (the sculptor of the famous Statue of Liberty) started to forge a statue of Vercingetorix in 1866. It was to compete with the huge monument prepared in Germany by the sculptor Ernst von Bandel to celebrate Arminius. A massive fund-raising efort had been launched in the German states to inance the monument as a symbol of the German will to unify the nation. he German monument, Arminius Denkmal, was erected in the Teutoburger Wald in 1875. he statue of Vercingetorix had been inished in 1870, but soon ater this, the French army was defeated by the German coalition. here was no more money to carry out the project. hus the statue was erected in Clermont-Ferrand only in 1903. Other Celtic heroes emerged in several European nations during the nineteenth century. All of them were symbols of national resistance, national unity, and national love for freedom (for example, Daecebalus, the Dacian king in Romania; Ambiorix, the Belgian Gaul; or the inhabitants of Numancia in Spain who resisted the Roman troops as their descendants did the Napoleonic armies). Among these Celtic heroes, there was only one woman, Boadicea, whose name was supposed to mean ‘victory’ in old Gallic; of course, she was a British heroine, and her statue looked like Queen Victoria. he development of archaeology contributed to the knowledge of the Gallic past through the discovery of new documents. Napoleon the hird supported such research. he Empereur did not appreciate the Republican conception of the Gauls. He even forbade the sale of the Mystères du Peuple by Eugène Süe, and hawkers caught by the police with copies of the novel were arrested and sent to jail. But Napoleon the hird was a big admirer of Julius Caesar and encouraged scientiic knowledge concerning Caesar’s campaign in Gaul. He helped establish the excavations of Alésia, which unearthed much material concerning the Roman and the Gallic armies. he Musée des Antiquités nationales (Museum of national antiquities), with a large display of Gallic relics, was opened in the castle of Saint-Germain-en-Laye in 1862.

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anne-marie thiesse Reenvisioning the Gauls

he conception of the Gauls was changing. he process of nation building needed a new approach to the origins of the nation. First, the Gauls had been considered ancestors of popular resistance and ancient Republicans who could be used as models for insurrections and revolutions. But the nation was more and more seen as a transsocial community in its bringing together, in the same brotherhood, all of the social classes. he ‘past makers’ then efected a merging between two antagonistic pasts. On the one hand was the Roman past, which was the basis of French classical heritage and was still the main reference of elite culture (at the end of the nineteenth century, the learning of Latin was the cornerstone of bourgeois education). On the other hand was the barbarian past, which was more characteristic for Republican values and popular culture. he Roman conquest of Gaul was then characterised as an introduction to civilisation rather than a defeat by enemies. Romanised Gaul was described as a happy country, which had enjoyed literacy and beautiful towns, roads, and aqueducts. Somehow it was an equivalent of France in the second half of the nineteenth century, when literacy was developing, railroads and canals were constructed, and towns were embellished. It was said that through the romanisation of Gaul, the strength of character of the barbarian ancestors had been preserved, but civilised. he regime of the hird Republic ater 1870 stressed this new approach to the origins of the nation, most notably in mass education.13 ‘Nos ancêtres les Gaulois’ (Our ancestors the Gauls) then became the irst chapter of the history textbooks at primary school, and ‘Gallo-Romains’ (‘Roman-Gauls’), the second chapter, functioned as a kind of natural and successful progression. he Gauls, with whom every citizen had started to learn national history at school, thus became the familiar ancestors of the French, oten used for advertising French rural or even industrial products. For decades, the most popular cigarettes in France were the so-called Gauloises, whose blue package was decorated with a Gallic helmet. he idea that the popular ‘French spirit’ was somehow rooted in a Gallic heritage was still popular in the twentieth century. For example,

13 G. Bruno (alias of Madame Fouillée), Le Tour de la France par deux enfants (Paris: Librairie classique Belin, 1877).

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Henri Chamard, professor of Renaissance literature at the Sorbonne, published a book about French poetry during the Renaissance in 1920, in which he explained that the ‘Gallic spirit’ inspired some pieces of this literature: ‘Lorsque nous parlons d’esprit gaulois, nous entendons toujours un esprit où domine la gaîté un peu libre du vieux temps’.14 he Gauls were still used in political battles, but now as patriotic ighters against the new ‘eternal’ enemy of France—that is, Germany. he antagonism between these nations was said to have started in the most ancient times. One late example of this anachronism was provided by General de Gaulle in 1949: ‘Il y aura, ou il n’y aura pas d’Europe, selon la possibilité d’un accord sans intermédiaire entre Gaulois et Germains’.15 Ater World War I, the Gauls were sometimes represented as guardian angels of the dead soldiers on war memorials. he Regime of Marshall Petain, under German occupation, tried to use this reference to the Gauls as a patriotic symbol serving its propaganda. he regime created a new national order, the so-called francisque, which was, as its creator said, inspired by Gallic weapons. Young Francois Mitterand was bestowed with this order, being at the time close to the Petain regime. Still, many years later, when he was the let-wing candidate in the presidential election, François Mitterand signed the preface of a reissue of Mystères du Peuple by Eugène Sue, the old version of the revolutionary myth of the Gauls. Ater succeeding to unify let-wing parties under his candidacy, Mitterrand encouraged archaeological excavations and the opening of a Celtic museum on the site of Bibracte. In 1985 he inaugurated a monument there; his speech celebrated the place where, for the irst time, ‘the unity of the Gallic chiefs was achieved around Vercingétorix’. It was said that President Mitterand had wished to be buried on this place. In June 2006 and 2007, Arnaud Montebourg, a Socialist politician and spokesman for Ségolène Royal during the 2007 presidential campaign, organised a political pilgrimage to this Gallic ‘lieu de mémoire’.

14 Henri Chamard, Les origines de la Poésie française de la Renaissance (Paris: E. de Boccard, 1920). ‘When we speak of Gallic spirit, we mean a spirit inspired by the spicy gaiety of the old times’. 15 Charles de Gaulle, Discours prononcé à Bordeaux (25 septembre 1949). ‘Europe will exist, or not, depending on the possibility of an agreement without intermediary between Gauls and Germans’.

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Worshiping barbarian ancestors and translating contemporary conlicts into ancient wars has been frequent in eastern Europe in the recent past. But it is rather uncommon in western European countries. Yet the Gauls enjoy a new life on the contemporary French public scene. Young people in multicultural suburbs use the names ‘Blacks’, ‘Beurs’, and ‘Gaulois’ to categorise people with African, Maghrebian, or European origins. It is probably due to the fact that the Gauls are now identiied with the cartoon characters of Astérix.16 Around 1960, the Gauls had somehow become ridiculous. hey vanished from school books, but they became the heroes of another mass media for the youth: the comic book Astérix, which enjoyed immediate, huge success. he authors of Astérix deliberately stressed the anachronistic point of view in the conception of the Gauls, and they projected the daily life of contemporary French people into the era of the Gauls. A new life was then given to the old ancestors, who now may be used for very diferent political goals. President Jacques Chirac was honoured as a true Gaul in a book (Chirac le Gaulois) published by his friend, the writer Tillinac.17 On the other side of the political spectrum, the activist Jose Bové with his walrus moustache, stages the adventures of Astérix le Gaulois against GMOs and globalisation. he French story of the Gauls illustrates how the modernisation of the past intertwined scholarly work and cultural fabrication by writers and artists. National past has been taught at school and consumed in everyday life and leisure times. It has been patriotic and serious, but also familiar or even an object of satire. It has been more and more ideologically malleable, suitable for every kind of political movement, becoming a common good for citizens.

16 René Goscinny & Albert Uderzo, Astérix le Gaulois (24 vols.; Paris: Dargaud: 1961–1978). 17 Denis Tillinac, Chirac le Gaulois (Paris: La Table Ronde, 2002).

FROM BÖKENDORF TO BERLIN: PRIVATE CAREERS, PUBLIC SPHERE, AND HOW THE PAST CHANGED IN JACOB GRIMM’S LIFETIME Joep Leerssen Histoire-bataille: an introduction he years 1801–1806 form a turbulent watershed in European cultural history. he events of the Napoleonic wars followed each other in rapid succession and threw western Europe into a ive-year-long constitutional rollercoaster ride. A brief rehearsal of the concatenation of upheavals may be useful to convey a proper period lavour, for it is in this period of rapid constitutional transition that we must situate some of the most incisive developments in the philological and cultural preoccupation with the past. Ater the Battle of Hohenlinden (9 December 1800), Napoleon obtained from the defeated Holy Roman Empire all territories on the let bank of the Rhine,1 thereby realizing a French geopolitical dream that he had inherited from Louis XIV and Danton. Immediately aterwards, these Rhineland territories were incorporated into the French diocesan system, which was re-established following Napoleon’s concordat with the pope (signed in mid-1801). his let a number of ecclesiastical immunities (self-governing church institutions within the Holy Roman Empire) in disarray. hey, along with the secular Imperial nobility which had lost let-Rhenish possessions, looked to their liege lord, the Emperor at Vienna, for redress. A plan was drawn up in the course of 1802 to indemnify these beret parties by enfeoing them with parts of the Holy Roman Empire which hitherto had been under direct imperial rule. For the territories concerned, this meant that, whereas they used to be practically self-governing (that is what ‘immediate’ Imperial rule meant in practice), they were now ‘mediatized’ (or, as the term is for ecclesiastical immunities, ‘secularized’), and placed under the authority of a freshly imposed

1

Treaty of Lunéville, February 1801.

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ruler. he plan was approved by the Imperial Diet at Regensburg in February 1803, and entered into force in April of that year. his reshule of the Holy Roman Empire’s constitution also meant that its College of Electors changed, and with it the power base of the Habsburg dynasty—for the title of Holy Roman Emperor, for all that it had been irmly within the Habsburg dynasty over a good few centuries, was not heritable, but subject to an electoral approval with every new imperial succession.2 Among the imperial nobility who sat on the electoral college, the Catholic Rhineland members had always tipped the balance in favour of the Habsburg incumbents. Now these Catholic votes disappeared from the electoral college; their replacements were all Protestant. his meant that the Habsburg Emperor might not manage to see his Catholic dynasty continue in the Imperial dignity for another generation. And in order to pre-empt that scenario, the Holy Roman Emperor declared himself also Emperor of Austria; an inheritable title vested in the Habsburg dynasty. his move (August 1804) was precipitated also by the fact that Napoleon had crowned himself Emperor of the French three months previously (May 1804). Imperial titles were beginning to look like a game of musical chairs. Napoleon threw his imperial weight around by setting up various subaltern kingdoms: the Kingdom of Italy (March 1805, with Eugène de Beauharnais as viceroy) and the Kingdom of Holland (June 1806, with Louis Bonaparte as puppet king). Meanwhile, hostilities continued: Napoleon’s army in fact entered Vienna in force in November 1805, weeks before the fateful Battle of Austerlitz. Subsequent treaty negotiations put the status of northern Germany and Hannover on the table as bargaining chips, and things came to a head in mid-1806. Napoleon created the ‘Confederation of the Rhine’, a cluster of puppet regimes, in July, and weeks later presented an ultimatum that the Holy Roman Emperor should dissolve his empire by mid-August. On 6 August, Francis II complied; he abdicated as Holy Roman Emperor and instead began to use the recently-created fallback title of ‘Emperor of Austria’ (reverting to the numeral Francis I in the process).3 2 An electoral college appointed each incoming emperor—or not; and the potential diiculties involved were of recent memory (witness the problematic inheritance through the female line of Maria heresia, and the War of the Austrian Succession in 1745). 3 Ernst Walder (ed.), Das Ende des alten Reiches: Der Reichsdeputationshauptschluss von 1803 und die Rheinbundakte von 1806 nebst zugehörigen Aktenstücken (Bern: Lang, 1948).

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Nor did that fully settle matters. Prussia, long Austria’s rival and irked by the French encroachment in northern Germany, attempted to step into the power vacuum and presented an ultimatum to Napoleon by late August that France should withdraw beyond the Rhine. It did Prussia little good: in the ensuing battles of Jena and Auerstedt (October 1806), Napoleon won resounding victories and humbled the Prussian state. Out of the debris of Prussian territories and Hannover, he created yet another puppet kingdom: that of Westphalia, entrusted to his brother Jérôme (1807). he Napoleonic hold over the German lands would remain unbroken until ater the Russian campaign of 1812; and the Holy Roman Empire, fully a thousand years ater Charlemagne’s coronation by the pope in 800 ad, had been swept aside by the diminutive Corsican warlord, never to recover. Cultural repercussions I: International turbulence and national historicism hese political events are each of them familiar—so familiar, perhaps, as to become formulaic ciphers rather than concrete carriers of speciic historical information. Jena and Austerlitz have become, irst and foremost, the names of a bridge and a railway station (with attendant metro stops) in Paris. To list these developments here illustrates, I hope, the extent to which they were causally and tightly linked into a ‘domino efect’, and also the breakneck speed at which one upheaval followed another within the space of these mere ive years. he halfdecade 1801–1806 may in fact count as a concatenated meta-event, a Niagara Falls in the low of European history—something that may explain some of the attitudes and career choices of some of the people who lived through them. he philosopher Hegel, for instance, who worked at the University of Jena, saw the wounded of the 1806 battle being carried into the war-shaken town, which may help us understand his (and not only his) half-horriied fascination with Napoleon as a world-historical Titan. he university there would never recover from the efects of the Battle of Jena: students led, and stayed away. Accordingly, Jena’s position as the powerhouse of German Romanticism waned from that moment onwards, and an alternative centre emerged in Heidelberg. Heidelberg had, as a result of the constitutional reshule of 1803, moved into the control of the newly-formed

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territory of Baden, which invested much into that languishing and decrepit university town, bringing it to new, Romantic fame. And it is in Heidelberg, the post-1806 centre of ‘phase two’ of German Romanticism, that Arnim and Brentano published their collection Des Knaben Wunderhorn and the Grimm Brothers published their fairy and folktales, the Kinder- und Hausmärchen.4 he literati and intellectuals of German Romanticism all lived through these events, and many of them were deeply afected by them: Beethoven, Arndt, Friedrich Schlegel, Görres, and others had all greeted the democratic promises of the French Revolution with enthusiasm, and were aghast at the way the republic was now transmogrifying itself into an Empire. hey all felt, and very keenly so, the fact that their own, millennial Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation (for all that it had been a moldering, decrepit institution) was now replaced by a new-fangled foreign military dictatorship claiming imperial dignity.5 A strongly anti-French attitude began to prevail, in a relex that combined political and cultural judgement in equal measure. Politically, the reign of Napoleon was seen as despotic and rigid, imposing on unwilling vanquished populations an uncongenial mode of governance falsely proclaiming itself to be ‘just’ and ‘equitable’. he imposition of Napoleon-style law codes (a written constitution from which are derived a dual code of civil law and criminal law) was seen as an insensitive abolition of the homegrown, traditional systems (‘constitutions’ in the abstract sense of the word) of native case law and jurisprudential custom. Native traditions became all the more cherished as they were being uprooted and abolished by foreign powers. his nostalgic resistance against a despotically-imposed modernization afects much of Europe (it is as prevalent in Burke as it is in Görres), and is one of the driving forces behind the rise of what we now call ‘historicism’.6 he Romantics’ discovery of the Middle

4 Cf. Terry Pinkard, Hegel. A Biography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). 5 Napoleon’s imperial ambitions are oten said to be modelled on Julius Caesar— partly as a result of the dominant Classicist taste of French culture at the time; but there is also evidence that he saw himself as a new Charlemagne. he Empereur des Français was only a semantic scintilla removed from the Empereur des Francs. Cf. the Imperial Decree for the Annexation of the Papal States, 17 May 1809. 6 Stephan Jordan, Geschichtstheorie in der ersten Hälte des 19. Jahrhunderts. Die Schwellenzeit zwischen Pragmatismus und Klassischem Historismus (Frankfurt: Campus, 1999).

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Ages was not only a relection of a certain poetical temperament, but equally part of a resistance against the abolition of ancient customs and constitutions. he medievalism of Tieck and Uhland should be seen in conjunction with the publication of original medieval texts and documents such as Aretin’s Älteste Sage über die Geburt und Jugend Karls des Grossen and von der Hagen’s Der Nibelungen Lied in 1803 and 1807. As we can gather from the respective forewords,7 Aretin published his text as a poignant commentary that, on the millennial anniversary of Charlemagne’s rise to empire, that empire is now in articulo mortis; while Hagen relected on the temporal circumstances of his publication as the very nadir of the Germans’ shame, and an opportune moment to remember and reactivate their ancestral bloodyminded stalwartness as celebrated in the Nibelungenlied. So too the Grimms ‘come out’ ater 1812 as anti-Napoleonic. hey publish their text edition of Der arme Heinrich in aid of the anti-French revolt then spreading.8 Already the tale of ‘he isherman and his wife’, in the irst volume of the Fairy Tales, was being seen as a parable on an upstart on a lucky streak until he greedily overreaches himself— in other words, Napoleon before and ater the Russian Campaign. Görres’ Rheinischer Merkur, Arndt’s Geist der Zeit, Fichte’s Reden an die deutsche Nation and the activities of Jahn’s Gymnastics Society form the interface between the fairytales and folksongs published in Heidelberg and the geopolitical treaty arrangements from Lunéville to Tilsit.

Discussed in more detail in my National hought in Europe: A Cultural History (2nd ed.; Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 20081), 119–121. 8 On the Grimms generally: Ludwig Denecke, Jacob Grimm und sein Bruder Wilhelm (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1971); Maria Dobozy, ‘he Brothers Grimm: Jacob Ludwig Carl (1785–1863); Wilhelm Carl (1786–1859)’. H. Damico, D. Fennema, K. Lenz (eds.), Medieval Scholarship. Biographical Studies on the Formation of a Discipline (New York: Garland, 1998), 93–108; Murray B. Peppard, Paths through the Forest. A Biography of the Brothers Grimm (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1971); Wilhelm Schoof, Jacob Grimm. Aus seinem Leben (Bonn: Dümmler, 1960); Herbert Scurla, Die Brüder Grimm: Ein Lebensbild (Berlin: Verlag der Nation, 1985); Gabriele Seitz, Die Brüder Grimm: Leben, Werk, Zeit (München: Winkler, 1984); Christoph Wetzel (ed.), Brüder Grimm (Salzburg: Andreas, 1983). 7

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joep leerssen Cultural repercussions II: Historicism meets popular culture at Bökendorf

A pivotal igure in all this was the legal scholar Friedrich Carl von Savigny.9 Professor of law at Marburg, he was among the most stalwart anti-Napoleonic intellects of his day. He had been trained in the jurisprudential discipline of old-style legal scholarship, where, in order to understand a law system, one had to study its entire historical development—jurisprudence being a slow accumulation of successive rulings and regulations based on earlier rulings and customs. he study of law thus became the study of (the word is indeed pregnant) legal custom. A law system was, in this view, the moral and regulative accompaniment of a nation’s historical development, organically part of the nation’s historical track record. To have this replaced by a merely instrumental set of regulations devised by an ad-hoc assembly of bickering politicians was, in Savigny’s view as much as in Burke’s, a travesty. Savigny became the foremost proponent of an organicist notion of law, which also took in the older views as put forward by Montesquieu and Vico, that each nation had its own proper legal system much as it had its own language. In due course, Savigny was to be one of the great legal architects of post-Napoleonic Prussia. But in pre-1815 Marburg, part of the newfangled Kingdom of Westphalia ruled by a minor Bonaparte, he was as yet a reserved academic, muttering through clenched teeth in the privacy of his study. His importance for the argument I am unfolding here lies rather in the fact that he served, for a while, as mentor to a bright young law student, whom he trained in the jurisprudential crat of paleography— the study of ancient documents and their provenance, of old types of handwriting and of obsolete forms of the language. At this time, the study and source-criticism of medieval documents was almost the exclusive preserve of legal historians such as Savigny; medieval literature was as yet merely an entertaining fancy for antiquaries and amateurs. he young scholar thus trained by Savigny was bookishly inclined and even followed his master as an assistant when Savigny went to Paris to consult sources in the Parisian libraries and archives. he

9

Iris Denneler, Friedrich Karl von Savigny (Berlin: Stapp, 1985).

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‘Bökendorf Circle’: aicionados of oral literature

Von Haxthausen

Von Droste-Hülshof

Annette Jenny

Von Savigny

Brentano

Von Armin

Friedrich Carl × Kunigunde Clemens Bettina × Achim

Gisela

Grimm

Jacob Wilhelm × Dorothea Wild

×

Herrmann

Fig. 1. he ‘Bökendorf Circle’.

young man was none other than Jacob Grimm. Himself the son of a lawyer (who had died early, leaving him an impoverished halforphan), Grimm had enrolled at Marburg in order to prepare for a career as a public oicial through the traditional means of a law degree. Later on he was to choose diferently, having meanwhile discovered, among the old documents Savigny introduced him to, the literary riches of the Minnesänger and Reinhart Fuchs. Even so, he was to remain close to Savigny for the rest of his life and applied to his study of cultural material precisely that historicist organicism that he had learned from his legal mentor and from the crat of jurisprudential source criticism.10 Savigny had meanwhile introduced Jacob Grimm, and also Jacob’s shy brother Wilhelm, to a set of literary amateurs whose social gatherings he frequented. his was the so-called Bökendorf Circle, so named ater the country seat of the baronial family Von Haxthausen. he young Haxthausens, August and Werner, had cultural, literary, and national interests and received like-minded people (such as their niece Annette von Droste-Hülshof, later a renowned author, and her sister Jenny) in what became a regular network. he central node in this network was occupied by Clemens Brentano, who since the beginnings of his Göttingen student days had struck up a close friendship with Achim

10 Wilhelm Schoof (ed.), Briefe der Brüder Grimm an Savigny (Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 1953); Maria Herrlich, Organismuskonzept und Sprachgeschichtsschreibung. Die ‘Geschichte der deutschen Sprache’ von Jacob Grimm (Hildesheim: Olms-Weidmann, 1998).

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von Arnim, who married Brentano’s sister Bettina in 1811. Brentano’s other sister Kunigunde became the wife of, precisely, Savigny. It was through these associations that the Grimm brothers, as Savigny’s protégés, came to attend gatherings at Bökendorf. hey were also involved in the collection of folksongs that formed the Bökendorf Circle’s chief literary pleasure and that were to culminate in the collection Des Knaben Wunderhorn in 1806–1807. Edited by Arnim and Brentano, this prototype of all Romantic folksong collections, the most important since Herder’s Stimmen der Völker in Liedern (1770–1771) was really the collective efort of the entire Bökendorf Circle, and indeed the Grimms’ fairy tales (which likewise included material contributed by the Arnims, Brentanos, Haxthausens, and Droste-Hülshofs) may be seen as a prose spin-of of the Wunderhorn.11 Socially speaking, the Grimms were out of their depth in this upperclass circle. here are letters between Wilhelm Grimm and Jenny von Droste-Hülshof which hint at a romantic tenderness between the two, but the two brothers were middle-class drudges, failed law students working in Jérôme Bonaparte’s state library at Kassel, and there was no question of them marrying into the intensely class-conscious country nobility of early nineteenth-century Germany.12 Even so, there is a postscript to this episode: much later, in 1859, Wilhelm Grimm’s son Herman married Gisela von Arnim (the daughter of Achim and Bettina)—thus tying the inal knot in this familial network. By then, the Grimms had moved from a modest bourgeois position as public servants into the ranks of Germany’s most highly-revered literati and academics.13 A professional career had opened marriage prospects in the 1850s which in 1810 were still hermetically sealed of. 11 Heinz Rölleke, ‘Die Beiträge der Brüder Grimm zu “Des Knaben Wunderhorn” ’. Brüder Grimm Gedenken 2 (1975), 28–42. 12 Briefwechsel zwischen Jenny von Droste-Hülshof und Wilhelm Grimm (Münster: Aschendorf, 1929). Jenny was to marry the intensely aristocratically-conscious baron Joseph von Lassberg (himself a highly-regarded amateur of medieval German literature), while Wilhelm, likewise within his social class, married a family friend from Kassel, Dorothea Wild. 13 Cf. Ludwig Denecke, ‘Buchwidmungen an die Brüder Grimm’. Brüder Grimm Gedenken 2–4 (1975–1984), 287–304, and ibid., ‘Mitgliedschaten der Brüder Grimm bei Akademien, wissenschatlichen Gesellschaten und Vereinen, Ehrendoktorate und andere Auszeichnungen’. Brüder Grimm Gedenken 3 (1983), 471–492.

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Irony I: Resisting modernization while proiting from it hat episode indicates the important social mobility that the call of literary studies could facilitate in the years ater Napoleon—and in turn this throws an ironic sidelight on the nostalgia of these historicist Romantics. Surely, at one level the importance of the Bökendorf network was that is provided a cross-fertilization between the historicism of Savigny and the Romantic-sentimental interest in popular, ‘national’ culture as expressed in folksongs and fairytales. But it also shows that literature and culture were beginning to be more than just the hobby of gentlemen and ladies of leisure: with the transfer from Savigny to Grimm, a process of academic professionalization was setting in. On the one hand, this professionalizatioin would later make the Grimms’ social rise possible (through doctoral degrees, professorial chairs, academy memberships etcetera); on the other hand, it meant that the study of culture (including literature and popular culture) was becoming a matter of serious, scholarly attention. here is a sensible diference between Arnim-Brentano’s interest in folksongs and that of the Grimms. he former collect and appreciate their material in a moral-sentimental mode: as admirable, albeit humble, productions of human creativity and as afecting expressions of the primary lyrical emotions that all men and women, all parents and children have in common. his sentimentalist appreciation of the Volkslied goes back to Herder: timeless, artless, a wholesome antidote against the simpering afectations of over-reined elite civility. For the Grimms however, folk culture is above all an echo of an ancient tradition. hey see in fairy tales the eroded remains of a Nordic mythology, ind in the naive language of the peasantry an authentic point of access to archaic cultural patterns. heir interest is anthropological. An older generation like that of August Wilhelm Schlegel would chide the Grimms’ periodical Altdeutsche Wälder (1813–1816) for this anthropologizing tendency of discovering ancient echoes in every demotic ditty that they could lay their hands on—but at the same time (around 1815) Jacob was already writing his essay Von der Poesie im Recht, published in Savigny’s Zeitschrit für historische Rechtswissenschat, in which he argued that old proverbs, rules-ofthumb, and nostrums were the mnemonic formulas by which the

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most ancient laws were memorized and orally preserved.14 Primitive law, given its oral nature and transmission, was phrased in memorably poetical diction; conversely, oral culture was not just the artless pastime of illiterate peasants but a remnant of ancient social and cultural structures. In subsequent decades, with the publication of the Deutsche Sagen (1816–1818), Deutsche Grammatik (1819–1837), the Deutsche Rechtsaltertümer (ancient sources for local law customs, 1828), the Deutsche Mythologie (1835), and the initiative for the Deutsches Wörterbuch (1854), the Grimms provided their fairytales with a splendid and imposing scholarly pediment: their programme of Germanistik involved all sources and cultural media from which one might reconstruct the ancient Weltanschauung of the German nation. he Wunderhorn, Arnim and Brentano’s ‘magic Horn’, had become part of a Wagnerian-size academic orchestra. Both in career terms and in their actual philological work, the lives of the Grimms thus illustrate a move from the private-sentimental into academic professionalization. From the convivial meetings at Bökendorf to the Prussian Academy, from the hobbyhorse collecting of folklore to the ambitious agenda of Germanistik, the Grimms mark the rise of philology as an academic discipline and profession.15 All this arose from a unique conjunction of factors: the marriage of the Brentano sisters to Arnim and Savigny along with the invitation of Savigny’s modest protégés to the Haxthausen estate at Bökendorf. Yet that all this should happen and coincide was made possible by a 14 Jacob & Wilhelm Grimm (eds.), Altdeutsche Wälder (repr. with intr. by Wilhelm Schoof, 3 vols.; Darmstadt: Wissenschatliche Buchgesellschat, 1966 [1813–1816]); Ruth Schmidt-Wiegand, ‘Das sinnliche Element des Rechts. Jacob Grimms Sammlung und Beschreibung deutscher Rechtsaltertümer’. L. Denecke (ed.), Kasseler Vorträge in Erinnerung an den 200. Geburtstag der Brüder Jacob und Wilhelm Grimm (Marburg: Elwert, 1987), 1–24. 15 Lothar Bluhm, ‘ “Die Wissenschat für deutsche und nordische Alterthümer ist bei uns im Entstehen, sie bildet sich so eben” Jakob und Wilhelm Grimm und die frühe Deutsche Philologie’. F. Fürbeth, P. Krügel, E.E. Metzner, O. Müller (eds.), Zur Geschichte und Problematik der Nationalphilologien in Europa. 150 Jahre Erste Germanistenversammlung in Frankfurt am Main (1846–1996) (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1999), 67–75; Pier Carlo Bontempelli, Knowledge, Power, and Discipline: German Studies and National Identity (Trans. G. Poole; Minneapolis, MA: University of Minnesota Press, 2003); N.E. Collinge, ‘he Introduction of the Historical Principle into the Study of Languages: Grimm’. S. Auroux, E.F.K. Koerner, H.-J. Niederehe, K. Versteegh (eds.), History of the Language Sciences. An International Handbook on the Evolution of the Study of Language from the Beginnings to the Present (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2001), 1210–1223; Ulrich Wyss, Die wilde Philologie: Jacob Grimm und der Historismus (München: Beck, 1979).

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situational logic which was, once again, Napoleonic. he locations of Marburg, Göttingen, Bökendorf, and Kassel (where the Grimms were based) had until 1800 been in diferent lands, with frontiers and border controls between them; but they were just in these years grouped together into a new single country: the Kingdom of Westphalia, entrusted by Napoleon to his brother Jérôme. Germans witnessing the demise of the Holy Roman Empire might wring their hands, as Savigny, Aretin, and Von der Hagen did—but what emerged was a new socio-political framework that created its own opportunities, at Bökendorf and in Heidelberg. Indeed the Grimms themselves owed the irst leg-up in their career indrectly to the Napoleonic moment. Within the feudal statelet of Hessia, their social position was irmly locked into the subaltern layer of public servants under aristocratic domination. In Jérôme’s Westphalia, they were appointed sub-librarians to the new ‘Royal Library’ that Jérôme created for himself out of the old Hessian one, given a rise in salary and a not-too-arduous public function. Indeed, there is also the very fact that the Parisian National Library (the erstwhile Royal one) should be open to the crucially important source research of the likes of Savigny and Grimm in the formative year 1804. Later on, Jacob Grimm consolidated his position under the restored Landgrave of Hessia, but found to his chagrin that once again his position was a irmly subaltern one without further career prospects, forcing him, despite his intense love for his home region, to accept an appointment at the University of Göttingen in 1830. Upward mobility in Hessia had been out of the question either before 1806 or ater 1813; it was only in the Westphalian interlude that promotions and contacts were momentarily made possible. he irony, then, is this: the Napoleonic years were a time of bitter self-recollection on the part of disenchanted German intellectuals; but what they failed to notice was that the modernizing hurricane which swept their cherished legal, political, and constitutional traditions away was also the force which would help those intellectuals to new power and status. We can register this in the double aspect of career professionalization and source availability. he two went hand in hand. he French Revolution brought libraries under state control which until then had been the private or dynastic property of noblemen or church institutions. he Librairie Royale became the Bibliothèque nationale. he library of the marquis de Paulmy was merged with various monastic libraries from the Paris area to form the Bibliothèque de

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l’Arsenal, which opened to the public in 1797 and was to become one of the great treasure-troves for the new generation of medieval historians: Barante, the hierry brothers, Michelet. A similar opening-up took place around the Bibliothèque mazarine, let by Cardinal Mazarin to the Collège des quatre nations and now made public ater having been enriched with the holdings of, again, various ci-devant monastic libraries. he same in the places conquered by the French. Monastic libraries like those of St.-Amand were moved to the municipal library of Valenciennes (where in 1837 the long-lost texts of the Ludwigslied and the Hymns to Ste Eulalie were to be found by Jan Frans Willems and Hofmann von Fallersleben); and the bibliotheca palatina in the Vatican Library was re-catalogued and opened up for public scrutiny.16 he importance of such processes for the available knowledge of the past has been outlined in the introduction to this volume. In the present context, it should also be pointed out that the state nationalization of such libraries also created an immense demand for highly-specialized labour. All these libraries were regrouped, re-ordered, re-inventorized, and all that work needed to be done by skilled hands. he career of the Grimms as philologists was kickstarted by them becoming librarians; and indeed there is hardly any important philologist or historian in the irst half of the nineteenth century who did not pass through the enabling experience of having worked for a while as archivist or librarian in one of the reformed libraries (expecially national libraries or university libraries) of post-revolution Europe. In many cases the career would dovetail the post of university librarian with a professorship in history or philology. Additional career possibilities were created in a new model of the university which was rapidly spreading across Europe ater having irst been devised at Berlin in 1810 by Wilhelm von Humboldt; in that new-style university the non-Classical languages and their philological (medievalist) aspects formed a rich ield of employment for budding scholars. he irst professor of German Studies was Friedrich Heinrich von der Hagen, who had 16 Further explored in my ‘Literary Historicism: Romanticism, Philologists, and the Presence of the Past’. Modern Language Quarterly 65.2 (2004), 221–243; De bronnen van het vaderland: Taal, literatuur en de abakening van Nederland, 1806–1890 (Nijmegen: Vantilt, 2006); ‘Philology and the European Construction of National Literatures’. Joep Leerssen & Dirk Van Hulle (eds.), Editing the Nation’s Memory: Textual Scholarship and Nation-Building in 19th-Century Europe (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2008), 13–27.

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made his reputation with the 1807 edition of the Nibelungenlied. His career has some parallels with Grimm: born in Berlin, he irst studied law in Halle, but let his employ in 1806 to study old German literature. He was ‘extra-ordinary’ professor of German literature at Berlin university from its foundation in 1810 onwards and in that position (an unremunerated one peripheral to the core faculty members) the irst to introduce the study of old German in an academic setting. He transferred to the university of Breslau in 1811 but was recalled to Berlin as ordinary professor in 1821. He was made a member of the Prussian Academy in 1841 (the same year that Jacob Grimm, who was ive years younger than he, was made a member). Irony II: So abundant, in such short supply (the past as gold rush) Hagen and Grimm form a diferent kind of connection: that of rivalry. When Jacob Grimm made it to Berlin in 1841, he had gone through a chequered career. In the 1820s he had trumped his literary fame (as ‘fairytale’ Grimm) with a meteoric rise in academic prestige (as the grammarian and discoverer of the law of consonantal mutations), with honorary doctorates, academy memberships, and ultimately a professorial appointment in Göttingen—yet in 1837 a political controversy had seen him dismissed,17 and although his courageous stance against arbitrary government gave him increased moral prestige among fellow-intellectuals, his professional position was precarious until the call to Berlin in 1841, where he met a smugly embedded Hagen. Ever since the publication of the Nibelungenlied in 1807, Grimm and Hagen had disagreed. Grimm felt that ancient texts ought to be published as archaeological evidence, with the inclusion of all variants and a rigorous idelity to the source; Hagen felt that as literary and inspirational art they should be rendered readable for a contemporary public by the intercession of the philologist/editor. Hagen wanted to move the text to the reader, Grimm felt the reader should reach

17 Willy Real (ed.), Der hannoversche Verfassungskonlikt von 1837/1839 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1972); Klaus von See, ‘Jacob Grimm und die Göttinger Protestation von 1837’. F. Fürbeth, P. Krügel, E.E. Metzner, O. Müller (eds.), Zur Geschichte und Problematik der Nationalphilologien in Europa. 150 Jahre Erste Germanistenversammlung in Frankfurt am Main (1846–1996) (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1999), 277–286.

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out to the text. Grimm’s sour review of Hagen’s 1807 Nibelungen was the beginning of a life-long rivalry between the two men, and also the beginning of a century-long tradition of competing editions and versions of the Nibelungen material. Various forms of modernization, diferent diplomatic or critical editions of various manuscripts or recently-uncovered fragments: there seemed to be always new reasons to publish yet fresh Nibelungs. Even the commemoration of Gutenberg’s invention of print, in 1840, was the occasion for two rivalling Nibelungen editions: one, austere and scientiic, by Lachmann, the other sumptuous and aimed for the larger non-academic public by Hagen. All these editions were accompanied by literary translations and adaptations—by the likes of De la Motte Fouqué, Uhland, Simrock, Hebbel, and of course Wagner.18 he great hold of Nibelungen material over the German cultural imagination in the nineteenth century must be in part understood as being driven by controversy and competition: philological disagreement over what was the most adequate and proper way of presenting the manuscript(s) and putative Urtext of this national classic.19 And in turn that philological disagreement appears to some extent to be driven, not by high-minded standards concerning ‘best practices’ in the scholarly ield, but also by the much more banal motivation of professional jealousy. his brings us to the second great irony of these decades: for what was there to be jealous about? Ancient manuscripts were surfacing in great number all over Europe; the secularization of monastic libraries was creating dambursts of rediscoveries from Lisbon to the Alps; and professional career opportunities were likewise becoming available in great profusion, in all the new universities, libraries, and archives of post-revolution Europe. Even so, the habit of philologists at the time seems to bespeak a sense of scarcity rather than abundance. Discoveries are jealously guarded; philologists group into tight factions kept alive with a keen sense of the enmity of others, and an equally keen sense of how despicably amateurish those Others are. 18 here are editions by Hagen from 1807, 1810, 1842, and 1851; by Lachmann from 1826 and 1840; also Hinzberg 1812, Grimm 1816, Simrock 1827, and Schönhuth 1834. his is accompanied by adaptations: Uhland 1812, Büsching 1815, Geibel 1846, Wagner 1848–1850, Hebbel 1861. 19 Otfrid Ehrismann, Das Nibelungenlied in Deutschland. Studien zur Rezeption des Nibelungenlieds von der Mitte des 18. Jahrhunderts bis zum Ersten Weltkrieg (München: Fink, 1975); Rainer Kolk, Berlin oder Leipzig? Eine Studie zur sozialen Organisation der Germanistik im ‘Nibelungenstreit’ (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1990).

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he private correspondences of scholars, and the reviews they dedicate to each others’ work, are oten surprising in their pusillanimous rancour. Controversies are cherished and cultivated with sombre dedication. And of any given medieval text that comes to light, not one, but many competing editions are printed. he literary past, with all its riches, is opened up for the Romantic reading public. hat past becomes, in the process, an extension of the public sphere across time. And like a newly-available piece of real-estate that attracts property speculators, the past is eagerly and jealously charted, inventorized, commodiied, and subjected to property claims; it becomes a rich store of symbolic capital for those who begin to build academic careers out of it. he amateur antiquary of the eighteenth century now begins to fulil a public role in connecting the nation with its cultural roots; thus the professionalization of the historical and philological sciences goes tightly hand in hand with the national instrumentalization of ancient vernacular culture. he career of Jacob Grimm is exemplary in this process. He owes his special status to the fact that his name became linked to the regular sets of consonantal shits now known as ‘Grimm’s Laws’. As such he is the standard-bearer of the new climate of scientiic philology. His inluence spread far and wide: from the fairytale- and folksong-collecting of Lönnrot, La Villemarqué, Karadžić, Afanas’ev, and Croker to the troubadour studies of Diez, and from the Slavic philology of Dobrovský and Kopitar to the great national dictionary projects of the Oxford English Dictionary and the Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal. If any individual man of letters was responsible for the idea, general all over Europe from the late nineteenth century onwards, that language, nation, culture, and identity amounted to the same thing, it was he. Grimm liked to project the image of a reticent backroom scholar quietly working, with frugal and high-minded dedication, on his books; but he was a networker who cultivated enmities as well as alliances, and whose two moments in the centre of political crises showed that, for all his bookishness and lack of rhetorical lair, he held irm opinions: one was the Hanover constitutional crisis of 1837 (which saw him dismissed from his Göttingen chair and made him the hero of the liberals and a martyr for the cause of academic freedom), and the other one his membership of the Frankfurt Parliament of 1848 (where he advocated civil liberties as well as chauvinistic expansionism and became a hero of German nationalism). It was a glittering career that

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caught all the right waves in the surtide of social modernization and academic professionalization; the modest middle-class assistant librarian who in 1807 was introduced to the Haxthausens’ country estate at Bökendorf could not have predicted anything like it. Yet in his remarkable career, the one thing that Grimm consistently delivered was a irm sense of dynamic connectedness with the past. History and identity as growth processes, understanding ‘what is’ in terms of ‘how it came to be’ and positioning contemporary identities—in language, literature, culture, and geopolitics—in their relation to the nation’s roots was what marked his outlook from the beginning and thoughout his career. What Grimm, the great modernizer in the humanities, imparted to his contemporaries and successors was a strong (and in many ways pernicious) sense of the national past as an ongoing, commanding presence in the public sphere.

PART TWO

MONUMENTS FOR THE PAST

PUBLIC COMMEMORATIONS AND PRIVATE INTERESTS: THE POLITICS OF STATE FUNERALS IN LONDON AND PARIS, 18061810 Eveline G. Bouwers

A good citizen is a credit to his country, and merits the approbation of every virtuous man. Patriots who have sacriiced their tender afections, their properties, their lives, to the interest of society, deserve a tribute of praise unmixed with any alloy.1

Catherine Macaulay’s majestic opening to he History of England (1769) testiies to how the eighteenth-century British public increasingly came to applaud the virtuous behaviour and actions of men whose names did not belong to the established chronicles of history. While new commercial avenues were explored and the state expanded its authority, the socio-political establishment faced the erosion of its power by an emerging bourgeoisie. Moreover, these middle classes not only threatened the economic and political equilibrium; they also manifested themselves in the cultural domain with ever more zeal by departing from the conventional canon of great men—princes of the blood, the high aristocracy, and the highest military or naval oicers— and instead praising men possessing exceptional talent. Henceforth a category that the French called grand homme—namely, a man who according to Abbé de Saint-Pierre was ‘distingué par ses grands talens, par sa grande vertu & par ses grands bienfaits’—was integrated into a country’s historical narrative.2 It was irst in the private libraries and gardens of Enlightened aristocrats such as the Arcadian settings at British Stowe or French Ermenonville, then in public spaces like the academy exhibitions or city squares, that great men were honoured. he goal was to glorify a

1 Catherine Macaulay, he History of England from the Accession of Iames I to the Elevation of the House of Hanover (5 vols.; London: Edward and Charles Dilly, 1769), 1:vii. 2 Abbé de Saint-Pierre, ‘Discours sur les diférences du grand homme et de l’homme illustre’. Abbé Seran de la Tour (ed.), Histoire d’Epaminondas (Paris: Didot, 1739), p. xxviii.

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deceased man (greatness was a heavily gendered category), incite emulation of his actions, or, less altruistically, lag the ideas of the eulogist. Similar incentives stimulated governments to organise state funerals and commission funerary monuments for those men who ostensibly represented the emerging public sphere. Yet were such gloriications, as Macaulay had enviously noted with regard to her male compatriots, bestowed ‘unmixed with any alloy’? Who conceived the idea of ceremonies, and who organised them? How accessible was their iconography and rhetoric? And how, if at all, were state funerals and public monuments reviewed in newspapers, both national and foreign? his contribution seeks to revisit the extent to which Jürgen Habermas’ transformation of the public sphere had by the early nineteenth century been completed. hrough an analysis of three state obsequies organised in Britain and France, it challenges assumptions about the degree to which the concept ‘public’, halfway through the Sattelzeit (the period between roughly 1750–1850 that ixed modern understandings of ancient concepts), had aixed itself in relation to state funerals. Indeed, issues such as restrictions placed on ceremony attendance, exclusive rhetoric, sophisticated iconography, and the funerals’ physical isolation bring into question their participatory value for the public. By examining publicly staged commemorations that were organised in London and Paris in the years 1806 and 1810, respectively, this chapter reexamines the degree to which early nineteenth-century elites had opened their ranks to their fellow nationals.3 It questions whether these men, unlike what Macaulay might have hoped for women, had as yet no need to expect any public recognition or participate in the recording of the supposedly national past.4 Who possessed the authority to create symbolism and rituals that not only relected power but also could generate it? What reception did the ceremonies have beyond 3 Louis Bergeron & Guy Chaussinand-Nogaret, Les ‘Masses de Granit’. Cent Mille Notables du Premier Empire (Paris: Editions de EHESS, 1979); Lawrence Stone & Jeanne C. Fawthier-Stone, An Open Elite? England 1540–1880 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986). 4 he gender bias in the state commemorations in London and Paris was demonstrably less a case of deliberate neglect of the female sex than the result of professional restrictions placed on new admissions to the country’s pantheon of heroes. In London, state ceremony was conined to naval and military oicers as well as, if very occasionally, politicians. In revolutionary and imperial Paris, funerary obsequies were, with the exception of the philosophes Voltaire and Rousseau, accorded to generals, politicians, and (ater 1810) to cardinals.

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the two organisers, the British House of Commons, and Napoleon’s Ministry of Interior Afairs? hese state funerals reveal an interesting interaction between two countries at war as well as the tentative creation of a European culture of remembrance. Indeed, apart from ideologically based struggles for power at home, these countries also vied for attention in the international arena. Both spheres impacted the establishment of state obsequies; political symbolism was no longer an illustration of politics but was an integral part of its discourse. In fact, a comparative analysis of state funerals reveals that such occasions were forms of political action that should imprint an elite’s ideas on the beholding public. he idea of rivalry for attention on the European stage has been downplayed in the literature on state funerals organized during the Napoleonic era.5 For three reasons it is, however, important to adopt this European vantage point. For one, state funerals were never organised exclusively for the domestic market. Rather, organisers desired international coverage in order to demonstrate both to political and military allies and to opponents the might of its heroes and, by extension, the strength of the country. Second, the international perspective probes claims of originality. For example, the state funeral of the French marshal Jean Lannes in 1810 has been considered a unique event. However, it in fact closely resembled the funerary ceremonies of 1806 organised for Britain’s Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson and, to a lesser extent, of Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger. A third and inal argument in favour of comparison is that it better enables exploring the social background of one particular avenue of history writing, namely, state funerals. In follow-up to Pierre Bourdieu’s work on social reproduction, this chapter advances the idea that the period around 1800, an era that I would tentatively propose to call the ‘age of the public’, witnessed the arrival of a type of state funeral that was primarily intended to guard private interest against an increasingly militant public. It argues that the champ politique—namely, a social microcosm is regulated through

5 Laurence Brockliss, John Cardwell & Michael Moss, ‘Nelson’s Grand National Obsequies’. English Historical Review 121.490 (2006), 162–182; Jean-Claude Damamme, Lannes. Maréchal de l’Empire (2nd ed.; Paris: Payot, 1999; Timothy Jenks, ‘Contesting the Hero: he Funeral of Admiral Lord Nelson’. he Journal of British Studies 39.4 (2000), 422–453; L.-M. Poussereau, Histoire du Maréchal Lannes, Duc de Montebello, Prince de Siévres (Paris: Nevers, 1910).

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the possession of forms of ‘capital’—retained control over state funerals.6 Behind a façade supericially suggesting free access to the past lay what has in relation to Britain been called ‘a nation polarised as never before’.7 he adjective ‘national’ was used to diferent degrees in all state funerals. Yet, rather than appealing to and representing the nation at large, history and the manner in which it was written in public spectacle remained, during the early nineteenth century, fused with private interests. As a result, state funerals showed mourning in public rather than public mourning. At the onset of the ‘age of nationalism’, the eclectic political symbolism of the ancien régime persisted.8 he Emergence of a Monumental Public Sphere in London and Paris Except during the brief period following the Peace of Amiens (1802– 1804), Britain and France were during the decades around 1800 constantly at war with each other. he defence of commercial interests, colonial question, and justiication of diferent ideologies contributed to feelings of mutual antagonism. he Seven Years’ War had decisively altered the power balance both in Europe and on the global level, while the American War of Independence made both countries suspicious about each other’s political intentions. Although both wars had to a diferent degree been represented as a war between nations, it was only during the 1790s that the concept of a national war was invented. Indeed, the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars involved the public outside of Westminster and the Tuileries in unprecedented numbers.9 he battles between Britain and France were, however, fought not only militarily, but also in the iconography of commemoration that engaged the two countries in war. Conlict and the patriotism that it stimulated engineered a surplus of visual and textual material that perpetuated national stereotypes in pamphlets, poems, songs, and so

6 Pierre Bourdieu, Propos sur le Champ Politique (Lyon: Presses Universitaires de Lyon, 2000). 7 David H. Solkin, Painting for Money. he Visual Arts and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century England (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), 276. 8 Hans Kohn, he Age of Nationalism. he First Era of Global History (2nd ed.; Westport: Greenwood Press, 1976). 9 John Bonehill & Geof Quilley (eds.), Conlicting Visions. War and Visual Culture in Britain and France c. 1700–1830 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 1.

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on.10 Funerary commemorations and monuments were other examples of how to attack the enemy without the use of arms. Marble canons and sceptres were placed alongside allegories of Fortitude and Grief, while candle-lit rooms evoked the solemnity desired for the commemoration of politicians and military or naval oicers who had laboured for the security and prosperity of the home country. In Britain such commemorations took the form of publicly paid monuments placed in either Westminster Abbey or St. Paul’s Cathedral, a mark of respect very occasionally added by a state funeral; Vice Admiral Nelson and Prime Minister Pitt were cases in point. In Napoleonic Paris, by contrast, a funeral in one of the metropolitan churches always preceded a burial in the imperial pantheon at Sainte-Geneviève, formerly known as the revolutionary Panthéon. Although pantheon burials in Paris were standard, on one occasion the accorded splendours were particularly lavish. Marshal Lannes had a funeral whose design imitated the commemoration of the man whose maritime successes symbolised the limits of Napoleonic power—namely, Nelson. he transfer between the monumental public spheres of London and Paris is unsurprising since ‘Napoleon served as a lens through which to scrutinize Britain’s own identity’.11 here is no reason why the opposite should not have taken place, too. Indeed, French journalists attempted to inluence domestic debate via their reports on British ceremonies. By covering the funeral of Nelson (and to a lesser extent that of Pitt) and commenting on its features and possible deiciencies, French editors acquired a means to indirectly criticise their own government, which was a luxury in an age of censorship. State funerals promoted this international dialogue between early nineteenthcentury Europe’s strongest enemies. he bitterness between Britain and France had a long history. According to at least some contemporaries, it dated back to 1066, when the Normans invaded the British Isles and (as maintained by those heralding the Glorious Revolution of 1688) uprooted Anglo-Saxon

10 Alexander Broadley, Napoleon in Caricature, 1795–1821 (2 vols.; London: Lane, 1911); Joep Leerssen, National hought in Europe: A Cultural History. 2nd ed.; (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 20081). 11 Stuart Semmel, Napoleon and the British (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), 2.

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liberties by imposing the rule of foreign overlords.12 Mutual ill feeling became more manifest during the eighteenth century when phobia and philia interchangeably determined Anglo-French attitudes.13 he Seven Years’ War (1756–1763) sparked, however, a more lasting antagonism between both powers as it established Britain as a world power at the expense of France. Ater 1763, Britain developed its role as an imperial, mercantile, and monarchical-constitutional country, which sharply contrasted the politically and economically perilous position in which absolutist France increasingly found itself. Although the French still attempted to revenge themselves by joining the side of those ighting for American independence in 1778, domestic socio-political struggles had already become too manifest to be compensated in the colonies. In 1789, the Bastille was stormed, followed by the proclamation of a constitutional monarchy, declaration of a French Republic une et indivisible, and outbreak of continental war in 1793. Since the early eighteenth century, though notably during the 1790s and 1810s, Britain’s House of Commons had been engaged in preserving the memory of fallen warriors and (less so) of politicians through the dedication of a state-paid monument raised in Westminster Abbey and later, due to the increasing lack of space there, St. Paul’s Cathedral. Since the eleventh century, Westminster Abbey, or the Collegiate Church of St. Peter at Westminster as its name correctly reads, had housed numerous funerary monuments that together related the chronicles of English and British history. Initially embracing only kings, the abbey later gained the status of repository of other socially prominent deceased, too. Yet, particularly during the eighteenth century, when new mercantile classes staged themselves increasingly in the public sphere, the abbey turned into a vanity fair where lamboyant monuments dedicated to family members privatised a building whose walls were covered with public history. he tendency to turn the abbey into a ‘private gallery’ was also criticised by contemporaries.14 Joseph Addison, for example, more than 12 Christopher Hill, Puritanism and Revolution. Studies in Interpretation of the English Revolution of the 17th Century (London: Secker & Warburg, 1965), 57. 13 Jean Paul Bertaud, Alan Forrest & Annie Jourdan, Napoléon, le monde et les Anglais. Guerre des mots et des images (Paris: Autrement, 2004), 18–32. 14 Matthew Craske, ‘Westminster Abbey 1720–70: A Public Pantheon Built upon Private Interest’. Richard Wrigley & Matthew Craske (eds.), Pantheons. Transformations of a Monumental Idea (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 57–80, here 67.

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once ridiculed the inverse relation that seemed to exist between exemplary action and conspicuousness of an abbey monument: some monuments ‘were covered with such extravagant Epitaphs, that, if it were possible for the dead Person to be acquainted with them, he would blush at the Praises . . . there are others so excessively modest, that they deliver the Character of the Person departed in Greek or Hebrew, and by that Means are not understood once in a Twelve-month’.15 Foreign inscriptions, not to forget the monuments’ elusive iconography, curtailed the public reception of state commemorations. herefore, under pressure of an emerging British bourgeoisie, both parliamentary and private commissions thenceforth described heroes in English. Once it started commissioning monuments en masse from the late eighteenth century onwards, the commons created via a popularly dubbed ‘Committee of Taste’ a pantheon accessible to a wider public. he limits of this willingness to go public were, however, displayed by the continued use of a sophisticated visual vocabulary, parliament’s negligence to enforce media attention, the eclectic—if not partisan— selection of those pantheonised, and the levying of entrance fees. Parliament’s monuments were irst located in Westminster Abbey. Later, the military and naval component of the pantheon was moved to St. Paul’s Cathedral. Here monuments were erected with such gusto that thirty-four memorials were commissioned in just three decades, inducing the painter Fuseli to remark that ‘the ear is stunned with the incessant stroke of the sculptor’s hammer, our temples narrowed by crowds of monuments shouldering each other to perpetuate the memory of Statesmen who deluded, or of Heroes who bled at Nation’s call’.16 Heroes bled not only in Britain, though: ongoing war triggered large-scale commemorations throughout Europe as politicians needed to ill the ranks of the army, consolidate popular support for their sometimes contested policies, and strengthen their own corpus in the face of an emerging public sphere. Also, in France, the remembrance of exemplary men was put to political use. Still under the ancien régime, a irst cautious step had been taken to publicly honour grands hommes by means of eulogies, paintings, and statues. But it was the Joseph Addison, he Spectator 26 (1711), 108–109. Henry Fuseli, ‘On the Present State of the Art’. Henry Fuseli & John Knowles, (eds.), he Life and Writings of Henry Fuseli (3 vols.; Millwood NY: Kraus, 1982), 3:39–60, here 50. 15

16

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French Revolution that decisively triggered the emergence of a cult of commemoration. On the one hand, the revolutionaries needed to construct as if it were a new world order. Exemplary men fulilled an iconic function here; they made an abstract system without a clear pedigree or historical lineage more concrete. On the other hand, revolutionary iconoclasm let a void in the recording of history that the commemoration of new great men, now increasingly understood as heroes or martyrs, illed.17 One of the most ostentatious examples among a plethora of commemorations that constructed the historical canon afresh was the Panthéon in Paris. Formerly known as Sainte-Geneviève, the church had been commissioned in the mid-eighteenth century by King Louis XV. Tainted by royalty and religion, Sainte-Geneviève soon fell prey to revolutionary iconoclasm and in 1791, upon the death of the Comte de Mirabeau (a fallen aristocrat, dissipated lover, and above all an immensely popular legislator), it was turned into a profane temple dedicated to the grands hommes by the patrie reconnaissante. Inspiration for this new dimension came from eighteenth-century travellers to England. For example, Voltaire had in his Lettres Philosophiques (1734) applauded how the series of monuments in Westminster Abbey ‘a excité plus d’un esprit et a formé plus d’un homme’.18 He dismally added that while the British had publicly honoured scientist Isaac Newton, René Descartes had not received any mark of public attention. Another philosophe, Louis-Sébastien Mercier, extolled how in the abbey ‘se presse en foule, qui lit avec vénération les noms des célèbres morts’ while Denis Diderot praised ‘la belle liste de héros que l’abbaye de Westminster a créée!’.19 Although revolutionary France attempted to compensate the previous negligence vis-à-vis great men, the cult was of a strangely temporary nature. Declarations of eternity were as easily guillotined as those who defended them. Upon the pantheonisation of Jean-Paul Marat, Mirabeau’s erstwhile critic, the latter’s corpse was excavated and unceremoniously plunged into an anonymous grave at the cemetery of Sainte-Cathérine. Marat’s stay

17 Annie Jourdan, Les monuments de la Révolution 1770–1804. Une histoire de représentation (Gallimard: Paris, 1997), 105–121. 18 Voltaire, Lettres philosophiques (Ed. Frédéric Delofre, Paris: Gallimard, 1986), 147. 19 Cited in Joseph Clarke, Commemorating the Dead in Revolutionary France: Revolution and Remembrance, 1789–1799 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 37; Diderot to Falconet (15 February 1766), in: Dennis Diderot, Oeuvres (Ed. Laurent Versini, 5 vols.; Paris: Éditions Robert Lafont S.A., 1997), 5:622.

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in the Panthéon survived Mirabeau’s by a mere ive months. By the time that Napoleon became emperor, the revolutionary Panthéon had become an empty depository in which the sole men remaining were, however paradoxical, Voltaire and Rousseau, two ancien régime philosophers. his development has induced Mona Ozouf to deine the Panthéon as an ‘école normale des morts’ where contemporary political leaders attempted to create heroes who relected their own ideas.20 he term summarises the raison d’être of the imperial pantheon raised in Sainte-Geneviève, Paris. Conscious that ‘il est très commode de gouverner les Français par la vanité’, Napoleon created in 1806 a pantheon dedicated to senators and grand oicers of the Legion of Honour to which were later added foreign cardinals residing in Paris.21 In just nine years, Napoleon pantheonised thirty-nine men.22 Although all men received a state funeral, it was the obsequies of Marshal Jean Lannes that had most public resonance. he ceremony borrowed from not only ancien régime royal funerals but also British commemorative services. his aspect is important. Indeed, by comparing British and French funerary symbolism, it is possible to revisit the degree to which the transformation of the public sphere had by 1800 become an established phenomenon in parts of western Europe. he comparison also raises the question of whether history had in fact become a public spectacle devoid of the private interests it had previously been intended to support. ‘Saint Nelson’: Political Hagiolatry in London In 1814, Britain’s poet laureate Robert Southey wrote, the leaden coin, in which he was brought home, was cut in pieces, which were distributed as relics of Saint Nelson . . . the death of Nelson was felt in England as something more than a public calamity: men started at the intelligence, and turned pale; as if they had heard of the loss of a dear friend.23

20 Mona Ozouf, ‘Le Panthéon. L’Ecole normale des morts’. Pierre Nora (ed.), Les Lieux de Mémoire (7 vols.; Paris: Gallimard, 1984–1992), 1:129–166. 21 Jean Tulard, Napoléon et la noblesse d’Empire (Paris: Tallandier, 1979), 75. 22 During the period 1806–1815, a total of forty-three men were pantheonised. Four of them (Minister of Justice Claude Regnier, General Frederik Walther, General Claude Legrand, Vice Admiral Antoine hévenard) were, however, pantheonised under the reign of Louis XVIII. 23 Robert Southey, he Life of Nelson (2 vols.; London: Murray, 1814), 277.

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Southey was less of a Romantic enthusiast in his description of the impact that Nelson’s death had on Britons than could be expected from a Lake poet. Ever since early November 1805, when news of the vice-admiral’s demise at Trafalgar had reached London, Britain had been mourning a man who, more than any other hero lamented during this period, epitomised the transformation of the public sphere. Raised by a Norfolk reverend, Horatio Nelson (1758–1805) joined the navy aged twelve before becoming a captain at twenty. During the 1780s, he served overseas, while in 1793, he was transferred to southern Europe. Five years later, the Battle of the Nile signalled the successful outcome of a cat-and-mouse game played out in the Mediterranean between the French and British navies. In 1801, the Battle of Copenhagen consolidated Nelson’s heroic position, followed, in 1805, by the defeat of the French-Spanish leet of Cape Trafalgar, which was the victory that justiied the Pitt administration’s contested war policy. In the face of what Southey called a ‘public calamity’, the death of Nelson proved an excellent opportunity to lit the spirits of a country weary of war. Although he incarnated the materialised aspirations of an emerging middle class—hence, that ‘the nation, alas!, must now weave the cypress with the laurel’—Nelson’s memory quickly became a partisan afair. His legacy was appropriated by King George III, the Pitt administration, parliamentary opposition, and the city of London.24 For King George, who was a well-known admirer of the ingenious state ceremonies orchestrated in Robespierrist France, the desire to excite a royally imbued patriotism encouraged him to establish a monument to Nelson’s memory in St. Paul’s Cathedral.25 he proposal likely baled a public well aware of the king’s antipathy towards the vice admiral’s habit of staging himself independently from both king and navy. George, however, was not alone in his desire to nurture the emerging Nelsonian legend. Supporters of the Pitt administration, whose costly and contested war policy had at last been vindicated by the victory at Trafalgar, desired to use the monument (and state funeral that was now decided to accompany it) to legitimate governmental politics. Furthermore, by publicly honouring one of Britain’s principal heroes, the state obsequies should support the navy and army as

he Times (14 November 1805). Lord Hawkesbury to John Flaxman (11 December 1805), in: British Library Mss 39791, fol. 15. 24

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well as bolster the government’s image ater the resignation of Henry Dundas, a cabinet minister and irst lord of the admiralty. Also the opposition had its motives to support the organisation of a state funeral. Rallying around Charles James Fox, the lamboyant Whig leader, it used Nelson’s populist image as a tool to disparage Pitt’s politics of censorship, military mobilisation, and tightening of the inancial budget. Apart from the king and parliament, the third major player contending for Nelson’s laurels was the city of London. As capital of a commercial empire whose interests had been successfully defended at Trafalgar and a metropolis that began facing competition from other emerging cities, London’s mayor and aldermen were keen to strengthen the city’s position within the empire. As the venue for Nelson’s funeral was the cathedral church of the London diocese, the city’s lord mayor made much of gaining a prominent position during the obsequies. In the end, Nelson’s funeral relected the competition and cooperation among these three power blocks: king, parliament, and city. Together, they turned an allegedly public ceremony into an occasion intended to trumpet elite interests. What had happened to the recently emancipated public or the ‘nation in arms’ that, in accordance with eighteenth-century Enlightenment rhetoric, was to be educated by means of the gloriication of a hero? Nelson’s inal journey commenced in the coastal town of Sheerness, where his body was placed on the HMS Chatham; incidentally, though perhaps not accidentally, Chatham was Prime Minister Pitt’s paternal earldom. On the hames, all vessels impressively lowered their lag, a sign of esteem repeated by foreign boats, too.26 From the forts of Tilbury and Gravesend, located at opposite banks of the river, guns were ired that created a sort of triumphal gate through which Nelson’s ashes were shipped. On shore, thousands of spectators watched the procession, silently taking of their hats while it passed. Upon arrival at Greenwich Hospital, the London home for the navy’s invalids, the body was disembarked and moved to the so-called painted chamber on Christmas Eve. Here it lay in state in a coin made from the mast of the French lagship L’Orient that, in order to capitalise on France’s defeat, had once carried Napoleon to Egypt. Contemporary prints show that the room was a large, candlelit space that was dramatically draped in black cloth and had heraldry stitched to its walls. Flags and

26

he Times (25 December 1805).

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candelabras were placed on either side of the coin, while spectators pressed to catch a glimpse of the gloomy event. hey undoubtedly were pressed, since apparently a hundred thousand visitors iled past the coin in just three days.27 One newspaper gave an impression of the spectacle: ‘the steps leading up to the entrance of the Great Hall, was the principal scene of contest . . . many Ladies pushed into the crowd, and were so severely squeezed, that several of them fainted away’.28 Did the popularity to attend relect large-scale public engagement in Nelson’s funeral? Was the massive turnout inspired by a pan-national efort to construct a British identity through the commemoration of one of its most characteristic heroes? Or did the obsequies rather ofer a platform to publicly show adherence to a speciic social group that, unlike the masses assembled on the quays of the hames, had suicient money to pay the entrance fee required for admission? Whereas Nelson’s voyage from Sheerness to Greenwich had been truly public insofar as every Briton could potentially pay his or her respect, the ceremony in the painted chamber was more exclusive. his socio-economic eclecticism was reinforced at the funeral since attendance was arranged by protocol. he elites coniscated the memory of Nelson for their own purposes. Although a ‘national hero’, he was above all a tool to champion the private interests of the numerous organising parties. On the day of the funeral, the duke of York—commander in chief of the army and second son of George III—stipulated that thousands of volunteers and professional soldiers lined up along the roads leading from Greenwich to St. Paul’s Cathedral. In addition to such a military component, the funeral also had a strong civic attachment because noble families actively partook in the convoy preceding Nelson’s coin. As one paper wrote, ‘in the procession there were . . . of gentlemen and esquires about 200, of Members of the House of Commons about 60, of Peers about 40’.29 Strikingly, only one Tory member of Pitt’s cabinet attended; the prime minister himself was by then already too ill to appear. In contrast to the cabinet’s failure to attend, a number of those belonging to the prince of Wales’

27 Holger Hoock, ‘Nelson Entombed: he Military and Naval Pantheon in St Paul’s Cathedral’. David Cannadine (ed.), Admiral Lord Nelson. Context and Legacy (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 115–144, here 115. 28 he Times (8 January 1806). 29 he Morning Chronicle (10 January 1806).

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rival Whig establishment were present: Richard Sheridan, Fox, the Earl of Moira, and George Tierney joined even if, as Fox wrote, it was merely a matter of having ‘my name set down’.30 Set down for whom? For mention in the newspapers that proitably tied his reputation to Nelson’s legacy? Or for not being missed by his colleagues through whom he connected himself to a speciic socio-political group? Despite the numerous aristocrats, including all the royal princes, it was the recently elected lord mayor of London who claimed the most prominent position in the procession. As Timothy Jenks explained, Sir James Shaw’s claim for precedence was not a matter of ceremony only.31 It meant that if the mayor’s claims were honoured, he would ride directly in front of Nelson’s coin. As a result, the city would gain prominence over both parliament and monarchy since only King George, who did not attend the funeral, could come higher than the mayor. he decision in favour of the mayor’s claims was taken by George III. His support of city aspirations implied a second snub to the prince of Wales, who had already been denied his request to act as chief mourner—a role that, although traditionally occupied by a relative of the deceased, had exceptionally been given to Sir Peter Parker, admiral of the leet. His nomination stressed the vice-admiral’s subordination to the Royal Navy—though the absence of one out of every three admirals, ‘pleading colds and coughs and prior engagements’, challenges the extent to which Nelson’s funeral represented the navy.32 If it did not represent the Royal Navy tout entier, what other groups were heralded with the funeral of Nelson? How were their interests symbolically represented? Having arrived at St. Paul’s Cathedral, twelve men of Nelson’s own HMS Victory carried the coin indoors and placed it on a platform. he cathedral was hung with black cloth that, as one attendant somewhat unfeelingly observed, resembled an ‘Arabian nights entertainment’.33 In front of the pulpit sat the chief mourner with supporters on either side. He was surrounded by lags like ‘Sword and Target’, ‘Gauntlets and Spurs’, and ‘Helm and Crest’ that beitted the neo-Arthurian 30 Fox to O’Brien (3 December 1805), in: Memorials and Correspondence of Charles James Fox (4 vols.; London: Richard Bentley, 1853–1857), 4:125. 31 Jenks 2000, 431. 32 Boyd Hilton, A Mad, Bad and Dangerous People? England 1783–1846 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006), 106. 33 Entry (18 January 1806). In he Diary of Joseph Farington (16 vols.; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978–1984), 7:2672.

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Fig. 1. A.C. Pugin, Funeral Procession of Lord Nelson Outside St Paul’s Cathedral. 1806. Guildhall Library, London.

culture spreading through a Britain becoming increasingly sensitive to medieval chivalry. Torn French and Spanish lags hung down from the balustrades and provided a conspicuous instance of patriotic bravura. Even the coin itself fused the solemnity of mourning with the glory of patriotism as it showed a Gallic cock and Egyptian sphinxes succumbing to the paw of a British lion—this was an obvious reference to Nelson’s successes against the French at the Nile. he coin also displayed a viscount’s coronet, the lag of the Union, and the various, in part foreign, meritorious orders that Nelson had been awarded with. Despite such patriotism, the funerary ceremony itself was apolitical; it concentrated on ecclesiastical matters and solemn music. Ater the service had ended, the procession moved towards the grave located in the catacombs of St. Paul’s. Once the coin had been lowered into the tomb that Cardinal homas Wolsey had commissioned for himself, the garter—the most senior member of the King of Arms, which was a medieval institution that advised the monarch on ceremonial matters—broke the staves representing Nelson’s baronetcy and threw them into the grave. he consequent tearing of the Victory’s ensign by

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its crew is well known. In an efort to preserve a relic of their ‘Saint Nelson’, and to the surprise of those present, the sailors spontaneously tore the lag to pieces in order to preserve each one a part. Perhaps it was this last act—occurring at the very end of a ceremony that had to pass for public but that was in fact coloured by the private interests of the king, government (including navy), and city—that showed how Nelson’s funeral was staged in an age in which the public increasingly asserted itself independently from elite-engineered history writing. he public appeal of Nelson’s funeral had been hampered by the social background of the invitees present at the funerary ceremony in St. Paul’s Cathedral. heoretically, the funeral’s national appeal was reduced by its being located in London, even if the organisers actively tried to counter this impediment. In an attempt to engage the provinces and extend the scope of the commemoration, a second ceremony was arranged for in Lincoln.34 Further eforts to broadcast the Nelson commemoration—and thus sustain parliament’s need to boast public support for the war—were made through press coverage. In follow-up to Habermas, John Brewer has signalled the contribution that eighteenth-century newspapers and magazines made to the advance of a shared sense of British identity.35 Enabling the Cornwall farmer, the Yorkshire miner, and the Scottish Highlander alike to read how parliament had apotheosised the memory of a fellow Briton like Nelson, media reports tentatively helped turn a political hero into a national one. Was this transformation successful? Did the establishment, notably parliament, wish to make Nelson a popular reference? Not just for Britons at home and in the empire, but also for the enemy in continental Europe did the splendour of Nelson’s inal passage display the strength of Britain. Splendour could intimidate both friend and foe. Important though this device was at a time of continued warfare, the second state funeral organised in early nineteenthcentury Britain showed that other incentives existed, too. Scarce had fond Albion ceas’d her tears to shed, hose tears that best embalm her virtuous dead; Scarce hush’d the boist’rous storm whose fury gave he Nile’s fam’d Hero to the rav’nous grave;

34 Gillian Russell, he heatres of War. Performance, Politics, and Society 1793–1815 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 82. 35 John Brewer, he Pleasures of the Imagination. English Culture in the Eighteenth Century (London: HarperCollins, 1997).

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eveline g. bouwers When, lo! new scenes of added horror rise, And darker tempests cloud the low’ring skies! ’Midst virtue’s, Britain’s, Freedom’s mingled sighs, Immortal Pitt ascends his native skies.36

Staging Politics: he Obsequies of ‘Immortal’ William Pitt the Younger A member of parliament at twenty-one and prime minister at twentyfour, William Pitt the Younger (1759–1806) celebrated a stellar career. For more than two decades he governed Britain, even if amidst severe criticism. His plan to arm the entire country was widely disapproved by members of the opposition. hey also attacked the institution of income tax to inance the revolutionary war and attempts to abolish the slave trade. Another pinnacle of their criticism was Pitt’s general inancial reform that was intended to stagnate Britain’s mounting debt. In addition, ever since the Irish unrest of the 1790s, and even more once French plans to invade Ireland and use it as a springboard for attacking mainland Britain had been revealed, Pitt wished to grant concessions to Roman Catholics. his last suggestion, which was bitterly opposed by George III, led to his resignation in 1801. hough many an opponent cheered his departure from the exchequer, Henry Addington, his successor, proved unable to guide Britain through the stormy war years. he peace terms upon which his cabinet settled in Amiens (1802) ultimately caused his downfall in 1804. With Addington gone, Pitt returned to oice. He immediately renewed his aggressive anti-French politics by joining the hird Coalition. Crowned by the victory at Trafalgar, though set back by the collapse of the coalition at Austerlitz, Pitt died a fortnight ater Nelson’s funeral. Instantly a debate broke out in the House of Commons about how to commemorate, if at all, a man who for decades had stood at the heart of British political rivalry. he Tory Henry Lascelles favoured a public commemoration since ‘we have lost a man of the purest and most disinterested patriotism, of the most exalted talents, whose energy and whose irmness have, in times of greatest diiculty and

36 Reverend J. Maurice, Elegy on the late Right Honourable William Pitt (London: S.N., 1806), 1–2.

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danger, been eminently serviceable to his country’.37 Such sentiments were felt ‘throughout the nation’. Other parliamentarians compared Pitt to Augustus Caesar, who ‘found Rome wood, and let it marble’. he die for Pitt’s commemoration would, however, not be easily cast. Objections were raised by the opposition, personiied by Fox, the departed prime minister’s lifelong adversary. As if sensing his own symbolic elimination at the expense of Pitt, he maintained that ‘public honours are matters of the highest importance, because they must more or less inluence posterity’. herefore, it was important that these tributes should be accorded with great care, with which Fox implied that they should not be accorded to Pitt. he fact that Fox attempted to revenge himself on the man who had occupied the oice that he had long desired to hold, was expectable. Interesting, however, is that Fox blocked the proposal because he feared that Pitt’s funeral and monument would become part of Britain’s early nineteenth-century public history in which Fox himself, being a well-known opposition leader, had as yet failed to obtain a place. Contrary to the opposition’s wishes, a state funeral and public monument in Westminster Abbey were nonetheless granted to Pitt’s memory. Parliament even added that the memorial should have ‘an Inscription expressive of the public sense of so great and irreparable a loss’.38 In many ways Pitt’s funeral echoed that of Nelson, if on a smaller scale, which challenged its public appeal. he prime minister lay in state in the painted chamber of the Palace of Westminster, the hall of which was draped in black cloth and furnished with heraldic emblems. his time no queues with curious spectators iled passed the coin, at once limiting the Pitt commemoration to the orbit of his family, friends, and colleagues—that is, the private sphere. Furthermore, on 22 February, when the funeral took place, it was a socially eclectic procession that included nobility and gentry as well as members of both Houses. Among those joining the procession were numerous poor men—who, to add pathos to the scene, wore badges of Pitt’s crest on their shoulders—as well as servants and physicians of the deceased,

37 See for the following session (27 January 1806). In Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates (London: Baldwin and Cradock, 1829–1891), 5:41–73. 38 Session (27 January 1806). In Journals of the House of Commons (London: HMSO, 1547–1950), 61:15.

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the aldermen and mayor of London, judges, clericals, and some royal princes. Rather than imitating Nelson’s funeral, which was fashioned as an allegedly national event, Pitt’s obsequies echoed the publicly staged yet privately inspired royal funerals organised before the late eighteenth century.39 As with kings, in the procession of Pitt the people enjoying the highest professional rank or noble title moved closest to the coin while his family closed the line. he setup markedly deviated from Nelson’s funeral where the attention given to the vice-admiral’s obscure relatives was reduced as much as possible. Pitt’s family, on the otherhand, was part of the established champ politique. he route that the cortege followed led from the Palace of Westminster to abbey. It was a short distance. herefore, even though it was reported how ‘as the Procession passed, every Testimony of Respect was manifested by a great Concourse of Spectators’, public involvement cannot have been large.40 Upon arrival in the abbey, Pitt was interred close to his father, the earl of Chatham, who as former prime minister had been among the irst nonroyal Britons to have received a state commemoration, appropriately so for this self-styled great ‘commoner’. During the service of the younger Pitt, his public virtues were recounted; as with Nelson, no mention was made of his private life (if the diligent Pitt had had one). Few would have heard this eulogy as the number of invitees was small. he absence of the prince of Wales resulted in further reduction of the funeral’s national connotations. Seen in light of the relation between the crown prince and Pitt, it was no surprise that the former decided not to attend. In 1789, when George III had for the irst time lapsed into insanity, Pitt had hesitated to implement the regency bill, trusting (correctly) that the king would recover his senses. Although the prince was probably hardly missed by the Pittites, his absence, as well as that of some of his brothers, further reduced the public character of the prime minister’s obsequies.41 he fact that noblemen dominated the audience hardly repaired the elitist 39 Paul S. Fritz, ‘he Trade in Death: he Royal Funerals in England, 1685–1839’. Eighteenth-Century Studies 15.3 (1982), 291–316, here 293. 40 he Order to be Preserved in the Publick Funeral Procession of the late Right Honourable William Pitt, from the Painted Chamber, through Westminster Hall, New Palace Yard, Union Street, he Broad Sanctuary, and, by the west door, into Westminster Abbey, on Saturday the 22d Day of February 1806 (London: S.N., 1806). 41 Of George III’s seven surviving sons, only the dukes of York, Cumberland, and Cambridge attended.

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connotations of the funeral. Nor did the peripheral position of the London oicials—they had no claims in the ‘royal peculiar’ Westminster Abbey—counterbalance the elites.42 As a result, the funerals of Nelson and Pitt addressed diferent publics. So did their monuments. In St. Paul’s, Nelson stands commandingly on top of a pedestal, his mutilated right arm concealed by a cloak, his missing right eye in place. With his let hand he leans on an anchor attached to a bulk of maritime rope. he plinth of the pedestal is inscribed with ‘Copenhagen—Nile—Trafalgar’, while the heroic nudes representing the North Sea, Mediterranean, and Baltic languishingly lie on their sandbanks. On the base of the monument stands a tall Minerva, goddess of war, who in a motherly fashion puts her right arm on the shoulders of two sailor boys. With her let arm she points at Nelson, suggesting to the sailors that they should admire this great man and possibly emulate his actions. he sailors are boys rather than men, a choice illustrative of the fact that soldiers had no place in the pantheon in St. Paul’s Cathedral.43 Interestingly, however, when contrasted to Pitt’s memorial, the Nelson gains in popular representation. In his monument, Pitt’s skinny igure is partially concealed by a magniicently draped gown of Cambridge University, his alma mater, while the prime minister is depicted declaiming one of his famous speeches. Pitt’s overall appearance seems a little authoritarian. Indeed, one contemporary wondered ‘whether the uplited arm is to enforce attention, or fell the foes of Old England into dust and atoms’.44 Whichever of the two attitudes prevailed, Pitt’s words are recorded by History while a chained Anarchy ights to escape the imprisonment that the Pitt administration had placed him in. By displaying the protagonist in the gown of a university, which was a type of education unknown to the majority of Britons, the Pitt furthered the image of socio-economic exclusiveness. In short, Pitt’s funeral and monument were instances in which a political elite celebrated its own private virtues and actions. Britain’s upper classes could grasp the meaning of allegory, had most

42 In 1558, King Henry VIII bestowed the predicate ‘royal peculiar’ on Westminster Abbey. his means that the administration of the church fell under the jurisdiction of the monarch rather than under the archbishop of Canterbury (who is the head of the southern dioceses and of the Anglican Church). 43 Hoock 2005, 123. 44 he Gentleman’s Magazine (August 1813), 83–II:130.

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likely been trained at university, and would not be daunted by Pitt’s intimidating posture over the abbey’s western entrance door. Public history had become private once more. he funeral of Pitt, and Nelson’s obsequies even more, was covered not only in British newspapers; from Vienna to Amsterdam and from Berlin to Rome, the grand apotheosis of the vice-admiral was reported. It was a funeral ‘die aller Welt beweisen sollen, wie sehr Großbritannien den Werth des Seehelden gekannt, und seinen Verlust gefühlt haben’.45 hat the ‘entire world’ would know about the ‘value of the sea hero’ was no exaggeration. Additionally, the censored French newspapers reported on Nelson’s ‘triste et imposante’ state funeral; they even mentioned that the vice-admiral’s body was laid in a coin made from the mast of the L’Orient! It might seem remarkable that Napoleon’s Ministry of Interior Afairs did not censor such reports, particularly because Nelson had made his name chiely in defeating the leet of Admiral Pierre Villeneuve. Yet, precisely Trafalgar, even if it was frequently mentioned in other European newspapers, was barely referred to in the imperial press. Neither did it refer to the domination of French—and Spanish—lags hanging in St. Paul’s Cathedral, mentioning instead that ‘tous les pavillons des diverses puissances contre lesquelles lord Nelson a combattu’ were represented.46 By neutralising the French position, the Journal de l’Empire sketched a situation in which Britain rather than France was the isolated power. Another paper even suggested that Britain’s isolation in Europe had been the motivation behind Nelson’s funeral: ‘one of the means that the ministry currently employs to divert attention from the disastrous news from the continent, is to attract more and more public attention to the obsequies of Lord Nelson’.47 It is certain that the Pitt administration had incentives of its own in coordinating Nelson’s inal passage: be it to boost British morale, legitimate its policies, secure its own survival in the face of Pitt’s impending death, or even record its own partisan history as part of the public canon. However, Nelson’s festivities only underpinned Britain’s solitary strength in successfully combating the French empire, which in 1806 again took light with the creation of the vassal kingdoms of Holland and Bavaria. If other

45 46 47

Wiener Zeitung (11 January 1806). Journal de l’Empire (16 January 1806). Journal de Paris (13 January 1806).

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countries, though militarily defeated by France, trumpeted Nelson’s memory as an indicator of Britain’s (and, by extension, Europe’s) strength, it seemed time that Napoleon, soon resorting to the continental system for waging economic warfare with Britain, would counteract by showing that France too had its heroes. A Pygmy Turned Giant: Commemorating Marshal Lannes Shortly ater the funerals of Nelson and Pitt had taken place, Napoleon visited the Panthéon in Paris. he building was still covered in scaffolds to conduct the much needed repair works to prevent the crumbling dome from collapsing. A week later, on 20 February 1806, the emperor decreed that the revolutionary Panthéon would be returned to the church under its original name of Sainte-Geneviève while its crypt was to retain its revolutionary function as pantheon. All senators, ministers, grand oicers of the Legion of Honour, and (from 1811) foreign cardinals residing in Paris were to be burried imperial pantheon. Starting with the inclusion of Senator François Tronchet in early March, public commemorations in Napoleonic France followed a standard procedure and shared the same political symbolism. he deceased person’s corpse was collected at his Parisian hôtel from where it was escorted by his family, friends, and colleagues to his parish church. Ater the ecclesiastical service had been terminated, the body was transferred to Sainte-Geneviève where, ater the eulogy was pronounced and the prayers said, it was laid to rest in one of the crypt’s many chambers downstairs. his relative monotony (which was nonetheless unceasingly reported in newspapers) was interrupted in 1810, when Lannes, Napoleon’s comrade-in-arms for sixteen years, was pantheonised. Lannes has been singled out as the ‘paradigm’ of the revolutionary soldier and an oicer who epitomised the empire’s unique attempt to create a new type of elite.48 herefore, his grand exit suggests much about the changing nature of soldiery in France around 1800. It also enlightens us on how changing private-public relations allowed a man with a profoundly humble background like Lannes to

48 Alan Forrest, Napoleon’s Men. he Soldiers of the Revolution and Empire (London: Hambledon and London, 2002), 17.

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become the embodiment of the social aspirations of an emerging class and end his life as a symbol of a new elite. In 1769, Lannes was born to a farmer in the Gers. At the start of the revolution, he engaged himself in the army, quickly obtaining a high rank. Napoleon would later remark about the man whom he made duke of Montebello, ‘je l’avais pris pygmée, je l’ai perdu géant’.49 Lannes joined him at Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena, Ulm, and inally EsslingAspern. here, with the French-Austrian battle still undecided, Lannes was on 22 May 1809 calming his spirits while seated next to a trench. Haunted by the death of some of his closest comrades, exhausted by thirty hours of continued campaigning, and still not recovered from the bloody battle of Saragossa, Lannes was struck by a bullet that crossed both of his legs. Following an amputation, gangrene set in that, ater nine agonising days, caused his death. According to some contemporaries, the marshal died in the arms of Napoleon. However, though the emperor did visit Lannes, the latter expired less heroically on the shoulder of his footman Marbot. ‘Ainsi tout init’, Napoleon wrote afected to Josephine.50 But this was also where all began, because like Nelson’s decease for the Pitt administration, the death of Lannes proved a formidable tool to refresh the spirits of an army increasingly weary of foreign campaigns. he idea of a grand funeral must have come to the emperor’s mind instantly. he bulletin of the Army of Germany reported the death of Lannes as follows: ‘His Majesty has ordered that the corpse of the Duke of Montebello would be embalmed and transported to France to receive there the honours that belong to an elevated rank and to eminent services’.51 he return of the ashes of Marshal Lannes and of General Louis le Blond (count of Saint-Hilaire), who was killed in his wake, was magniicent. he procession departed from Strasbourg on 22 May 1810, exactly one year ater the Battle of Essling-Aspern. Passing Saint-Dizier, it took eleven days to arrive in Paris as the cortege halted every night in another town. By order of the Comte de Montalivet, Napoleon’s minister of interior, the mayors of the towns visited by Lannes’ coin placed the catafalque in the principal churches where, accompanied by a priest and a guard of honour, the public could pay its respect. Damamme 1999, 11. Napoleon to Joséphine (31 May 1809). In Correspondance de Napoléon Ier (32 vols.; Paris: Plon, 1858–1870), 19:60. 51 Bulletin of the ‘Army of Germany 14’. In ibid., 62. 49 50

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Many did in fact attend. Colonel Dupuis, who directed the escort, admired ‘jusqu’à quel point se portaient les regrets et l’admiration du peuple pour le héros qui en était l’objet’.52 Jean Lannes’ short ‘tour de France’ theoretically helped engage a large public, and many Frenchmen pathetically threw lowers on the coin of the deceased. Whether it made the funeral also a national afair remains, however, a question that deserves further attention. he corpse of Marshal Lannes arrived in Paris on the morning of 2 July and was welcomed by a mounted État-Major and dragoons of the Parisian guards. Along the road leading from Porte Saint-Denis across Pont de la Concorde to the Invalides, detachments of infantry and cavalry were stationed. Upon arrival at the Invalides and having passed the saluting invalids, the body lay four days in state below the dome. he coin, topped with Lannes’ bust, was placed on an elevated base on which two winged Victories stood who ofered laurel crowns to the hero. On the four corners of the base, statues were situated in an attitude of pain; these represented the cardinal virtues Force, Justice, Prudence, and Temperance. Silver candelabras surrounded columns to which the enemy’s lags and banners were attached. he somewhat kitschy setup was protected by a railing that prohibited visitors from approaching the catafalque too closely. It seemed a necessary precaution because, like in the case of Nelson, many spectators iled past the coin. he necessary political pomp was also added to the Parisian hôtel of the marshal, whose façade was hung with black cloth and displayed the ducal arms of Montebello raised by two allegories of Glory waving palms of victory. In what seemed a brutal invasion of the private sphere, the house where Lannes’ inconsolable widow Louise still lived with her young children was furthermore provided with texts like ‘Napoléon à la mémoire du duc de Montebello, mort glorieusement aux champs d’Essling, le 22 mai 1809’.53 In the aternoon of 6 July, one year ater Napoleon’s forces had subdued the Austrian army at Wagram, the Invalides church opened its doors to perhaps the most elaborate public ceremony organised in imperial France; only the Sacre, Austrian wedding, and baptism of the yet unborn Roi de Rome, all semiprivate afairs, were grander still. Jean-Jacques Cambacérés, the empire’s archchancellor, presided over

52 53

Poussereau 1910, 354. Journal de Paris (6 July 1810).

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the organisation of the funeral while other high oicials—including all ministers, the entire senate, and various other public functionaries— attended. Many marshals were present, too; Louis Nicolas Davout, Bon Adrien de Moncey, Jean-Mathieu Sérurier (who was also governor of the Invalides), and Jean-Baptiste Bessières even acted as pall bearers. hey were lanked by invalids who had been mutilated in battles commanded by Jean Lannes. During the funeral, Lannes’ body was placed on a catafalque designed in the form of an Egyptian pyramid draped with laurels and cypresses. hough at the time understood as a reference to Lannes’ career in Egypt, the pyramid was probably used as a conventional symbol of immortality, such as that seen in the nearby monument to Marshal Turenne that had been renovated in 1800. A cinerary urn containing the lame of immortality was placed on top of the pyramid. On the urn, Lannes’ ducal arms were incised, as were his military triumphs. Additionally, the lanks of the sarcophagus recounted the public history of Marshal Lannes. In fact, only the side facing the altar mentioned aspects of the private individual: ‘Dans les champs et combats, héros ier & terrible, & dans ceux de Cérès, nouveaux Cincinnatus; au sein de sa famille, époux, père sensible; à la cour, il aima dans son maître un Titus’ (italics mine).54 In Lanne’s funeral, Napoleon formed the principal reference point. Imperial politics additionally prevailed in the manner in which the Invalides church, still not repaired ater revolutionary iconoclasm had smashed its altar, was given the ecclesiastical touch necessary for a liturgical service. he interior’s arcades were provided with texts from the Bible—Psalms and Maccabees—while a wooden altar was constructed and topped with a tabernacle with the tablets of the law. With a cross hanging over it, a conventional religious scene was invoked even though Napoleon, as a one-time planned convert to Islam, never evoked religion unconditionally. he emperor’s diicult relationship with religion as well as his wish to imprint his private ideas regarding faith on the ostensibly public funeral of Lannes also manifested in two curious statues placed next to the altar. One igure was of Saint Louis, whose appearance as patron saint of the Invalides was fully justiied in post-Concordet France. he other

54 Honneurs Funèbres Rendus au Duc de Montebello, Maréchal de l’Empire . . . dans l’Église des Invalides, le VI juillet MDCCCX, Anniversaire de la Bataille de Wagram (Paris: Imprimerie Impériale, 1810), 19.

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displayed the ‘invented tradition’ of Saint Napoleon, under whose joint patronage with Genevieve the imperial pantheon stood. Unlike the aforementioned Saint Nelson, who had been staged as an epistemological device to relect the keenness with which the British public sensed the departed hero’s loss, Saint Napoleon was staged as a proper saint. Wishing to create a new anniversary to celebrate his reign ater the proclamation of the empire in 1804, Napoleon had persuaded the Vatican to canonise a new saint to match his birthday on 15 August, an awkward date as it coincided with the Assumption of the Virgin. he papal envoi to Paris duly obliged with the creation of a Saint Napoleon, named ater Neopolis, the Roman martyr who had been killed for refusing to pledge allegiance to Emperor Maximilian.55 Under the empire, this obstinate general became patron saint of warriors. Measured along the axis of conventional sanctity, Saint Nelson and Saint Napoleon were saints of a very diferent type. Whereas the former expresses a degree of popular attachment, the latter was de jure presented as a conventional saint if de facto he never really became part of the Christian canon. Nevertheless, they are similar in terms of sanctity. As Willem Frijhof showed, sanctity refers to collectively held perceptions of exemplarity that need not be ancient to be trustworthy.56 According to this reasoning, Saint Nelson, a cultural saint, and Saint Napoleon, a saint of religion, can be placed on equal levels. One could extend such socio-cultural venerations to the gloriications of exemplary men—an element endorsed by the references to apotheosis, procession, solemnity, and so on. Rather than suggesting that Nelson, Pitt, and Lannes were honoured because secularisation required other heroes to substitute the traditional pantheons of saints and kings, the apotheosis of these men displays a continuation of religious traditions. As before, the creation of objects of public veneration remained in the hands of traditional elites. It testiies to how elites continued to dominate the administration of public rituals. Saint Napoleon furthered the military outlook of a ceremony that was imbued with Roman imperial symbolism, even displaying warrior pikes headed by eagles. he eagle stood proxy for an emperor who, despite his profound sadness upon hearing of Lannes’ death—both his

55 Sudhir Hazareesingh, he Saint-Napoleon. Celebrations of Sovereignty in Nineteenth-Century France (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 16. 56 Willem Frijhof, Heiligen, idolen, iconen (Nijmegen: SUN, 1998), 20.

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valet Constant and mameluke Roustan spoke of tears dropping into his soup during dinner—was not present during the ceremony.57 In light of King George III’s absence from the funerals of Nelson and Pitt, Napoleon’s refusal to attend Lannes’ obsequies comes as no surprise. What is surprising, though, is that whereas in Britain the princes of the blood attended, none of the Bonapartes visited the Invalides. Naturally, while Napoleon’s siblings were rulers in their own right, they had less reason to seek public appearance than the sons of George III had; with the exception of the prince of Wales and the duke of York, British princes had few public functions. Nevertheless, the presence of no Bonaparte other than Camillo Borghese, Pauline Bonaparte’s husband, shows a disjunction between what Ernst Katorowicz famously coined the body natural and the body political that was unseen in Britain. When the funeral was over, Lannes’ body was transferred to the black-covered church of Sainte-Geneviève. Along the road, military forces were deployed that, according to one reporter, ‘produit la plus vive impression sur les nombreux spectateurs qui se sont portés sur les lieux de passage du cortége’.58 he procession was preceded by mounted trumpeters and dragoons of the Versailles regiment, followed by drummers and pupils of the École Polytechnique, infantry, artillery, pioneers, and miners. Upon arrival at Sainte-Geneviève, the coin was directly taken to the crypt where, ater another brief religious service was held, a eulogy on the deceased was pronounced by Marshal Davout. He related how Lannes’ ‘military life, his devotion serve as examples to those who follow him in the military profession and to the youth, the hope of the fatherland, that is impatient to excel therein’.59 According to Davout, these features contributed to the favourable image that the emperor had of Lannes. Was this impression mutual? Davout sketched Lannes as a ‘loyal and afectionate subject, all whose wishes and thoughts were for our sovereign’ and whose last words ‘were a recommendation to safeguard the security of the emperor’. hese words by no means relected reality. Shortly before he died, Marshal Lannes reproached Napoleon for waging war merely for his own beneit. As criticism of the emperor was highly uncalled

57 58 59

Damamme 1999, 292. Le Moniteur Universel (7 July 1810). Le Moniteur Universel (14 July 1810).

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for, Lannes’ funeral became a celebration of empire rather than the commemoration of a critically disposed marshal. he stress on politics instead of on the individual was further reinforced by the manner in which Lannes’ corpse was deposited in the imperial pantheon. Ordinarily, the collective nature and standardised iconography—all men were interred in either sandstone tombs or urns—potentially had an iconoclastic efect on personal reputations by making the individual’s private story subject to the empire’s public history. Lannes’ status was no exception, even if his pantheonisation was by far the most glamorous of all imperial ceremonies. His remains were deposited in a separate part of the crypt where they have remained ever since as the only imperial pantheonisation located to the let of the church’s main aisle. Nor was Lannes laid in a standard tomb; awaiting a monument upstairs in Sainte-Geneviève similar to that commissioned for General Charles Leclerc, Napoleon’s brotherin-law, the marshal remained in a free-standing wooden chest around which, with time, French lags, bronze laurels, and commemorative plaques were situated. Also atypical for imperial pantheonisations was the grandiose evening illumination of Paris’ main public buildings, including Sainte-Geneviève, that concluded Lannes’ state commemoration. Apart from the festivities in Paris, cities across the empire were ordered to arrange a commemorative service for Lannes on 6 July. By ordering co-ceremonies in, for example, Valence, Avignon, Draguignan, Toulon, and Auch, as well as internationally in Florence and Coblenz, it was attempted to engage the non-Parisian public in the imperial cult of remembrance. In each case, a catafalque decorated with army trophies and enemy lags—which seemed to substitute the traditional eigy—was placed in the black-cloth-covered principal church of each town. An imperial decree ordered all civil and military oicials, the police, reservists, and newly recruited soldiers to attend. Provided that the co-commemorations were intended to render the funeral of Lannes more visibile in the provinces, the authorities were successful. One mayor boasted how ‘tous les habitans’ of his town participated in the performance, which he took as a sign of ‘l’accord qui règne entre les sentimens du monarque et ceux de ses sujets’.60 Not

60 Mayor of Vesoul to Montalivet (14 July 1810). In Archives Nationales F/13/ 1cI/113 dossier Lannes.

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only did the ceremonies attract imperial oicials or locals, but also, in Coblenz, various foreigners attended, mostly functionaries from the duchy of Nassau. As representatives of a state that belonged to the Napoleonic Confederation of the Rhine, the motivation of these oicials to attend can be questioned; was it sympathy, curiosity, or opportunism? Ater all, while the funeral was public in its intention to impress imperial subjects, it was also public insofar as it showed who mattered in the empire and who was keen to display his loyalty. Imperial state ceremonies symbolically separated the imperial elite from the empire’s subjects. Public engagement, however biased in its representation, was further stimulated through lengthy reports in the media. he pantheonisation of Lannes was no exception since imperial funerals and pantheonisations were nearly always covered in the three censored national newspapers. Interestingly, and exemplary of the fact that state funerals remained above all elite-engineered and hence private ceremonies, the authorities seem to have furnished the material for this press coverage. A note of one of Napoleon’s councillors of state observed how ‘the article inserted in Le Moniteur Universel had been edited and sent before the ceremony. It contained some details that were not realised’.61 he hand of censorship clearly appears here, but so does the awareness of the media’s potential of transferring the geographically and socially isolated state funeral to the wider public stage. hough embarrassing once detected, the use of censorship evokes two questions. What did intervention in the media suggest regarding the government’s intentions in orchestrating state ceremony? What did this involvement imply for the public nature of state funerals? State Ceremonies: Mediating Private Interests into the Public Sphere ‘Public’ was one of those typical concepts redeined during the Sattelzeit. In the Encyclopédie, the term is deined as ‘le corps politique que forment entre eux tous les sujets d’un état’.62 A second, clearly

61 Michel Regnaud de Saint-Jean d’Angely (s.d.). In Archives Nationales F/13/ 1cI/113 dossier Portalis. 62 Antoine Gaspard Boucher d’Argis, ‘Public’. Denis Diderot & Jean Le Rond d’Alembert (eds.), Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire Raisonné des Sciences, des Arts et des Métiers (28 vols.; Paris: Briasson et al., 1751–1772), 13:550.

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Rousseauist, deinition describes ‘public’ as the adjective that deines the common good in direct opposition to private interests, over which it takes precedence. Both deinitions adopted the term ‘public’ as an all-inclusive concept with objective criteria of belonging. his chapter has, by contrast, attempted to show how the word ‘public’ was around 1800 appropriated by groups privileging partisan, eclectic, and therefore private interests. he gloriication of the new exemplary man suggested that the public sphere had inally opened to include a wider range of heroes. he exemplary nature of these men was threefold: (i) it represented the ideas of the organisers of the state ceremony, (ii) it relected the actions for which they were commemorated, and (iii) it symbolised the collectives, Britain and France, to which they stood proxy. As a result, the creation of an alleged public sphere became once more a conined, private realm. In addition, even if the press reports on state ceremonies and a more accessible political symbolism testiied how traditional elites recognised the changing public sphere, invitations to state ceremonies were still largely issued to elite groups. In those cases in which people other than the members of the champ politique participated in public commemorations, their behaviour was carefully directed by the organisers. Hence, the sailors’ tearing of the Victory’s ensign or the throwing of lowers on Lannes’ coin by local Frenchmen were peculiar happenings, displaying the impulsive engagement of a public whose actions and emotions ordinarily were not chronicled as history. Apart from these sporadic examples, what does the reduced accessibility imply for the public nature of early nineteenth-century state ceremonies? Could it be that rather than some third person, those addressed by state funerals and monuments were part of the same audience as the commissioner? Is it possible that the gloriication of exemplary men was in fact intended to consolidate the position of the elite and reproduce its interests? Traditionally, funerary ceremonies and monuments sustained the elite’s role as narrator of history. By 1800, this monopoly on dictating the past was no longer uncontested. Yet, elites were not easily defeated. his chapter argues that one of the tools they resorted to was hero gloriication, in order to defend their power. Glorifying other men served as a perfect guise through which the Self could be heralded and defended. Even if public commemorations were said to epitomise ‘the gratitude felt by the nation, for the eminent and meritorious services rendered by our valiant heroes’, exemplary men still

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fulilled a less altruistic role, too.63 Ater all, they were not only exemplary in their actions or the collective they represented. In early nineteenth-century state funerals, being exemplary still principally lay in being emblematic of a political agenda that accepted free access to the past only insofar as it did not oppose the champ politique’s vision of history. Commemorative ceremonies like those ostensibly dedicated to Vice-Admiral Nelson, Prime Minister Pitt, and Marshal Lannes showed how, despite the emergence of a public occasionally opposed to the elite, organisers rarely allowed such challenges to their power to manifest themselves during a state funeral. Although these three men were public igures, their commemorations remained private. Indeed, the ‘symbolics of power’, to quite Cliford Geertz, remained accessible to the more privileged social classes only.64 hus, although the three funerals were undoubtedly commemorations in public, they were not public commemorations; this was a decisive change in comparison to the egalitarian rhetoric that had prevailed during the revolutionary years. It appeared that occasionally, the progress attained by Habermas’ transforming public sphere was halted, or even reversed, by an elite that needed to protect its own position against erosion. herefore, whether by 1800 state funerals and commemorative monuments ofered a ‘tribute of praise unmixed with any alloy’, to once again quote Catherine Macaulay, remained to be seen.

European Magazine (August 1816). Cliford Geertz, ‘Centers, Kings, and Charisma: Relections on the Symbolics of Power’. Joseph Ben-David & Terry Nichols Clark (eds.), Culture and its Creators. Essays in Honor of Edward Shils (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), 150– 171, here 124. 63

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INVENTING LITERARY HERITAGE: NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS AND EDITORIAL SCHOLARSHIP IN SWEDEN, 18101830 Paula Henrikson Editorial Scholarship as an Infrastructure of Memory Editorial scholarship can in general terms be characterised as a societal method for organising and promoting the written memories of a culture—that is, memories not as a device for a merely passively recognised, accumulated, and documented past, but memories as an active and continuously recalled idea of the past, or even a performance of the past, enacted to change the course of the future. Memories in this sense are to be understood not as documents stored in archives, but rather in their public appearances through constant use and reuse—in what Ann Rigney terms ‘cultural mnemotechniques and mnemotechnologies’.1 Editorial scholarship works as a cultural mnemotechnology of such a kind, which we may label an infrastructure of memory, producing and ordering cultural memories. So conceived, the study of editorial scholarship contributes to the wide ield of memory studies, which has been a productive and fruitful trend in the humanities in recent decades. Memory studies are oten appreciated for their ability to underline the relevance of historical imagination in societies and communities, and thus for their diversity and multiplicity of scope. But even so, voices have repeatedly been heard criticising the limited character of many of these studies, as they are oten focused on speciic events and settings. Calls have been made for a more systematic approach to the communicative structures of memory as well as to the diverse material media representing memory in societies.

1 Ann Rigney, ‘Portable Monuments: Literature, Cultural Memory, and the Case of Jeanie Deans’. Poetics Today 25:2 (2004), 361–396, here 366. Cf. 368: ‘Instead, memories are dependent on their being recalled in various media by later generations who ind them meaningful for the nonce, who may even ind it their duty to keep them alive, but whose descendants may, nevertheless, proceed to forget them again’.

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Alon Conino insisted ten years ago on historicising memory itself, asking, ‘When and why did memory become a habit of mind shared by people to give meaning to the past?’.2 Historicising memory means searching for the systems by which collective or cultural memory is constructed and maintained. hese systems are complex and may even be considered unknowable due to the sheer breadth of the ield with which memory studies usually deal. Still, identifying the institutions, groups, and individuals occupied or even obsessed by the idea of mediating history into the future might help us to understand memory not as an anonymous process, hidden in the minds of those who have passed away, but as a performed practice.3 As an infrastructure of memory, editorial scholarship has had as its primary aim not only a meticulous cataloguing of sources of the past but also, more particularly, the construction of a coherent and meaningful story by which the historical documents become capable of inluencing the future. ‘Memory’ thus indicates the practice by which the past becomes an object for commemoration and tribute as well as a starting point for the shaping of a national identity. In the decades around 1800, intense emphasis was laid on the idea that literature has a history in which literary works not only follow in a chronological order but also interact in a continuous tradition governed by a causal logic. While this process has been described from several perspectives, one way of understanding it is that the idea of unchangeable models for literature was replaced by the idea of a hermeneutic attitude toward how works and authors are situated in a speciic epoch and context. his also meant a changing attitude toward the past: once functioning as a present and always-accessible repertoire of literary strategies and motifs, past literature now came to be regarded as a temporally structured tradition.4 A special aspect of this Alon Conino, ‘Collective Memory and Cultural History: Problems of Method’. he American Historical Review 102:5 (1997), 1386–1403, here 1403; cf. Jefery K. Olick & Joyce Robbins, ‘Social Memory Studies: From “Collective Memory” to the Historical Sociology of Mnemonic Practices’. Annual Review of Sociology 24 (1998), 105–140, here 112. 3 Cf. also Wulf Kansteiner, ‘Finding Meaning in Memory: A Methodological Critique of Collective Memory Studies’. History and heory 41.2 (2002), 179–197. Kansteiner pleads for an integration of methods from communication and media studies in the practice of memory studies. 4 Such a model has been worked out by Stina Hansson, Från Hercules till Swea. Den litterära textens förändringar (Göteborg: Litteraturvetenskapliga institutionen, 2000) who (inspired by Horace Engdahl, Den romantiska texten. En essä i nio avsnitt 2

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process was the articulation of the need to make the literary tradition available through editions and reprints. In this article, I will explore the editorial scholarship of Swedish Romanticism. I will argue that the theory and practice of Romantic editing were shaped by changing concepts of history. he appeal to a literary tradition was especially driven by the Romantics’ ambition, on the one hand, of gaining polemical advantages in their own period and, on the other hand, of acquiring control over the future. Literary tradition was invoked in pronounced conlict with a society that, according to the Romantics, had ignored its own history, and every trace of a new-born interest in history among Swedish youth was recorded with a seismographic sensibility. One witness to this is found in the leading igure of the Swedish Romantic movement, P.D.A. Atterbom (1790–1855), who in 1816 declared that the youth had acquired a modern view of the phases of literary history and that the ground thus seemed prepared for a resurgence of national literature.5 he Romantic (re)invention of literary history in Sweden can be divided into two phases. In the irst phase, members of a still-unestablished cultural elite—the Romantic movement, also called ‘the New School’—usurped a literary heritage to strengthen their position against their established opponents. In the next phase, while their aggressive attempt was regarded as youthful imprudence, at the same time, their general conception of the history of literature had a wider public impact and gained social acceptance. In this article I will explore the process by which the Romantic idea of literary history was laid out through the practice of literary editing. I will describe how the history of literature thereby became a matter of public interest and eventually reached a wide audience that was thus provided with a renewed access to the past. he General Background Lorenzo Hammarsköld (1785–1827)—author and librarian who was the most controversial of the Romantic critics in Sweden and yet one (Stockholm: Bonniers, 1986)) emphasises the shit from a ‘poetry of repertoire’ to a ‘poetry of works’. 5 Cf. Louise Vinge, Morgonrodnadens stridsmän. Epokbildningen som motiv i svensk romantik 1807–1821 (Lund: Vetenskapssocieteten, 1978), 116.

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of the most cultivated and well read—noted in 1816 that ‘the customs and traditions of our literature have still not been properly examined and even less put into order’.6 In many respects, he was right, even if interest in the ancient north and the editing of its national memorials had already lared up in the early seventeenth century as a consequence of Sweden’s military expansion and in response to the need for a national history that was on par with its military success. In 1630 a royal promulgation concerning the newly established posts of national antiquarians (riksantikvarier) was made public. he king decreed that the antiquarians should locate, assemble, and ile not only rune stones, manuscripts, and books, but also folk traditions, tales, and ballads.7 he instruction was far-reaching and in principle impossible to fulil with the resources available. In 1666 the College of Antiquities (Antikvitetskollegium) was founded with instructions to ‘elaborate and bring to light all that can contribute to the elucidation and preservation of ancient Swedish and Gothic heritage’.8 he instructions also emphasise the study and editing of runes and manuscripts. An intense editorial preoccupation resulted from the college’s activities during the following decades, as editions of historical (or supposedly historical) genres such as provincial laws, Icelandic sagas, chronicles, and runes surfaced.9 he most thorough investigations of the activities of the College of Antiquities remain those by Henrik Schück (1932, 1933). hese concern us here primarily as a background to the historical interests in the early nineteenth century. he eighteenth century had been characterised by a more sober view of history and thus also by increasing skill in source evaluation, which stimulated the editing of historical

6 Cited from Vinge 1978, 117. Original: ‘Vår vitterhets häfder äro ännu icke tillbörligen undersökta och ännu mindre i ordning ställda’. 7 Cf. Henrik Schück, Kgl. Vitterhets historie och antikvitets akademien. Dess förhistoria och historia. 1: Antikvitetsstudiets början (Stockholm: Wahlström & Widstrand, 1932), 140–143. 8 Henrik Schück, Kgl. Vitterhets historie och antikvitets akademien. Dess förhistoria och historia. 2: Antikvitetskollegiet I (Stockholm: Wahlström & Widstrand, 1933), 16. Original: ‘alle the ting utharbeta och i liuset komma låtha, som till the gamble Swenske och Giötiske Antiquiteters uplysning och conservation lända kunna’. 9 Cf. my discussion of the editions (dating from 1505 to 1933) of the Scania province law in Paula Henrikson, ‘Scania Province Law and Nation Building in Scandinavia’. Joep Leerssen & Dirk Van Hulle (eds.), Editing the Nation’s Memory: Textual Scholarship and Nation-Building in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Amsterdam / New York: Rodopi, 2008), 91–108.

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sources. Sten Lindroth has characterised eighteenth-century collectors and editors as a ‘not very dazzling but useful and indispensable group’, separated from ‘the historians proper’, who were able to make connections and general overviews.10 At the same time, private interest in collecting original manuscripts increased,11 inding a public and institutional equivalent in the Royal Society for the Editing of Manuscripts Concerning the History of Scandinavia (Kungl. Samfundet för utgivande av handskriter rörande Skandinaviens historia), founded in 1815.12 hrough this organisation, the institutionalisation of editorial scholarship in Sweden was reinforced. he fundamental importance of source editing for the historical research of the nineteenth century has been illuminated by Rolf Torstendahl, who called this period the ‘century of editing’.13 An engagement with the past, even in editorial terms, was thus to be found in Sweden long before Romanticism. I will focus on the rise of a historical consciousness in the period labelled by Reinhart Koselleck as the Sattelzeit, ‘the age of transition’, 1750–1850. Still, we should not overlook the immense importance of historical imagination even before 1750. During the period 1750–1850, however, a new notion of (ictional) literature increasingly became the chief instrument for national identiication instead of or alongside public history. When Hammarsköld refers to ‘the customs and traditions of our literature’ as not yet properly examined and organised, his statement silently contrasts literature with the historical sources that had long been studied and edited. It was now literature’s turn: while the Wahrheit of history describes the outer circumstances of a society, the Dichtung of poetry now lays claim to explaining the inner spirit of the people. he editorial endeavours of Swedish Romanticism have not yet been the focus of any study. In her investigation of the Romantic ambition to create an epoch in literature and history, Louise Vinge (1978) 10 Sten Lindroth, Svensk lärdomshistoria 3: Frihetstiden (Stockholm: Norstedt, 1978), 615 Originals: ‘föga bländande, men nyttig och oumbärlig grupp’; ‘[d]e egentliga historieskrivarna’. 11 Cf. Bertil Broomé, Handskritssamlarna och de svenska arkiven 1700–1950 (Stockholm: Kungl. bibl., 1977). 12 Cf. Severin Bergh, Kungl. Samfundet för utgifvande af handskriter rörande Skandinaviens historia under första århundradet af dess tillvaro (Stockholm: Norstedt, 1917). 13 Rolf Torstendahl, Källkritik och vetenskapssyn i svensk historisk forskning 1820–1920 (Diss. Uppsala; Stockholm: Norstedt, 1964), 215. Original: ‘utgivningens århundrade’.

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discusses historical consciousness as expressed in the Romantic movement. Anthologies of Swedish literature, produced also by the Romantics, have been examined by Stafan Björck (1984).14 Moreover, we ind discussions about the historical aspirations and contributions of the Swedish Romantics in research on speciic authors and critics. Also important is the short outline by Tore Wretö (1991) of the trends in Swedish literary editing from the sixteenth to the twentieth century.15 But on the whole, the same holds true for Romantic editing as for editorial scholarship in general: as ‘derivative’ work and as a supposed objective activity, it has rarely been investigated as an important ield in itself. his was noted by homas Tanselle: Scholarship is of course a cultural activity, and the historical study of it forms a natural part of the intellectual history of any period or country. In practice, however, it is sometimes neglected in such histories, perhaps out of a feeling that it is derivative, not primary. But a distinction between creative work and scholarship cannot be maintained, for every efort to establish past events—however disciplined by what are taken to be responsible ways of handling evidence—is a creative act, involving judgments at each step.16

Jerome J. McGann—among several others—has also emphasised the importance of investigating the history of textual scholarship.17 Such investigations spring also from the insight—or rather rediscovery—of textual criticism as an essentially interpretative, hermeneutically conditioned discipline, not an objectively understood skill or ‘preliminary operations’,18 which was the diagnosis during much of the twentieth century. In my context, editorial history is relevant not only for its general importance for the history of humanities but also, above all, as an exponent of changing attitudes toward the past. Editing is here regarded as a performative act through which the edited document is endowed with an explanatory force for the present. 14 Stafan Björck, Svenska språkets skönheter. Om den lyriska antologin i Sverige— dess historia och former (Stockholm: Norstedt, 1984). 15 Tore Wretö, ‘Texter och editioner. En inledande betraktelse’. In: Barbro Ståhle Sjönell (ed.). Textkritk. Teori och praktik vid edering av skönlitterära texter (Stockholm: Svenska Vitterhetssamfundet, 1991), 9–26. 16 G. homas Tanselle, ‘Bibliographical History As a Field of Study’, Studies in Bibliography 41 (1988), 33–63, here: 33. 17 Jerome J. McGann, A critique of modern textual criticism (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1983), 10–11. 18 René Wellek & Austin Warren, heory of Literature (New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1949), 49.

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Editing National Literature: he Beginnings he editorial scholarship of vernacular languages stood on the shoulders of a giant: classical scholarship remained a dominant and ubiquitous model. However, editions of modern literature were particularly characterised by the constant interplay with a market of readers. he scholarly editing of postmedieval literature is shaped by this tension between, on the one hand, an emphasis on the contemporary reader and, on the other hand, the slowly increasing inluences of a scholarly paradigm that has long traditions. It was not until the latter part of the nineteenth century that a pronounced tradition was established for truly scholarly editions of modern literature, as can be seen, for instance, in the establishment of institutions for the editing of texts. Even if the term ‘critical edition’ is applied in a very broad sense, we can discern only few editions of Swedish, postmedieval literature before 1750. Pioneering but scandalous was the edition of Olof von Dalin’s (1708–1763) Witterhets-Arbeten (Literary Works), published in 1767—scandalous, since, in its indiscriminate comprehensiveness (so said the critics), it deviated from the accepted idea of an editor’s task.19 We could summarise this idea by saying that editors should be selective but at that same time polish up the works of an author to make him appear even better than during his lifetime. Exemplifying this model was the brilliant eighteenth-century author Johan Henric Kellgren (1751–1795), who stated in 1790 that ‘irst-rate authors (others need not be mentioned) would beneit literature as well as their own honour if, while still alive, they collected and edited their own works’.20 Before his own death, Kellgren made thorough preparations for a collection of his works, and on his deathbed, he commissioned a trusted editor to complete the task.21 he goal here was to produce strictly selective editions that could promote good literary taste. An editor was to comply with an extreme form of Ausgabe letzter Hand: he should

19 Cf. Sven G. Hansson, ‘Olof von Dalins Witterhets-Arbeten. Tillkomst, textkaraktär, mottagande’. Samlaren (1963), 176–231; idem, ‘Olof von Dalins WitterhetsArbeten. Tillkomst, textkaraktär, mottagande’. Samlaren (1964), 192–218. 20 Johan Henric Kellgren, ‘Företal’. C.M. Bellman, Fredmans epistlar (Stockholm: Åhlström, 1790), unpaged. Original: ‘Ypperlige Författare (om andre är ingen fråga) gjorde väl för Vitterheten och sin egen heder at, medan de lefva, sjelfve samla och utgifva sine Arbeten’. 21 Cf. Sverker Ek, Kellgren. Skalden och kulturkämpen, 2: Hans utveckling eter segern med Gustaf Wasa 1786 (Stockholm: Natur och kultur, 1980), 584–585.

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exclude from the edition not only those works an author would not or ought not accept; he should moreover revise and adapt the edited texts in order to correspond to the demands of good taste. An author is not ‘father to children other than the ones he acknowledges’, as Kellgren put it.22 he editorial endeavour of the Romantics reacted polemically against this classicistic view of the nature of literature. Swedish Romanticism developed ater the constitutional revolution of 1809, when the absolutist regime was replaced by a constitution in which, among other things, copyright, authorial rights, and a relative freedom of the press were guaranteed. While the system of printing privileges that had governed the Swedish book market of the eighteenth century had put the interests of the guild irst, authorial rights as articulated in the statutes of 1810 gave expression to a view of literature highly focused on the author.23 he authorial rights of 1810 are oten described as a precursor to the Romantic literary revolution, which was made possible by the freedom of publishing guaranteed by the statute. In its conception of the essential nature of literature, however, it primarily relected the literary values of the preceding epoch. In any case, the new constitution paved the way for a substantial expansion of the printing industry: newspapers, periodicals, and translations emerged, as did a growing number of literary editions. Not least it permitted a clearer distribution of roles among author, editor, and publisher, a development that would continue during the nineteenth century. he Romantic ambition was mainly one of literary ideology. hrough a new and radical conception of the history and evolution of literature as well as an ambitious editorial enterprise, the Romantics tried to secure their right to set the agenda for the future. he number of editions was not very large: depending on the deinition, we can ind about a dozen (of up to three volumes each) in the period 1810–1830, carried out by editors associated with the Romantic school. he editorial work of the Romantics was proiled on the one hand by their selection of authors, on the other by their theoretical tendency. A considerable number of the central Romantic critics worked also as editors, among them the already mentioned Lorenzo Hammarsköld Kellgren 1790, unpaged. Original: ‘Men nu är man, i lärd som i allmän mening, icke Far til andra barn, än dem man sjelf erkänner’. 23 he most recent study on the history of authorial rights in Sweden is Gunnar Petri, Författarrättens genombrott (Stockholm: Atlantis, 2008). 22

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(librarian) as well as P.A. Sondén (literary historian, poet, and cleric, 1792–1837) and Erik Gustaf Geijer (poet, philosopher, and professor of history, 1783–1847). Adolf Iwar Arwidsson (1791–1858), who moved to Sweden from Finland 1823, was also important for his editorial eforts. heir contributions extend from diferent types of folk literature (ballads and tales) and more or less canonical authors from past times—such as Georg Stiernhielm (1598–1672), Jacob Frese (1690–1729), Carl Michael Bellman (1740–1795), and homas horild (1759–1808)—to prematurely deceased authors from their own generation, among whom Erik Johan Stagnelius (1793–1823) is the most important, but also relevant here are Erik Sjöberg/Vitalis (1794–1828) and Elias Vilhelm Ruda (1807–1833). ‘With all respect to these titles’, Stafan Björck states, ‘one may be surprised that the Romantics did not, by way of separate editions and anthologies, do more to enhance the tradition which they are so anxious to evoke’—although he immediately adds that, considering especially the eforts of the publishing house owned by the energetic Romantic Vilhelm Fredrik Palmblad (1788–1852), ‘it would be silly to demand more’.24 His ambivalence in the evaluation of the Romantic project probably depends on his own starting point in the lyrical anthology, which prevents him from further investigating separate editions. An investigation of these, however, certainly leads us to modify Björck’s observations. I will here discuss some of the Romantic editions with an aim of describing the driving forces behind Romantic editorial scholarship.25 Editing as the Construction of a Literary Past he irst pronounced Romantic edition in Sweden is the tiny edition of some works by Carl Michael Bellman (1740–1795), Fredmans handskriter (Fredman’s Manuscripts), printed in 1813. It was probably produced by a team of editors, led by Sondén, and it was a work 24 Björck 1984, 50. Originals: ‘Med all respekt för dessa titlar kan man ändå förvåna sig över att romantikerna inte uträttade mer för att genom separata editioner eller antologiska verk levandegöra den tradition som de är så angelägna om att frammana’; ‘det skulle vara obilligt att begära mer’. 25 What follows is based on my investigations into the history of literary editorial scholarship in Sweden that I have been carrying out within a project funded by the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet).

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of high quality: as late as 1985, an eminent scholar and editor of Bellman’s works expressed a considerable conidence in the reliability of the edition. He mentions three characteristics: a careful establishment of the text, a polemical attitude toward previous editors of Bellman, and a critical apparatus with selective lists of variants.26 he apparatus is noteworthy: under the heading ‘Variants’ (Varianter), twelve pages with alternative readings are presented. his was not yet customary in editions of postmedieval literature and indicates an ambition to open up the uniform reading text to a more historical and evolutionary view of it. he editors’ critical approach to Fredman’s Manuscripts even justiies considering it the irst scholarly edition of postmedieval literature in Sweden. While the edition of Fredman’s Manuscripts may look modest to us, it was a huge statement in the eyes of the opponents of the Romantic movement. It was reviewed in a furious mood in one of the Old-School magazines, Allmänna Journalen, by Per Adam Wallmark (1777–1858), who described it as an expression of ‘the literary shamelessness of our time to mock even the graves of our Authors’.27 He was particularly upset that the editors printed poems in which Bellman joked about religion and morals; he held that it was the right of an author to be acquitted of such follies of his pen. In this way he emphasised the author’s right to draw the boundaries for what would make up his lasting literary legacy. Both infuriated and despondent, Wallmark denounced the scandalous idea of an indiscriminate comprehensiveness that was now gaining ground: Tremble, you Authors still alive! Woe betide you, if you leave a single line behind, which has not been included in your works, some ofspring of an unguarded moment, some exaggeration of genius, which you reject and wish to bury in eternal oblivion. Be convinced that they will appear in your name and that no one will any more challenge their right to admiration, when a prospect turns up to win some plates on them.28

26 Gunnar Hillbom, ‘Etermäle, 1985’. C.M. Bellman, Fredmans Handskriter (Stockholm: Författarförlaget, 1985), 213–232. 27 Per Adam Wallmark, Review of Fredmans Handskriter. In Allmänna Journalen 11th Jan. 1814, unpaged. Original: ‘wår tids wittra skamlöshet att äfwen håna wåra Författares griter’. 28 Wallmark 1814, unpaged. Original: ‘Bäfwen, I Författare, som ännu lefwen! We eder, om I eterlemnen någon rad, som ej intagits i edra Arbeten, något foster af ett obewakadt ögonblick, någon snillets öfwerilning, som I förkasten och önsken att begrafwa i en ewig glömska. Waren försäkrade att de skola framträda under edert

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Wallmark assumes that the driving force behind the edition is purely economical—to increase the number of printing plates—while the Romantics conversely refer to historical exactitude. Completeness and historical idelity are the new commandments, as is a view of history as a continuous development. Such an idea of literary development is perhaps most explicit in the edition of Swenska folk-visor från forntiden (Swedish folk songs from ancient times), a work which was started in 1814. It consists of three volumes totalling eight hundred pages, plus introduction and postscript. Its editors were two combative Romantics: Erik Gustaf Geijer, author and (later) professor of history in Uppsala, and Arvid August Afzelius (1785–1871), philologist and cleric. he project of publishing national ballads had numerous European precedents—the Swedish editors had, for instance, contact with the Dane Rasmus Nyerup (1759–1829). Still, the project was a challenge, not to say a provocation, given the literary situation in Sweden. In his extensive and thoughtful introduction, which is the most original contribution in the edition, Geijer discusses the demanding role of the editors: hey ind themselves in the peculiar situation of presuming to present as a national asset what to the largest part of our general reading public nowadays is either totally unknown or, if one or another recognises sounds from their childhood, is likely to be looked upon with indiference and ridicule.29

he notion of a ‘national asset’ is central. To clarify the ballads’ importance as national treasures, Geijer gives a wide-ranging account of the historical development of Western poetry, from ancient to modern times. He argues that the ballad embodies the Scandinavian Homer ‘in its original spirit . . . deeper than the antique’. But while literature in antiquity developed, Scandinavian literature remained stagnant. he Scandinavians had lately tried to regain the superiority of the ancient literature by imitating ‘the advantages of an already perfected culture’

namn och att man ej mera skall jäfwa dess rätt till beundran, sedan en utsigt öppnat sig att derpå winna några plåtar’. 29 E.G. Geijer & A.A. Afzelius (eds.), Svenska folk-visor från forntiden (3 vols.; Stockholm: Zacharias Haeggström, 1814–1816), I:I. Original: ‘De inna sig nemligen i den egna belägenhet, att tro sig såsom en national-egendom böra anmäla någon ting, som, för den talrikaste hopen af vår läsande allmänhet nu för tiden, antingen är alldeles obekant, eller också, om en och annan här skulle igenkänna ljud från sin barndomsdagar, med likgiltighet och åtlöje torde beses’.

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and by being ‘grated onto a foreign stem’. Geijer concludes, ‘he nature of this imitation however prevents us from believing that it was grounded in a clear recognition of the large and important precedence of ancient poetry, which lies in its organic development into an independent whole’.30 Organic development into an independent whole is the model for a developmental history in its ideal sense. he weakness of the Swedish nation was, according to Geijer, that it had not fully experienced such a development. National literatures should therefore tread in the footsteps of the ancient authors rather than imitate them. his viewpoint is characteristic of the role of the ballads in Swedish Romanticism, but it is also fundamental for the Romantic idea of the ancient classics. he question is not whether the ancients are exemplary but in which way—the classical period goes from being a timeless norm to a historically understood model for the organic development of literature. Literary history was thus endowed with a real historical dimension, and in this historical system, the ballad holds a position analogous to that of Homer as the starting point for a national literature. We get a hint of this already on the edition’s title page with its image of what probably is intended to be seen as a Nordic bard with harp in hand, but which also evokes representations of the blind Homer with his lyre (cf. next page). Evidence of the same ambition of having the ballad replace the ancient classics is, incidentally, also found in the next edition of Scandinavian ballads, published as late as 1843. he editor, Adolf Iwar Arwidsson, points to the folk tradition as a source of knowledge about national history—not of kings or the state, but of ‘real people’. In this context, he suggests that academic dissertations, normally devoted to translations of Greek and Latin authors, should rather be used for annotations of the ‘sagas, memorials, historical traditions, customs, proverbs, riddles, ballads, plays, dialects’ of the Swedish provinces.31 In

30 Geijer & Afzelius 1814, I:XI. Originals: ‘till sin ursprungliga anda . . . djupare än den Antika’; ‘en redan fullkomnad bildnings fördelar’; ‘inympas på en främmande stam’.—‘Beskafenheten af denna härmning förbjuder oss dock tro, att den var grundad på något klart erkännande af den gamla poesiens stora och väsenteliga företräde, hvilket ligger i dess organiska utvickling till ett sjelfständigt helt’. 31 Adolf Iwar Arwidsson (ed.), Svenska fornsånger. En samling af kämpavisor, folkvisor, lekar och dansar, samt barn- och vall-sånger (3 vols.; Stockholm: Norstedt, 1834– 1842), I:VII. Original: ‘fornsägner, minnesmärken, historiska traditioner, folkbruk och seder, ordspråk, gåtor, folkvisor, lekar och provins-ord, m.m’.

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Fig. 1. Illustration on the front page of the folk song edition Svenska folkvisor från forntiden (1814–1816), edited by Erik Gustaf Geijer and Arvid August Afzelius.

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this way, he argues, the dissertations could become a national archive of memorials, rather than a place for devotion to the classics. he editors of Swedish Folk Songs introduce their edition as preliminary—a complete edition would, they declare, require travels, contacts, and eforts beyond their abilities. But their critical ambition, visible in commentaries, notes, and references to sources and informants, is obvious—their ambitions were probably greater than their capacities as editors. heir purpose is to present each ballad in its ‘best form’, that is, through eclectic emendations; but they also give some ballads in variant forms. he edition sold well, and on the whole it must be looked upon as a pioneering venture with respect not only to introducing the ballad in modern literature but also to advancing a historically founded concept of literature in general. Swedish Folk Songs was certainly much more successful than the highly mocked edition of Swedish Folk Tales (Svenska folksagor) of 1819, which was dedicated to Rasmus Nyerup and inspired by the Grimm brothers. It was edited by Hammarsköld and Johan Imnelius (1796–1829) and appeared in a small booklet, but was ridiculed for its attempt to make eminent literature out of peasants’ tales. One example from the reviews follows: From a historical point of view it can be important to be aware of the lowest level of education at which the Nation has found itself, but the idea that, once a higher level had been attained, the objects that had won the esteem of common people should still awaken the same interest could hardly occur to anyone but the kind of antiquarians who value the stains and the dust on ancient monuments most of all.32

he reference to such antiquarians, ‘who value the stains and the dust on ancient monuments most of all’, was an insult that haunted the whole project of resurrecting the literature of the nation. In his account of the historical development not only of the ballad but of European literature in its entirety, mentioning authors such as Dante, Tasso, Cervantes, and Shakespeare, Geijer writes,

32 Anonymous, Review of Svenska folksagor. In Stockholms Posten 30th Aug. 1819, unpaged. Original: ‘Det kan wäl i historiskt afseende wara wigtigt att känna äfwen den lägsta grad af bildning, hwarpå Nationen befunnit sig, men att inbilla sig, att sedan man framträngt till en högre bildning, de föremål, som under en lägre wunnit Allmänhetens beundran, skulle ännu wäcka samma interesse, kan nästan icke falla någon annan in, än de slags antiquarier, som på de antika monumenterna mest wärdera läckarna och dammet’.

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Moreover, there is one man in whom all the rays that diversely emanate from an as yet unshaped poetry gather as in a focus into radiant clarity and who therefore stands at the head of a new era. hat man is Stiernhielm. . . . With him begins the History of Swedish Literature.33

he edition of this seventeenth-century author appeared only four years later, with Hammarsköld as editor. In the introduction he describes how the edition was made possible by a ‘revolution in general opinion’, which had made again fashionable what was ‘nationally serious’.34 In scholarly terms, the edition was remarkable for its accuracy in text, variants, and commentary, and in the review by Sondén, it is labelled ‘the irst of its kind in our literature’.35 In the same review, Sondén states that the fundamental goal for the editorial scholarship of the Romantics was to account for the history of the nation: It is already becoming quite commonly realised that the writings of our old Poets truly deserve a closer scrutiny; not in order to be presented as models, since an ideal sought only from without always leads to deception; but because they make up an important link in the developmental history of the nation, which is indispensable if we want to know ourselves and our time.36

Here Sondén points to an important diference between the editorial scholarship of pre-Romanticism and Romanticism: while the former presented editions to serve as models and preserve good taste, past literature is seen by Sondén as ‘an important link in the developmental history of the nation’. he literary tradition is not normative but ofers a historical dimension, ‘which is indispensable if we want to know ourselves and our time’.

33 Geijer & Afzelius 1814, I:L–LI. Original: ‘För öfrigt ins det en enda man, hos hvilken alla de strålar af en ännu obildad poesi, som man under denna period träfar spridda, såsom i en brännpunkt sedermera synas samlat sig till ett klart sken, och som derföre äfven begynner en ny tid. Det är Stjernhelm. . . . Med honom begynner Svenska Skaldekonstens Historia’. 34 Georg Stiernhielm, Vitterhets-arbeten (Ed. Lorenzo Hammarsköld, Stockholm: Hedmanska tryckeriet, 1818), II. 35 P.A. Sondén, Review of Stiernhielm, Vitterhets-arbeten. In Swensk Literatur-Tidning 24 (1818), 369–374; 25 (1818), 377–398; 26 (1818), 401–411, here 410. Original: ‘i sitt slag det första i wår literatur’. 36 Sondén 1818, 364. Original: ‘Man börjar ock redan temligen allmänt inse, att wåra gamla Skalders skriter werkligen äro wärda en närmare undersökning: ej för att framställas såsom mönster, emedan ett ideal, endast utifrån sökt, alltid leder till förwillelse; utan derföre, att de utgöra en wigtig länk i nationens bildningshistoria, utan hwilken det ej är möjligt att känna sig sjelf och sin tid’.

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Such an understanding of the literary object also afects the editor’s treatment of a text. While the editors in the preceding epoch unscrupulously changed and adjusted the text, the Romantics introduce the idea of a historical approach to editing, expressed in elements such as variants and commentaries. Editing as the Manifestation of a New Literary Era he Stiernhielm edition refers, as mentioned, to a ‘revolution in general opinion’, which had made national seriousness fashionable. his is a recurring statement in the editions, where reference is made to the novel interest in ‘the Old’,37 as well as to the ‘interest in the ancient monuments of the nation, which was reawakened ater the irst decade of the century’.38 his historical interest was, as I have outlined, the result of an ambition to seek the roots of the nation in its developmental history. But it was also supposed to encourage the rise of a new literature brought forth not by imitation—not even of ballads—but by a deep national feeling. he underlying aim behind the editing of national classics was thus to make contemporary and future national poetry lourish in Sweden. A problem was that it seemed not to do so. Even the Romantics themselves pointed out the embarrassing absence of literary works that could conirm the new era. hey wrote, ‘It is true: no native poetic genius has yet created any great and powerful work on which we dwell in rapture. We still await the ripening of the freshly planted seedlings in happier, sunnier days’.39 his absence also was the mightiest weapon in the hands of their enemies, the Old School. One of them, the critic Per Adam Wallmark, called the Romantics ‘persons . . . without the merit of a single skillful work’. He goes on,

37 Lorenzo Hammarsköld & Johan Imnelius, Svenska folksagor. (Stockholm: Johan Imnelius, 1819), I. 38 Arwidsson (ed.), 1834–1842, I:III. Originals: ‘uppsökande af det gamla’; ‘håg för fosterlandets fornminnen, som återvaknade eter första tiotalet af innevarande århundrade’. 39 Cited from Vinge 1978, 131. ‘Det är sant: ännu har ingen genius i fosterländska poesien, i en stor och mäktig skapelse, framställt ett verk, hvarvid vi med hänryckning dröje: ännu vänta vi af lyckligare, varmare dagar mognaden af de nyplanterade växterna’.

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hey answer, ‘But, we have on several occasions explained that we do not believe that we, in a positive way, that is through excellent works, have done anything of true note for the national literature’. Excuse me, gentlemen, I recall that, but hence it also inevitably follows, from what I have demonstrated in the preceding, that you have not destroyed anything of the Old, and that you are not able to destroy it.40

In this embarrassing situation, the then still quite unknown Erik Johan Stagnelius (1793–1823) died at the age of twenty-nine, leaving behind a trove of unpublished manuscripts. Few authors get their breakthroughs with posthumous editions, but this was the case with Stagnelius, whose Samlade skriter (Collected works) was edited by Hammarsköld. his edition was meant to rebut the charge that, while the Romantics certainly had made editions of important works, they had not yet produced anything superior of their own. By retroactively including this young and talented author in the Romantic project, the New School could gain polemical advantages from his success. Mobilising his works was a way to show that the Romantic eforts were, ater all, fruitful. In this way, the edition turns into an important manifestation of literary strategy. In the introduction, the editor claims that all the poems by Stagnelius proclaim the ‘great and mighty inluence that the opinions of the New School in Swedish literature have had on the development of the poetic talent of Stagnelius’.41 he history of its reception has shown that Hammarsköld’s efort was successful; within a few years, Stagnelius was considered one of the most important Romantic authors, and he is today regarded as the Swedish Romanticist par excellence.

40 Per Adam Wallmark, Försök att upplysa publiken om föremålet och beskafenheten af den elfva-åriga Tvisten inom vår Litteratur. Ett bidrag till vår Vitterhets Historia för åren 1809–1820 (Stockholm: Ecksteinska boktryckeriet, 1821), 76, 89–90. Originals: ‘utan all egen förtjenst af något enda dugligt arbete’; ‘Men, svarar man, vi ha på lera ställen i våra skriter låtit förstå, att vi icke tro oss hafva i positif väg, det vill säga, genom ypperliga arbeten, uträttat något särdeles inom den fosterländska Litteraturen. Förlåten mig, mine Herrar, jag påminner mig det; men då är det också, enligt hvad jag i det föregående visat, alldeles afgjordt, att I ingenting förstört af det Gamla, och att I ingenting kunnen förstöra’. 41 Erik Johan Stagnelius, Samlade skriter (Ed. Lorenzo Hammarsköld, 3 vols.; Stockholm: A. Wiborgs förlag, 1824–1826), 24–25. Original: ‘det stora och mägtiga inlytande, som de åsigter, hvilka af den så kallade Nya Scholan i Vitterheten bekännas, hat på utvecklingen af Stagnelii skaldiska talent’.

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he editorial scholarship of the Romantics was thus a part of their ambition to historicise literature and make it a matter of national importance. In the short run, this ambition was in vain. heir reevaluations were ridiculed, and their conservative attitudes soon became politically outdated by liberal movements. But in the long run, Romantic ideas became generally accepted and put into public practice. I will only elucidate this process by pointing to a few examples. Gradually, the notion of national classics—originally a scholarly and exclusive idea—was spread and implemented among broader audiences. While the professional scholarly editions of the jewels of national literature were printed in small numbers for a cultural elite, numerous large-scale series of national classics, published in a period of thirty years in the middle of the century, made national literature accessible to a large number of readers. With titles such as Klassiska författare i svenska vitterheten (1834–1838, Classical authors in Swedish literature), Utmärkta och klassiska arbeten af svenska författare (1836–1839, Excellent and classical works by Swedish authors), and Miniaturbibliothek af svenska klassikerna (1850–1852, A miniature library of Swedish classics), these series were supposed to include the core of Swedish literature and at the same time delimit a ‘Swedish’ cultural identity. By gathering national authors under the heading of classics, the idea of literature as an ideal resource was established, serving as the norm for an educated citizen. he early series of national classics were commercial products, put out by innovative publishers during a time of sparse original literature. he classics were exploited in the absence of original authors—at least, this was the rhetoric at the publishing houses. he series were printed in booklets to which one could subscribe at a low price: twelve shillings apiece for each of the Klassiska författare i svenska vitterheten, eight shillings for each of the Utmärkta och klassiska arbeten af svenska författare, and sixteen shillings for each of Miniaturbibliothek af svenska klassikerna. he price roughly corresponds to that of two or three cups of cofee in the currency of the time. he very irst author in the series of national classics was the socalled father of Swedish poetry, the already-mentioned Stiernhielm, whose works were edited by Hammarsköld in 1818 and now presented as the gateway to Swedish literature. In a preface, the editor gives an

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account of his project: to make the acquaintance with the literary classics of the nation possible ‘even for the less prosperous’.42 A historic relativism of the kind that the Romantics had advocated is expressed by the statement that the estimation of literature from olden times or foreign cultures ‘in order to be impartial, must be grounded in an entry into the national circumstances and the customs and speech of the Author’s own lifetime’.43 he authors included in these series of classics were on the whole selected on copyright grounds. During the nineteenth century, authorial rights became a commodity that publishers in some cases paid high prices for and in others succeeded to usurp by far-sighted and advantageous agreements. he result was that the national classics were monopolised, a process that in general served the publishing houses more than the public.44 A peculiarity of the copyright law of 1810 was that it was not limited in time. his was eventually considered unreasonable, and the period of protection was reduced in 1841 by the restriction that a work that had not been reprinted for twenty years should be free for everyone.45 his can be regarded an expression of Romantic and liberal attitudes toward literature: the literature of the nation ultimately belonged to the public, and the owner of a right should not be allowed to prevent the reprinting of a work that could beneit the public. However, the rights were still in principle unlimited in time, provided they were used at least each twentieth year. Not until 1877 was the period of protection limited to ity years.46 he series and the anthologies meant that literary classics during the nineteenth century were widely spread. Simultaneously, we can trace a diferentiation in the editions: beside the stream of cheap and commercially motivated series, modern critical demands for scholarly editions also developed. One step in this direction was the series of 42 Klassiska författare i svenska vitterheten (52 vols.; Stockholm: Bonnier, 1834– 1838), I:II. Original: ‘äfven för den mindre bemedlade’. 43 Klassiska författare 1834, I. Original: ‘för att vara rättvist, bör grunda sig på ett förlyttande till det nationela förhållande och det folkslags olika seder och yttringssätt, hvaribland Författaren lefvat’. On the series, see Karl Otto Bonnier, Bonniers. En bokhandlarefamilj. Anteckningar ur gamla papper och ur minnet (3 vols.; Stockholm: Bonniers, 1930–1931), vol 1, 15–23. 44 Cf. Henrik Schück, Den svenska förlagsbokhandelns historia 1–2 (Stockholm: Norstedt, 1923), 348. 45 Cf. Gösta Eberstein, Den svenska författarrätten (Stockholm: Norstedt, 1923), 74. 46 Eberstein 1923, 78–79.

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Svenska Författare (1855–1864, Swedish Authors), produced by the publishing house of Adolf Bonnier (1806–1867), who called in professional and paid scholars to perform the editing.47 Another example was the megalomaniac project of Samlade Vitterhetsarbeten af svenska författare från Stiernhielm till Dalin (Collected works of Swedish authors from Stiernhielm to Dalin) conceived by Pehr Hanselli (1815–1879), an Uppsala librarian and bibliophile. Ideally covering all Swedish literature of a time span of about 120 years (from the earliest works of Georg Stiernhielm, born in 1598, until the death of Olof von Dalin in 1763), the project ran from 1856 and was interrupted ater twenty-two volumes only by the editor’s death in 1879. Hanselli’s edition has been criticised for its deicient accuracy, but above all else, the project stands as a monument to an encyclopaedic dream of the collected literature of a nation. Even the increasing institutionalisation of editorial scholarship in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries may be understood as a farreaching implementation of ideas springing from a program similar to the one of the Romantics. Examples of this are the editorial societies, some of which were mentioned above: he Royal Society for the Editing of Manuscripts Concerning the History of Scandinavia (Kungl. Samfundet för utgivande av handskriter rörande Skandinaviens historia) was founded in 1815, he Swedish Society for Old Literature (Svenska Fornskritsällskapet) in 1843, he Swedish Literary Society (Svenska litteratursällskapet) in 1880, he Swedish Literary Society in Finland (Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland) in 1885, and he Swedish Society for Belles Lettres (Svenska Vitterhetssamfundet) in 1907. hese public institutions were manifestations of an expanding conception of history and literature as fundamental elements of the national identity.

Temporalising Literature How did the Romantic editors change the view of the history of national literature? In a irst stage, as we have seen, literature was considered central for the fostering of the nation’s citizens. In a second stage, as we have also seen, it was made an object for historical study where

47

Cf. Bonnier 1931, 3:47–53.

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organic metaphors such as growth, lourishing, and fruitfulness were central. What the Romantics initiated was not only, or perhaps even primarily, a literary movement but also a new way of understanding oneself in light of history—or, in this case, a new way of understanding literature in light of literary history. Until the eighteenth century, past literature primarily functioned as an ever-present repertoire. he author worked within a general commons where he belonged to a team of eternally contemporary colleagues. here was, so to speak, no historical distance between the modern and the ancient poet; they shared a single framework of literary references and literary strategies. he decades around 1800 brought a radical change in which history was separated from the present and was thus considered alien, unfamiliar, and unknown. his shit can be termed one of temporal consciousness, caused by an accelerating modernity. We could argue that the corpus of literature was transformed into ‘literary history’ at the point at which it no longer possessed immediate—that is, unmediated—validity for the present. In a third stage, the editorial enterprise of the Romantics was also conditioned by the rejection of classical antiquity as an eternal model. Its place was taken by national heritage in its historically speciic and unique character. I would, in conclusion, like to illustrate this with a quotation from the introduction to one of the rather late Romantic editions. here the editor, P.A. Sondén, defends the editorial endeavours of the Romantics, stating, he endeavour to make past literary creations once again available to the Public has sometimes been misunderstood or misinterpreted. If the idea were to bring our culture back to what it was centuries ago or even to cast our latest authors and their most recent predecessors into oblivion, as some detractors have believed, then the attempt would merit no thanks and could be counted nothing but great foolishness. But as elsewhere, so too in art and scholarship history is a wise and benevolent teacher. So if it is always important to know the developmental history of a people, which should be dearer or more precious to us—our own or a foreign heritage? We esteem the industry of the learned who have uncovered the remnants of the classical past—yet do not our own authors have a right to the attention not refused the Roman poets, not all of whom were Virgils?48

48 Jakob Frese, Valda skriter (Ed. P.A. Sondén, Stockholm: Nordström, 1826), unpaged. Original: ‘Företaget att göra vår äldre Vitterhets alster för Allmänheten å nyo tillgängliga har någon gång blifvit misskändt och misstydt. Vore meningen den,

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In this apology for editorial scholarship, the key concept is historisation or temporalisation. Making works of old literature available does not serve a practical, educational purpose. he works of literature are, in other words, not instrumentally useful and in that sense contemporary; their value lies instead in their role in developmental history. he claim sounds self-evident but conveys a view of history and editing worth expanding on. ‘History is a wise and benevolent teacher’, Sondén states, alluding to the famous saying of Cicero, historia magistra vitae.49 In Cicero, history primarily serves as a series of educational exempla for the wise teacher and orator. A similar idea of history as a set of instructive tales ofering reliable forecasts was valid up to about 1770. hen, as a consequence of the sense of ever-faster changes in history, the idea evolved of history as a diachronic process governed by unique circumstances, which in turn made history a teacher only in an indirect way. History was instructive only if the modern student could be stimulated to independent and objective relection, or indeed, self-relection. Rather than being taken as an applied science, history thus became a hermeneutically informed category of knowledge.50 History in Sondén’s apology for editorial scholarship has this new and modern sense: history is relevant as history, not as applied knowledge. Literature, learning, and art, the three categories he mentions, are temporally situated and dynamic. he indirect approach to history is explicit in Sondén’s references to ‘foreign’ and ‘our own’ heritage. If history were assumed to be directly applicable, the distinction would be useless. But if the ambition is to understand the modern age as grown out of (and in that way also separated from) the past, then it makes sense to subordinate foreign to national heritage. he former

att dermed återföra vår bildning till hvad den var för ett eller lera århundraden tillbaka, eller blott att bringa i förgätenhet våra nyare Författare och deras närmaste föregångare,—detta tyckes en och annan tadlare hafva trott,—så förtjente ett dylikt försök visserligen ingen tack, och kunde ej anses för annat än en stor dårskap. Men likasom i allmänhet, så är ock, i hvarje Vettenskap och Konst, Historien en vis och huld Lärarinna. Och om det alltid är af vigt att känna ett folks bildnings-historia, hvilket bör väl vara oss kärare och dyrbarare, ett främmande eller vårt eget? Vi högakte de Lärdas lit, som framletat den classiska fornåldrens lemningar; skulle då icke våre egne Författare hafva rätt till en uppmärksamhet, den man icke vägrar åt Roms Skalder, ehuru desse icke alle voro Maroner?’ 49 De oratore II 9.36. 50 Cf. Reinhart Koselleck, Vergangene Zukunt. Zur Semantik geschichtlicher Zeiten (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1979), 38–66.

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might be more august, but it is through the latter that we can understand ourselves—this is the Romantic analysis. One inal observation: to study the editorial discipline at the opening of the nineteenth century is indeed a way of historicising texts—literature loses its timeless essence, to the beneit of historical transformation, to a history of reception.51 At the same time, it is a way of textualising history that illuminates the extent to which access to the past, then as now, is dependent on ‘surviving textual traces’, preserved and mediated by social and ideological forces we can uncover only through their textual remnants.52 As I indicated at the start, I regard editorial history as an infrastructure of memory and a means of investigating the process by which a national identity is socially created. he rise and expansion of this editorial infrastructure also encompasses the rise of historical memory as an important tool in the deinition of societal identity.

51 Cf. Hans Robert Jauß, ‘Literaturgeschichte als Provokation der Literaturwissenschat’. Literaturgeschichte als Provokation (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1970), 144–207, here 171–172. 52 Cf. Louis Montrose, ‘Professing the Renaissance. he Poetics and Politics of Culture’. H. Aram Veeser (ed.), he New Historicism (London/New York: Routledge, 1989), 15–36, here 24.

LITERATURE AS ACCESS TO THE PAST: THE RISE OF HISTORICAL GENRES IN THE NETHERLANDS, 18001850 Lotte Jensen

I shout with joy! no higher welfare has ever caressed my soul, han the fact that I, o Netherlands, was raised on your soil, I hope that some of the clear lustre that radiates from you, A tiny little spark may descend on my skull. I hope I will share in the honour, the fame which the ancestry Brought to us and made us proud, and which surprised Europe. I swear upon that inheritance, upon the faith and virtue of our fathers, hat thankfulness will low through my veins. I will remain, o fatherland! until the hour I die, Proud of my beautiful, honourable name as a Dutchman!1

hese verses are taken from one of the most nationalist poems ever written in Dutch literature: De Hollandsche natie (1812) by the Amsterdam poet Jan Fredrik Helmers (1767–1813). In this poem, which comprises more than three thousand verses, Helmers argues that the Dutch should be proud of their country: no other nation has such a glorious past. He demonstrates this by pointing to the late sixteenth and the irst half of the seventeenth century. In this period the Dutch Republic rapidly grew to become a world power, experiencing a period of economic, scientiic, and cultural growth. Helmers praises all the famous men of this age, such as the stadtholders William and Maurits of Orange, the sea hero Michiel de Ruyter, and the poet Joost van den Vondel. Helmers’ poem was a reaction to the political situation of his own time: in 1812, the Netherlands were occupied by the French, and

1 ‘Ik juich! geen hooger heil heet ooit mijn ziel gestreeld, / Dan dat ik, Nederland! ben op uw’ grond geteeld. / Dat van den heldren glans die van u af mogt stralen, / Een nietig sprankjen, op mijn’ schedel af mag dalen. / Dat ik ook deel in de eer, den roem, dien ’t voorgeslacht, / ’t Verbaasd Euroop’ ten trots, aan ons ten erfgoed bragt. / ’k Zweer bij dat erfdeel, bij de trouw en deugd der vaderen, / Dat steeds de dankbaarheid zal gloeijen in mijne aderen, / Ja! ‘k blijf, ô Vaderland! tot aan het uur des doods, Als Nederlander op dien schoonen eernaam grootsch’. J.F. Helmers, De Hollandsche natie, in zes zangen (Den Haag: J. Allart, 1812), 3. Recently a new edition with an introduction was published, see J.F. Helmers, De Hollandsche natie (Ed. Lotte Jensen, met medewerking van Marinus van Hattum, Nijmegen: Vantilt, 2009).

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Helmers hoped that this poem would cheer up his fellow citizens by reminding them of their impressive past. De Hollandsche natie is part of a large body of Dutch nineteenthcentury literary texts in which the national past is gloriied. Between 1800 and 1850, a fundamental change took place in the Dutch literary system, as the national past became part of the literary present. All the successful writers of that period—such as Hendrik Tollens, Willem Bilderdijk, Jacob van Lennep, and Nicolaas Beets—made use of historical subject matter for their literary works, which were used as an instrument of nation building. New genres appeared—such as the historical novel and the narrative poem—while older genres were given new life by using historical topics. Romance and drama, for instance, regained new popularity due to the heightened interest in history. he rise of historical genres was by no means speciic to Dutch literature: the national past was integrated into the production of literature throughout nineteenth-century Europe. It was part of an international process that Joep Leerssen describes as a period and condition that might be called ‘literary historicism’, which points at ‘the presence of the literary preoccupation with culture’s rootedness in the national past’.2 his ‘pervasive common condition’ afected ‘the ield of literature, as well as antiquarian and philological scholarship’.3 he developments in the Netherlands should therefore be placed in their larger European context, not least because English, German, and French literature proved a fertile source for Dutch authors. he inluence of such authors as Walter Scott and Lord Byron can hardly be overestimated. From the comparatist point of view, however, it might turn out that the development of historical genres followed its own national pattern in the Netherlands, since contemporary social and political circumstances had a considerable impact on the rise and fall of these genres. Up to now, most attention, at least in the Netherlands, has been paid to the historical novel.4 his is understandable, because the historical novel, of which Scott is considered to be the founding father,

2 Joep Leerssen, ‘Literary Historicism: Romanticism, Philologists, and the Presence of the Past’. Modern Language Quarterly 65.2 (20041), 221–243, here 239. 3 Ibid., 234. 4 Most recently by J.R. van der Wiel, De geschiedenis in balkostuum. De historische roman in de Nederlandse literaire kritiek (1808–1874) (Leuven / Apeldoorn: Garant, 1999).

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Fig. 1. Title page of the second edition of J.F. Helmers, De Hollandsche natie. ’s-Gravenhage: Johannes Allart, 1814.

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was one of the most inluential genres in literary history. It rapidly gained immense popularity, placing the novel irst in the hierarchy of the most read genres. However, in this paper I argue that it can be fruitful to place the historical novel amidst other historical genres of the same period. In this way one gets a better understanding of the embeddedness of the historical novel in the literary system, the boundaries between the diferent genres, and their various applications. First, I comment on the way literature made the past accessible to wider audiences, and then I ofer a survey on the rise of various historical genres in the Netherlands between 1800 and 1850. I focus on texts that were about the Dutch national past, since they played a crucial role in spreading feelings of patriotism and transferring historical knowledge to a broader audience.5 Literature as Access to the Past In research into nineteenth-century nationalism, increasing attention has been paid to the role of literature in the process of nation forming. Peterson and others have shown that literary works ofered to a broader audience an important gateway to historical knowledge by presenting the past in an accessible and attractive way.6 Literature provided readers with important identiication roots, since authors used history as a way to airm a set of national values. he main characters, for example, exempliied all kinds of virtues that were considered to be typical of the nation. National awareness and feelings of patriotism were especially increased by the depiction of great military victories of the past. hroughout Europe, authors preferred stories of revolt or liberation that had been signiicant for the founding of the nation. Not only did they create new myths, but they also exaggerated wellknown historical episodes in order to create a positive self-image. In

5 For a detailed account of the way historical literature was used in the Netherlands as an instrument in nation building, see: Lotte Jensen, De verheerlijking van het verleden. Helden, literatuur en natievorming inde negenhende eeuw (Nijmegen: Vantilt, 2008). 6 Brent O. Peterson, History, Fiction, and Germany: Writing the Nineteenth-Century Nation (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2005). Some other recent examples: Ann Rigney, Imperfect Histories. he Elusive Past and the Legacy of Romantic Historicism (London and Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001); Joep Leerssen & Marita Mathijsen (eds.), Oerteksten. Nationalisme, edities en canonvorming (Amsterdam: Instituut voor Cultuur en Geschiedenis, 2002).

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the case of the Netherlands, authors usually depicted scenes from the Dutch Revolt or the Eighty Years’ War against Spain, which had led to the recognition of the United Provinces as an independent state. By presenting the past as a continuous story of oppression and liberation, literary works contributed to the constitution of a coherent and meaningful national history. Besides literature, such artistic expressions as painting, music, architecture, and sculpture were also used as instruments in nation building, as were historiographical, educational, and philological writings. Mythen der Nationen: ein europaïsches Panorama (1998) presents an overview of the Gründungsmythen (national myths) that were most frequently used by nineteenth-century artists in seventeen European countries.7 National myths nearly always referred to glorious victories of the past—victories that had liberated the nation from mental and physical oppression. For example, one of the most popular themes amongst nineteenth-century artists in England was the Battle of Hastings (1066), while in Spain it was the conquest of Granada (1492), and in Belgium the Battle of the Golden Spurs (Guldensporenslag; 1302). According to Henk Slechte, the ive most popular myths and celebrated heroes in the Netherlands were Claudius Civilis and the Batavian Rebellion (69–70), William of Orange (1533–1584), Mayor Van der Werf and the Relief of Leiden (1574), Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669), and Jan van Speyk (1802–1831), who died in the battle against Belgium. It is evident that heroic leaders who were willing to sacriice their lives for their nation appealed most to the imagination of Dutch artists. Rembrandt van Rijn is the exceptional igure in this canon, because his status relied upon artistic qualities instead of rebellious deeds. hen again, his presence is typical of the general interest in topics related to the seventeenth century—the Dutch ‘Golden Age’. While Slechte’s list embraces all kinds of arts (painting, music, sculpture, literature) and the entire nineteenth century, my survey focuses on the irst half of the nineteenth century and, within this period, the speciic role of literature in spreading feelings of nationhood and patriotism by giving readers free access to their national past. he role and importance of literature for the transmission of historical experiences can hardly be overestimated. Literature enabled

7 Henk Slechte, ‘Niederlande. “Durch eigene holländische Kunst angeregt, fühle ich daß ich Holländer bin” ’. Mythen der Nationen: ein Europäisch Panorama (Herausgegeben von Monika Flacke; München / Berlin: Koehler & Amelang, 1998), 223–247.

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readers to identify themselves with their ancestors by experiencing what they went through. And because authors oten drew parallels with the present, audience members realised that they were part of history themselves. It was a continuous story, in which they played their own part.8 Poetry about the Dutch National Past A great volume of literature about the national past was published in the Netherlands between 1800 and 1850. However, writing about the past was not an invention of this period: historical plays had been staged in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Of these plays, Joost van den Vondel’s Gysbrecht van Aemstel (1637) is probably the most well known. In the last decades of the eighteenth century, the general atmosphere of moral and economic decline led to a growing tendency towards patriotism in literature. Authors used the past as a touchstone and propagated all kinds of virtues that had once made the Dutch Republic a strong nation and were classiied as being typically Dutch.9 Nevertheless, in the irst half of the nineteenth century, the literary interest in the national past increased drastically. It became one of the key themes in literature and inspired many Dutch poets, playwrights, and novelists. his period saw the publication of approximately eighty theatre plays with a historical theme, more than a hundred historical novels, and innumerable poems about the national past.10 When one looks at the production of national-historical poetry in the Netherlands, it is useful to make a broad distinction among three diferent, but partly overlapping, types—namely, heroic poetry, romance poetry, and narrative poetry. hese three distinctive and more or less chronological and ordered subgenres are also frequently used in literary scholarly handbooks.11 Yet, it should be kept in mind

8

Cf. Marita Mathijsen’s contribution to this book. Cf. Joost Kloek & Wijnand Mijnhardt, 1800. Blauwdrukken voor een samenleving (Den Haag: SDU Uitgevers, 2001), 219–226; N.C.F. van Sas, De metamorfose van Nederland. Van oude orde naar moderniteit, 1750–1900 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2004), 73–81. 10 Jensen 2008, 10–12. 11 See for instance Nicholas Roe (ed.), Romanticism. An Oxford Guide (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995) and Gero von Wilpert, Sachwörterbuch der Literatur (8., verbesserte und erweiterte Aulage; Stuttgart: Kröner 2001). 9

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that the boundaries between them are very luent and that some of the following cited works also it into the other mentioned categories. he irst category comprises both lengthy and shorter poems about heroic persons and crucial events in national history. A typical example is the abovementioned De Hollandsche natie, in which Helmers describes many highlights of Dutch history. Other lengthy poems celebrate only one speciic hero, such as Adriaan Loosjes’ De laatste zeetogt van den admiraal de Ruiter (1812)—a poem in twelve volumes about the naval hero Michiel de Ruyter—and Hendrik Harmen Klijn’s Johan van Oldenbarneveld (1806), which is about the well-known statesman Johan van Oldenbarnevelt (1547–1619), who played an important role in the struggle for independence from Spain. Both men excelled in leadership, moral behaviour, and perseverance, and they are presented to the reader as examples worthy of imitation. By holding prize contests, civic societies also contributed to the literary trend of celebrating the country’s heroic forefathers. In 1803, the Bataafsche Maatschappij van Taal- en dichtkunde (Batavian society for language and literature), for instance, invited its members to submit poems about the well-known intellectual, jurist, and politician Hugo Grotius (1583–1643). he poet Cornelis Loots won the gold medal, while his opponent Hendrik Tollens was awarded the silver. In 1806, the society requested lyrical celebrations of the counts of Egmont and Hoorne, who had been decapitated by the Spaniards in 1568. his time, Tollens’ contribution was considered to be the best, and Loots’ the second best.12 All prize-winning contributions were published in the society’s proceedings.13 Writing a lengthy poem about a well-known igure in Dutch history demanded a lot of a writer in terms of historical investigation and commitment—which is probably why a considerable number of poems about national heroes and heroines are much shorter. Many

12 On the activities of de Bataafsche Maatschappij voor taal- en dichtkunde, see: G.W. Huygens, Hendrik Tollens. De dichter van de burgerij. Een biograie en een tijdsbeeld (Rotterdam / ’s-Gravenhage: Nijgh & van Ditmar, 1972), 77–109. 13 C. Loots, ‘Huig de Groot’. Werken der Bataafsche en Hollandsche maatschappij (5 vols.; Amsterdam: J. Allart, 1804–1810), 2:37–66; H. Tollens, ‘Huig de Groot’. Werken der Bataafsche en Hollandsche maatschappij (5 vols.; Amsterdam: J. Allart, 1804–1810), 2:67–98; H. Tollens, ‘De dood van Egmond en Hoorne’. Werken der Bataafsche en Hollandsche Maatschappij (5 vols.; Amsterdam: J. Allart, 1804–1810), 5:59–82; C. Loots, ‘De dood van Egmond en Hoorne’. Werken der Bataafsche en Hollandsche Maatschappij (5 vols.; Amsterdam: J. Allart, 1804–1810), 5:82–119.

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of these poems appeared in literary almanacs, such as Nederlandsche Muzen-almanak (1818–1846), Belgische-muzen-almanak (1826–1830), and Almanak voor het schoone en goede (1821–1860). All the great men of the past are celebrated, such as William of Orange, Michiel de Ruyter, and Rembrandt van Rijn. However, it is remarkable that the majority of these poems deal with less known igures who have now been completely forgotten, all of whom played a brave role during the Eighty Years’ War. hese poems express an intensiied need for civic role models, people who had put their lives at stake out of love for their country. At the same time, poets deliberately tried to expand the national pantheon of heroes and heroines by choosing relatively unknown igures of the past. he production of heroic poetry was clearly inluenced by political circumstances, as rapid growth in this genre occurred in years of political turbulence, such as the period in which the Netherlands was occupied by France (1806–1813) and during the Belgian Revolution (1830–1832). Historical subject matter was used as a powerful tool to propagate feelings of patriotism and loyalty in order to counteract the threat posed by foreign nations. A parallel with the present situation could easily be drawn by the audience: since the Dutch had shown so much strength in the past, the present generation should also be conident of overcoming foreign oppression. he second category is literary romance, a genre that became immensely popular throughout Europe during the Romantic period.14 It was based on relics of medieval poetry, which features aristocratic court life and the heroic deeds of young knights. he revival of the medieval romance in the second half of the eighteenth century can be explained by the progress of philological editorial scholarship that rediscovered and edited many medieval texts and ‘analysed the social institutions and aesthetic theories informing them’.15 Some of the groundbreaking authors and works were the French author F.A. de Moncrif (1687–1770), who published a collection of medieval folk tales and legends, Richard Hurd (Letters on Chivalry and Romance, 14 For the development of this genre in English literature, see: Greg Kucich, ‘Romance’. Nicholas Roe (ed.), Romanticism. An Oxford Guide (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 463–481. he Dutch situation is discussed in Arie Zijderveld, De romancepoëzie in Noord-Nederland van 1780 tot 1840 (Amsterdam: Kruyt, 1915); Willem van den Berg & Hanna Stouten (eds.), De duinen gillen mee! (Amsterdam: Em Querido’s Uitgeverij, 1997) and Jensen 2008. 15 Kucich 1995, 467.

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1762), and homas Percy (Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, 1765). he eighteenth-century transmission of romance to Romantic writers took a wide variety of pathways: romances difered greatly in length, style, and narrative motifs. In 1780, poets in the Netherlands started to write romances whose subject matter was related to the Middle Ages. At irst, these romances exuded a vaguely historical atmosphere and usually concerned the love between a lady and a knight. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, however, poets like Willem Bilderdijk, A.C.W. Staring, Adriaan Loosjes, and Hendrik Tollens used this generic form to celebrate national heroes of the past (here, the subgenre of the literary romance starts overlapping with the irst mentioned category of heroic poetry). As a result of this nationalistic transformation, the genre of the romance was given a new impetus and a new cultural signiicance. Literary romances became an important way both of transferring historical knowledge to a broader audience and of creating national awareness. hese romances sketched relatively unknown events in national history and engendered new interest in the medieval past and medieval heroes. Bilderdijk, for instance, wrote about the courageous medieval knights Floris IV (count of Holland) and Albrecht Beylinc, both of whom died honourable deaths while trying to live up to their ideals. Staring made local history the centre of attention by featuring men from the province of Gelderland, such as Wichard van Pont, Folpert van Arkel, and Eduard van Gelre. he rapid progress of national-historical romance was also inluenced by political factors. Tollens’ romances, for instance, can be read as an expression of the growing resistance against the French domination in the years between 1806 and 1813. In this period, Tollens wrote an immensely popular series of romances featuring Dutch heroes, namely, Jan van Schafelaar (1807), Albrecht Beiling (1809), Kenau Hasselaar (1811), and Herman de Ruiter (1812). He not only treated medieval subject matter, but also featured resistance ighters in the Dutch Revolt (Kenau Hasselaar and Herman de Ruiter). Tollens also wrote a romance about the siege of Breda (1813), which he called one of the most courageous episodes in Dutch history (in 1590, the Dutch army had managed to capture the city of Breda by hiding their soldiers in a ship illed with peat, which was overlooked by the Spanish soldiers). he main theme of the poem is the liberation of the Dutch from foreign domination, and again a parallel with the present time could easily be drawn by the audience:

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lotte jensen We strike up the song of these miraculous deeds, With non-bastard blood, We speak of the ship illed with peat in Breda, And of the bravery of Prince Maurice. his bravery illed the Spaniards with great fear, And was painful for their proudness, And lited the heavy weight of foreign oppression From our shoulders.16

By portraying great men of the national past, Tollens propagated virtues of loyalty and patriotism in order to counteract French domination. Tollens therefore belongs to the ‘resistance poets’, who, through their literary writings, tried to resist foreign oppression by drawing attention to the strength of the Dutch people in the past and present. he popularity of Tollens’ poems did not go unnoticed by the French censor. It is interesting to read how the censor both expresses his admiration for Tollens’ poetical skills and criticises him for abusing of the generic form of the literary romance for his own nationalist purposes: Ce poète est un de ceux qui peuvent compter dans la Pleïade hollandaise. Il brille surtout dans la romance qu’on y appelle ballade du nom français d’une espèce de poème à laquelle nous avons renoncé et qui n’ait rien du genre de la romance. Les hollandais s’en sont emparés du mot et l’ont appliqué à une chose tout à fait diferente.17

he third category—narrative poetry—is very closely related to the genre of romance (again, the borders between the categories are luent). It too includes poems about the medieval world, dealing with such topics as courtly love, chivalric adventures, and the supernatural. In general, however, narrative poems are more lengthy and are characterised by a greater variety in metre and the use of free verse. Also, the narrative perspective shits constantly: in a series of cantos, various characters air their views on the events.18

16 Wij hefen van die wonderdaân, / Met onverbasterd bloed—/ Wij van ’t Bredasche turfschip aan / En van prins Maurits moed. / Die moed viel Spanje zwaar en bang / En deed haar trotschheid zeer, / En smeet het wigt van vreemden dwang / Van onze schouders neêr. H. Tollens, Gedichten (2 vols.; Rotterdam: J. Immerzeel, 1822), 2:31. 17 Cited in P.B.M. Blaas, ‘Tollens en de vaderlandse herinnering’. P.B.M. Blaas, (ed.), De burgerlijke eeuw. Over eeuwwenden, liberale burgerij en geschiedschrijving (Hilversum: Verloren, 20002), 54. 18 For an account of narrative poetry in English literature, see: Peter Vassallo, ‘Narrative poetry’. Nicholas Roe (ed.), Romanticism. An Oxford Guide (Oxford: Oxford

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Again, foreign literature was a fertile source for Dutch authors, who were especially inspired by the works of Walter Scott and Lord Byron. Both poets had an immense impact throughout Europe and were seen as important literary innovators. Byron exerted an immediate and powerful inluence on European literature, while the subversive content of his works was met with a much criticism and resistance everywhere. As for Scott, his reputation was (and still is) mainly based on his invention of the historical novel. However, the inluence of his narrative poetry should not be underestimated, as it was his poetry that brought him fame in the irst place: before his Waverley novels, he published a number of poems, including the popular ‘Lay of the Last Minstrel’ (1805), ‘Marmion’ (1808), ‘Lady of the Lake’ (1810), and ‘Rokeby’ (1813).19 In the Netherlands, the Dutch poet and novelist Jacob van Lennep (1802–1868) was the irst to imitate Scott’s narrative poems and adapt them to a national context. He wrote ive narrative poems—or Nederlandsche legenden (Dutch legends)—with themes taken from the national past: Het huis ter Leede (1828), Adelgild (1828), Jacoba en Bertha (1829), De strijd met Vlaanderen (1831), and Eduard van Gelre (1847). Van Lennep’s poems are all situated in the Middle Ages and vividly describe the emotions of the main characters. Literary critics accused him of having ‘shopped’ too abundantly at the foreign literary market; they even accused him of plagiarism. Van Lennep countered by stating that although he was indeed a literary thief, he should be excused because he had created new poems by giving them a typical ‘Dutch colour’ and ‘Dutch form’.20 hese ‘Dutch legends’ were Jacob van Lennep’s response to a lecture that his father, David Jacob van Lennep, had given in 1826 and published a year later. In the lecture, he encouraged all Dutch writers to follow in the footsteps of Walter Scott. hey should let themselves be inspired by episodes from the national past and write about ‘the

University Press 1995), 350–361. For verse narrative in the Netherlands, see: Jensen 2008, 153–174. 19 For the reception of Byron and Scott in several European countries, see: Richard Cardwell (ed.), he Reception of Byron in Europe (London: hoemmes Continuum, 2004) and Murray G.H. Pittock (ed.), he Reception of Sir Walter Scott in Europe (London: hoemmes Continuum, 2007). 20 M.F. van Lennep, Het leven van Mr. Jacob van Lennep (2 vols.; Amsterdam: P.N. van Kampen en zoon, 1909–1910), 1:331–333.

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Fig. 2. Portrait of Jacob van Lennep (1802–1868).

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typical beauty of the Dutch landscape’.21 Van Lennep had compiled a list of possible historical topics and especially advised his listeners to depict the lives of the counts of Holland. Jacob van Lennep chose one of these topics: in 1831, he published a long narrative poem about Witte van Haemstede (1280/1281–1320), a bastard son of Floris V, count of Holland. It is entitled De strijd met Vlaanderen (he battle with Flanders) and refers to van Haemstede’s defeat in 1304 of the Flemish, who had been threatening the city of Haarlem. His poem can also be read as a metaphor for the contemporary situation: in 1831, the Dutch were ighting the Belgians in order to prevent the establishment of an independent Belgian state. In the introduction to his poem, van Lennep encourages his readers to be inspired by the heroic victory of van Haemstede: My poem is meant to inlame the dejected mind In a heroic spirit It is meant to lit up the bended souls Of the civilians. It will show the glorious deeds And present my Witte [van Haemstede] as the most honourable role model.22

hus, the story of Witte van Haemstede conquering the Flemish gained new signiicance against the background of the actual, political circumstances. Adriaan van der Hoop (1802–1841) is another poet who was greatly inspired by the narrative poetry of Scott and Byron. Besides several plays, he published a number of long narrative poems. Two of them are about the national past. In 1833 he published Leyden ontzet in 1574, which is about the well-known Relief of Leiden in the sixteenth century. he mayor of the city, Van der Werf, is represented as a brave and courageous man who was willing to sacriice his life for others. Again, the historical situation is set forth as an example for present-day readers: although the war against Belgium had been lost,

21 Jacob van Lennep, ‘Verhandeling over het belangrijke van Hollands grond en oudheden voor gevoel en verbeelding’. Magazijn voor wetenschappen, kunsten en letteren (1827), 113–142, here 117. 22 ‘Zoo moog’ mijn zang ’t bedrukt gemoed / Ontgloeien doen in heldengloed: / Zoo stort’ hy ieren burgerzin / De neêrgebogen zielen in. / En toon’ hy, op de gloriebaan, / Mijn Witte als ’t edelst voorbeeld aan’. Jacob van Lennep, Nederlandsche legenden (Derde druk, nieuwe uitgave. 4 vols.; Arnhem: D.A. hieme, 1865), 3:23.

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they should maintain their moral strength and patriotic loyalty, just like van der Werf had done. In Het slot van Ijsselmonde (he Castle of Ijsselmonde, 1834), the atermath of the Belgian Revolution can be perceived in the introduction, in which the poet summarises the story as being about ‘the victory of a hero, who in the name of justice and law, destroyed the yoke of the foreigners’.23 he hero of the medieval narrative is Diederik V, count of Holland, who manages to conquer the castle of the bishop of Utrecht. Interestingly, the villain (Manfred) is modelled ater the main character in Byron’s play Manfred (1817–1818). Van der Hoop represents him as the personiication of evil, seeking refuge in demonism and trying to kill himself and his enemies by setting the castle aire. his negative representation of a Byronic character is in fact illustrative of the reception of Byron in the Netherlands. Dutch poets were attracted to his work, but rejected its subversive content. heo d’Haen has convincingly shown that Dutch translators rewrote Byron’s poems in such a way that they better suited the Dutch moral and religious climate. Also in their original work, Dutch authors ‘eventually opted for the tradition of Scott, rooting their tales in Holland and in the Dutch national past rather than in the Orient’.24 heo d’Haen also points to the possible negative inluence of the Belgian Revolution on the reception of Byron’s works in the Netherlands: ‘the Dutch, then, had little sympathy for an author whose life and work went to justify revolts such as that of the Belgians’.25 Nevertheless, two authors came very close to imitating Byron’s writing style: Nicolaas Beets and Henrik Arnold Meijer. Beets wrote two long narrative poems on subjects taken from the medieval national past—Kuser (1835) and Guy de Vlaming (1837)—while Meijer’s De Boekanier (1840) tells the story of a seventeenth-century Dutch robber who wanders around the world ater having lost his mistress. As

23 Adriaan van der Hoop speaks of ‘de zege van een held / Die in naam van recht en wetten. / ’t Juk van vreemden kwam verpletten’. In: Adriaan van der Hoop, Het slot van Ijsselmonde (Dordrecht: Van Houtrijve, 1834), 13. 24 heo d’Haen, ‘ “A splenetic Englishman”: the Dutch Byron’. Richard A. Cardwell (ed.), he Reception of Byron in Europe. (2 vols.; London / New York: Continuum, 2004), 2:269–282, here 280. 25 Ibid., 281. he reception of Byron in the Netherlands is also discussed in two PhD dissertations: Tjeerd Popma, Byron en het Byronisme in de Nederlandsche letterkunde (Amsterdam: Paris, 1928) and Ulfert Schults Jr., Het Byronianisme in Nederland (Utrecht: Beyers, 1929).

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in Byron’s works, the main characters in these works are lonesome, troubled outcasts who are struggling with their emotions. Although Beets and Meijer undoubtedly adopted many features of the Byronic hero, their poems end with a clear religious moral for their audiences: these characters are not to be emulated, since they lacked moral and religious seriousness. he Dutch National Past on Stage he heightened interest in the national past can also be perceived in the production of theatre plays: the period 1800–1850 saw the publication of approximately eighty theatre plays based on themes related to the national past.26 However, these plays represent only a small percentage (less than 10%) of the total number produced. he majority of plays were translations of the work of French and German authors, and literary critics oten complained about the lack of original Dutch plays. Nevertheless, if we take a closer look at the repertoire of the Schouwburg (heatre) of Amsterdam, it becomes clear that a considerable number of national-historical plays (representing 42% of the total number of plays produced) were staged both frequently and relatively successfully.27 he production of plays was closely linked to political events. Peaks in the production of national-historical plays occurred in the periods 1806–1810 (sixteen plays), 1815–1818 (nine), and 1830–1832 (iteen). hese periods mark important political events in the Netherlands. Between 1806 and 1810, the Netherlands was under the political power of France. Napoleon had appointed his brother—Louis—as king of the Netherlands. he rise of historical plays can be explained by the fact that Louis Napoleon gave Dutch cultural life a great vitality in general: he supported many cultural projects and oten went to

26 All plays are listed in Lotte Jensen, ‘Helden en anti-helden. Vaderlandse geschiedenis op het Nederlandse toneel 1800–1848’. Nederlandse letterkunde 11.2 (20061), 101–135. For some additional titles, see: Jensen 2008, appendix 1. 27 For a quantitative analysis of the repertoire of the Amsterdam Schouwburg, see Hennie Ruitenbeek, Kijkcijfers. De Amsterdamse Schouwburg 1814–1841 (Hilversum: Verloren, 2002). For speciics about the number of national-historical plays, see: Jensen 20061, 104–105, and Lotte Jensen, ‘In verzet tegen “Duitschlands klatergoud”. Pleidooien voor een nationaal toneel, 1800–1840’. Tijdschrit voor Nederlandse taal- en letterkunde 122.4 (20062), 289–302.

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the theatre himself. Interestingly, however, some of the historical plays seem to have been written in order to counteract the French authority. In many plays, a longing for independence and freedom is expressed under the veil of the past. Again, authors frequently chose events that had occurred during the Dutch Revolt, a period in which the Dutch Republic had become an independent state. Examples of these ‘resistance plays’ are Marten Westerman’s Het ontzet der stad Leiden (1808) and three plays by Adriaan Loosjes: Laurens Koster (1809), Magdalena Moons (1810), and Baarte van IJsselstein (1810). Between 1811 and 1813, only one national-historical play was published. his can be explained by the fact that the Netherlands was incorporated into the French empire. hey immediately started carrying out censorship on all printed material, which had a large impact on the book market in the Netherlands. Following the defeat of Napoleon, the Netherlands regained its independence. In 1815, the House of Orange was restored to the throne, and William I became king of the Netherlands. his led to a stream of patriotic literature, in which his restoration was cheered. Again, authors drew parallels between the past and present: William I was seen as the successor to William of Orange, who had revolted against the Spanish king. Yet, authors also chose episodes from the Middle Ages, especially episodes in which peace and reconciliation had been achieved between two diferent parties. Again, the present-day message was clear: the kingdom of William I consisted of two diferent parts, namely, the Protestant north and the Catholic south (today’s Belgium). In history, important lessons could be learned about war, reconciliation, and peace. Examples of these ‘reconciliation plays’ are Jan van Schafelaar (1820) by D.H. ten Kate van Loo and Diederijk en Willem van Holland (1821) by Jan van Walré. A third and last peak in the production of theatre plays occurred in 1830–1832. hese were the years of the Belgian Revolution, which began with a riot in Brussels in August 1830 and eventually led to the establishment of an independent, Roman Catholic, and neutral Belgium. Great victories of the past were staged in order to remind the audience of the strength of the Dutch nation. Seventeenth-century naval heroes were again celebrated and used as heroic examples. To give just one example, parallels between the past and the present are an important ingredient of De admiraal Piet Hein te Deltshaven (1832). he scene of action is the harbour of Deltshaven, where Piet

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Hein—who has just defeated the Spaanse Zilvervloot (Spanish treasure leet loaded with silver)—is being warmly welcomed by his family and the citizens of Delt. Hein explains to the crowd the secret of his success: ‘Our naval forces are impassioned with one spirit, and with such unity a nation may call itself invincible’.28 United we stand, divided we fall: that, in short, is the message. To intensify this message, the spectators are constantly reminded of the bad character of the Flemings. At the request of another well-known naval hero, Maarten Tromp, Hein agrees to sail of again to ight the Flemish Duinkerker Kapers. he spectators know that Hein will die in this battle, but they are not confronted with the sad ending of his life; he sails of, cheered by a choir of sailors: ‘We force the robbers to stand in awe of Dutch courage, the Dutch lag’.29 Sentences like these were a direct reference to the war the country was ighting against Belgium. Ater 1832, the production of historical plays diminished. his might be partly explained by the fact that the political situation in the country had become more stable. More importantly, however, a new genre had emerged, one that would become the most popular form in which to present the past: the historical novel. Historical Novels about the Dutch National Past Although Walter Scott published his irst historical novel in 1814, the irst historical novels with themes related to the national past started to appear in the Netherlands only in 1829.30 In that year, two novels ppeared, both modelled ater Scott: De Schildknaap (he shield-bearer) by Margaretha Jacoba de Neufville, and Eduard Dalhorst by Herman

28 ‘Onze geheele zeemagt is thans met éénen geest bezield, en waar zulk eene eendragt heerscht, kan een volk zich onoverwinnelijk noemen’. In: A.P. Muller-Westerman, De admiraal Piet Hein, te Delfsthaven (Amsterdam: M. Westerman & Zoon, 1832), 85. 29 ‘Men dwing de roov’ren tot ontzag / Voor Hollands moed, voor Hollands vlag’. In: Muller-Westerman 1834, 88. 30 Before 1829, we do ind some novels about the national past, but they lack the typical Scottian way of evoking the past as a place where people behaved, felt, and dressed diferently. he historical novels of Adriaan Loosjes, however, should not be overlooked. Between 1808 and 1816, he published four novels about the national past, which were used during a long period of time as important reference points in the discussion about the nature and purposes of the historical novel.

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van Apeltern (a pseudonym of A.W. Engelen). here had of course been a feeling of competition amongst Dutch authors to be the irst to imitate Scott. For example, Engelen explains in the introduction of his novel his disappointment at being beaten by De Neufville.31 In subsequent years, the national-historical novel gradually gained more ground and eventually outstripped all other historical genres in popularity. In the irst half of the nineteenth century, at least ninetyeight novels about the Dutch national past were published. Production reached a high point in the period 1835–1843, with between six and eight novels being published each year.32 Most of the authors have now been completely forgotten, except for Anna Louisa Geertruida Bosboom-Toussaint, who became one of the leading authors in the Netherlands. From 1842 onwards, the production gradually decreased, and by 1850 the historical novel had passed its irst peak in the Netherlands.33 As for the content of these novels, most authors chose subject matter from the Dutch Revolt or the seventeenth century (ity-four out of ninety-eight novels). he Middle Ages comes second (twentynine), and only nine novels are situated in the eighteenth century. he underrepresentation of the eighteenth century might be explained by the fact that the eighteenth century was closest to the present time, not yet considered as the past. Of more importance, however, is the fact that the eighteenth century was considered to be an age of moral, cultural, and economic decline, and as not having produced any great heroes or national victories worth portraying. In Ferdinand Huyck

31 Herman van Apeltern, Eduard Dalhorst. Een Nederlandsch verhaal uit het laatst der zeventiende eeuw (2 vols.; Groningen: W. van Boekeren, 1829), 1:vi. here was, and still is, discussion about the question of whether Jacob van Lennep was the irst to write a Scottian historical novel in Dutch. In 1833 he published De Pleegzoon. He claimed to have written it ive or six year before it was published, which would make him the irst. It has not yet been cleared up whether he spoke the truth. See on this issue M.F. van Lennep, Het leven van Mr. Jacob van Lennep (2 vols.; Amsterdam: P.N. van Kampen & zoon, 1909–1910), 1:200, and G.P.M. Knuvelder, Handboek tot de geschiedenis der Nederlandse letterkunde (Den Bosch: Malmberg, 1973), 316. 32 For a more thorough overview of the rise of the national-historical novel, see Jensen 2008, 175–204. 33 In the last decade of the nineteenth century, the historical novel went through a revival; the historical novel also seems to attract many present-day authors, such as Louis Ferron, Hella Haasse, Arthur Japin, homas Rosenboom, and Nelleke Noordervliet. Parallels between the past and the present use of the historical novel are discussed in: Marita Mathijsen, ‘Weg uit het boosaardige heden; de opbloei van de historische roman’. Literatuur / De Groene Amsterdammer 130.4 (2006), 8–9.

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(1840)—a novel about the adventures of an eighteenth-century adolescent—Jacob van Lennep deliberately tried to change this negative image by pointing to the distorting efect of stereotypical images in general. His vivid description of eighteenth-century Dutch life, however, did not generate any successors. As for the choice of subject matter, the parallels between the historical novel and the other historical genres are evident: there was a preference for the period of the Dutch Revolt and the seventeenth century, although the Middle Ages also attracted numerous authors. However, there are two important diferences. First, the main characters were oten ictional rather than historical igures—historical igures oten entered novels as side characters. Although some novels were dedicated to actual national heroes—such as Albrecht Beylinc, Jan van Schafelaar, or Herman de Ruyter—the majority featured nonhistorical igures. he choice of a ictional main character ofered the novelist an important advantage: he did not have to take the long historiographical tradition into account in sketching the main character’s feelings and acts. Besides, the audience could probably identify more easily with a nonpublic igure. he sketch of other public characters, historical events, and local customs, costumes, and surroundings was usually based on thorough historical research. Second, the parallel between the past and the present was oten less obvious in historical novels. In the case of drama and poetry, the present-day application of the past oten lay at the heart of the work: playwrights and poets explicitly and primarily wanted to educate their audiences, and they used a range of rhetorical strategies to propagate their moral lessons. In the case of the previously quoted epic poem by Helmers, for example, the repetition of certain phrases and words (‘in the name of the fatherland’, ‘patriotism’, ‘holy ancestors’, and so on) was meant to stir and inspire the audience. In contrast, the relationship between a novel and its readers was quite diferent: it was usually read in silence, and the narrative plot was stretched out over a longer period of time. Of course, many novelists also had messages to put across, but these were oten more hidden, or even secondary to the plot.34

34

Cf. Jensen 2008, 180–183.

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Why did the rise of the historical novel start so late in the Netherlands? In response to this question, scholars usually point to the importance of David Jacob van Lennep’s lecture, published in 1827, in which he argued that Dutch authors should take Walter Scott as an example. However, Wagemans and others have reminded us of the gap of at least six years between this lecture and the serious breakthrough of the historical novel in the Netherlands.35 In my opinion, one should therefore relate the development of the historical novel to the rise of other historical genres in the same period. By placing the historical novel in the midst of related genres, one gets a better understanding both of the embeddedness of this genre in the literary system and of the various applications among the various genres. As I have shown, the production of national-historical poetry and drama was clearly related to political events. Production peaked during years of turbulent political changes, such as during the reign of Louis Napoleon, the restoration of King William I, and the Belgian Revolution. Both poetry and drama were used as tools of resistance and as means to propagate feelings of loyalty and patriotism amongst the Dutch people. Authors pointed to the continuity between the past and the present: important lessons could be learned from the past, and heroic igures were used as exemplars. Poetry and drama were much more suitable to pass on political messages than was the historical novel, the reading of which induced a diferent, more solitary reading experience. herefore, the Belgian Revolution especially might have slowed the rise of the historical novel, as authors preferred to communicate with their readers in a more direct way. Literature was undoubtedly one of the most important gateways to history, since it made the past accessible to a broad audience. It opened up new horizons and created new historical sensations of long-forgotten worlds. Although the various literary genres all contributed to the constitution of a coherent, national history, the mutual dependency of these genres should be taken into consideration when discussing their role in the process of nation building. 35

K.M. Wagemans, ‘Invloeden op de ontwikkeling van de historische roman in de periode 1827–1840 of De Redevoering en de Roos’. De Negentiende Eeuw 6.4 (1982), 149–158. See also W. van den Berg, ‘Moeite met een manifest’. Literatuur 5 (1988), 357–358, and Van der Wiel 1999, 230–254.

PART THREE

A PUBLIC FOR THE PAST

FREE ACCESS TO THE HISTORY OF ART: ART REPRODUCTION AND THE APPROPRIATION OF THE HISTORY OF ART IN NINETEENTHCENTURY CULTURE R.M. Verhoogt1

‘Poor Men’s Galleries’ hey were called the poor men’s galleries: the shop windows of the print sellers like Goupil, Graves or Bufa in the streets of Paris, London, and Amsterdam.2 Behind the glass, they displayed the latest engravings, lithographs, and etchings (ig. 1).3 In 1889 the Dutch writer Johan Gram described the window of Goupil’s shop in he Hague and the public that hold their pace looking at the prints and paintings: Every week he Hague is treated to a new display of plates, etchings, engravings, and phototypes, that it the time and events of the year. he middle window is reserved for an oil painting. Everyone that passes by, be they an important magistrate, a fashionable lady or a blushing maidservant with her basket, stops here to look at all the news, and it is very amusing to slip between them and to listen to the sober or witty comments.4

he poor men’s galleries were part of the fascinating visual culture of the nineteenth century.5

1 his article is largely based on my book Art in Reproduction: Nineteenth Century Prints ater Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Jozef Israels and Ary Schefer (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2007). 2 Goupil’s establishment in he Hague, run by Tersteeg, continued in the early 1880s under the name Boussod & Valadon Cie: Herman Gijsbert Tersteeg, Een halve eeuw met Jozef Israëls (Den Haag: Boussod, Valadon & Cie, 1910), 8. 3 Richard D. Altick, he Shows of London (Cambridge, MA / London: Belknap Press, 1978), 412–413. 4 Johan Gram quoted in: Exh. cat., Van Gogh en Den Haag (Den Haag: Haags Historisch Museum, 1990), 149. 5 For this see: E.G. Holt, he Triumph of Art for the Public 1785–1848. he Emerging Role of Exhibitions and Critics (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1983); P. Mainardi, ‘he Double Exhibition in Nineteenth-Century France’. Art Journal 48.1 (1989), 23–28.

Fig. 1. Auguste Blanchard ater Lawrence Alma-Tadema, he Vintage Festival. 1874. Engraving (49,5 × 95 cm). Fries Museum, Leeuwarden.

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here existed a rich variety of exhibitions, ranging from local shows to international events. Art lovers had ample opportunity to view not only a wealth of paintings and drawings, but also prints and photographs reproducing all kinds of art. Charles Baudelaire once even described London and Paris as ‘an immense picture gallery’. A substantial part of these ‘galleries’ consisted of graphic reproductions; and at the poor men’s galleries, one could see them for free! For ages, enjoying works of art and collecting them was an exclusive privilege of the cultural elite. hanks to museums, magazines, and cultural societies, the visual arts became more and more part of the public domain. People of the social middle class of society showed a growing interest in art and earned enough money to read books and magazines, play music, and visit museums and theatres. Oil paintings remained quite expensive for most of them, but printed reproductions like engravings, lithographs, and photographs of works of art proved to be an interesting and afordable alternative for the aspirant art lover. However, free access to the world of art was not only a matter of money. More and more people became interested in the arts, but hardly knew where to start or what to look for. Art reproduction ofered a universe of images: religious and mythological scenes, key moments of western history, portraits of famous men, landscapes and city views, coaches and trains, and animals dead or alive, all painted by the old masters from centuries ago or by young, talented artists honoured at the last exposition of the Salon in Paris. However, art reproductions were dominated by religious scenes, famous portraits, and historical genre pieces of ‘petit histoire’ comparable to the illustrated magazines and exhibitions. Cheap art reproductions paved the way for a person to become an art lover, but art criticism and print collectors’ handbooks provided the needed assistance and instructions to prevent the amateur from getting lost in the world of art and history. According to the writer Johan Gram, it was interesting to listen to the ‘sober or witty comments’ of people looking at reproductions.6 To a large extent nowadays, we can only guess what an ‘important magistrate or a mason with his lime, a fashionable lady or blushing maid-servant’ saw in a graphic reproduction of a work of art. One individual probably saw a rare state of a print, an exceptional treatment, yet another a famous painting or an attractive, sentimental image.

6

Johan Gram quoted in: Exh. cat. 1990, p. 149.

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Nevertheless, from the art criticism of reproductions it is possible to distil various elements that were decisive in views on reproductions, that is, the appropriation of art via reproductions. Art criticism explained topics—such as composition, colour versus black and white, and the conversion of an oil painting into a graphic print—to the interested amateur of art. hese written confrontations of art and its reproductions form an interesting source of information about the acts of looking at, collecting, and understanding art by the general public in the nineteenth century, as well as their access to the history of art. A special kind of confrontation was the single-picture exhibition: one work of art juxtaposed with its graphic reproduction. Single-Picture Exhibitions A interesting type of show was the single-picture exhibition, combining one work of art with the reproduction of it.7 héodore Géricault made his painting he Rat of the Medusa available for exhibition at the Egyptian Hall in London, together with a lithographic reproduction of the work; over a six-month period, the painting attracted thirty thousand visitors.8 Once curious art lovers had purchased a ticket and admired the original work, they were able to buy a range of reproductions to take home. In 1862 as many as sixty thousand people visited the exhibition of William Powell Frith’s painting, he Railway Station, where they could subscribe to the forthcoming engraving.9 Such commercial exhibitions obtained publicity for new reproductions, as he Art Journal explained in 1858:

7 As early as 1806, Benjamin West presented his painting he Death of Nelson in his own studio; see: Altick 1978, 408. he engraver Abraham Raimbach maintained that David was probably one of the earliest artists to exhibit a single work in this manner, his painting he Rape of the Sabines: ‘[It] was, I believe, the irst instance of many being received for admission to the view of a picture. On that score a great deal clamour was raised against him by the Parisians, very unjustly in my opinion, while the painting itself was lauded by them to the skies, very unjustly also, as I think’, wrote Abraham Raimbach in Raimbach 1843, 54. Ater the painting had been displayed in Paris and Rome, it then travelled to London, where it was also published in print. 8 Holt 1983, 207–208. 9 Altick 1978, 412. he London dealer Flatow bought William Powell Frith’s he Railway Station from the artist, including the copyright, for 4,500 pounds; he paid a further 750 pounds for the exhibition rights.

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his practice of introducing an engraving by exhibiting the picture of which it is the popular translation, is becoming general, as well in our provincial cities and towns as in the metropolis . . . People like to see the pictures which live again in engravings; they like to compare the engraving with the original.10

From the 1860s in particular, these single-picture exhibitions were organised on a large scale, which involved taking paintings, accompanied by their reproductions, to towns and villages at home and abroad.11 World tours of popular works such as William Holman Hunt’s he Light of the World still stir the imagination today.12 Who bought reproductions in the nineteenth century, and how were they used in the appropriation of art history?13

Collecting Reproductions In his introduction to he Print-Collector’s Handbook (1903), the author Alfred Whitman wrote, we shall suppose the reader to desire to become a printcollector; but, being a beginner, and his knowledge of the subject being limited to the printsellers’ window, he will be in need of advice as to how he shall proceed.14

Whitman wrote his handbook for the amateur collector who wished to acquire prints. He maintained that it was essential for a print collector to have an elementary knowledge of reproduction techniques and to know the most important engravers. But that was not enough. He believed that aspiring collectors should have a speciic aim in mind, instead of simply buying prints at random: ‘Shall he take a school or 10

Anonymous, ‘Minor Topics of the Month’. he Art Journal New ser., v. 4 (1858),

112. 11 Jeremy Maas, Gambart. Prince of the Victorian Art World (London: Berrie & Jenkins, 1975), 49. 12 During the eighteenth century, the English print publisher John Boydell had already spotted the attraction of displaying an original work with its adaptation in 1771, when he exhibited prints together with their original drawings; see: Winifred Herman Friedman, Boydell’s Shakespeare Gallery (New York / London: Garland Publishers, 1979), 47. 13 In this article, I will focus on the private collectors in general among the nineteenth-century public. See for more about institutional collectors of prints, such as libraries, academies, and museums, Verhoogt 2007, 256–261. 14 Alfred Whitman, he Print-Collector’s Handbook (London: G. Bell, 1903), 2.

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a period; a class of prints, such as portraits; a method of engraving, as stipple . . . shall he take a painter and collect engravings ater his pictures?’.15 Fortiied by this knowledge and a clear view of what they wished to achieve with their collection, amateurs could then set out in search of a suitable print. Before buying a work, Whitman advised them to consider the quality of the plate, impression, paper, margin, and state.16 he Print-Collector’s Handbook ofers an impression of the considerations that could play a role when collecting prints. Whitman believed that collecting prints was more than simply the purchase of such works: it was a systematic, rational activity based on knowledge of technique and art history. His Print-Collector’s Handbook is only one example of collectors’ handbooks, which were published on a large scale during the nineteenth century.17 According to the print expert W.G. Rawlinson, collecting prints was a popular activity in the nineteenth century, as he stated in 1881, particularly for people in the city, where it was much more diicult to enjoy sport or nature.18 Amateurs of prints were irst and foremost to be found in the social middle class, oten referred to as the ‘reading public’.19 Roughly speaking, this term covers everyone from the man on the street to aristocrats and includes civil servants, tradesmen, commercial representatives, and related professional groups. Peter Gay also points to an important social denominator: ‘he burgeoning new middle class desperately insisted on its identity: it was not part of the proletariat’.20 Or, in other words, the middle class felt superior to the proletariat, yet was aware of its being excluded from the elite. It was precisely this social middle class that in the nineteenth century enjoyed increasing inancial opportunities to aford cultural activities.

15

Whitman 1903, 5. Whitman 1903, 3–17. 17 Other examples are Francois Etienne Joubert, Manuel de l’amateur d’estampes faisant suite au manuel du libraire (Paris: s.p., 1820), Joseph Maberly, he Print Collector. An Introduction to the Knowledge Necessary for Forming a Collection of Ancient Prints (London: Saunders & Otley, 1844). 18 William G. Rawlinson, ‘Hints to collectors. Turner’s “Liber Studiorum” ’. he Art Journal New ser., v. 20 (1881), 100–102. 19 Anne Marie Link, ‘Carl Ludwig Junker and the Collecting of Reproductive Prints’. Print Quarterly 12.4 (1995), 361–374, here 361. Peter Gay stated in Pleasure Wars, ‘Any rapid outline of the nineteenth-century bourgeoisie can be no more than a charcoal sketch that neglects iner shadings’; see: Peter Gay, Pleasure Wars. he Bourgeois Experience Victoria to Freud (London: Fontana Press, 1998), 5–6. 20 Gay 1998, 6. 16

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New theatres, concert halls, exhibitions, and museums ofered every stimulus to go out. At home, too, almanacs, illustrated magazines, works of prose and poetry, and possibly a piano were instruments for relaxation and cultural improvement.21 An important characteristic of this new print-loving public was that their cultural ambitions and inancial resources were not matched by expertise and experience of art and its history. It was for this public that special collectors’ handbooks were published, to introduce the new amateurs into the world of prints and art and provide a ‘rational’ basis for their collection. Amateurs could also consult the many (art) journals like he Art Journal, L’Artiste, or Kunstkronijk for instructions on how to establish a print collection. Reviews informed them about the latest prints and their subject, technique, composition, and use of colour. Moreover, such journals regularly published articles on collecting prints, auctions, exhibitions, museums, artists, and printmakers.22

Originals versus Reproductions Constanze von Franken advised this in her handbook for members of the middle class in 1900: If you can aford good oil paintings, they will become the loveliest ornament in your home, a refreshment for your and other’s eyes. If good paintings are too expensive for you, then prefer beautiful photographs, steel engravings, and similar reproductions of famous paintings that you can nowadays acquire in rare perfection and at small expense.23

Undoubtedly, for many amateurs a graphic reproduction was the only afordable alternative to expensive original oil paintings. Nevertheless, the question arises of whether reproductions were regarded merely as surrogates for paintings. he writer William Hazlitt (1778–1830)

21

Gay 1998, 55. In 1881, for example, William G. Rawlinson wrote a series of articles with hints for collectors; see: Rawlinson 1881. A unique journal was he Print Collector’s Quarterly, which had been speciically founded to cover the collection of prints. he nature of the journal is illustrated by an article during its irst year of publication: F. Bullard, ‘he Awakening of the Young Printcollector to a Sense of Beauty’. he Print Collector’s Quarterly 1 (1911), 573–586. 23 Constanze von Franken, Handbuch des guten Tones und der feinen Sitten, quoted in: Gay 19982, 289. 22

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already plainly declared, ‘Good prints are no doubt better than bad paintings’.24 Apparently, prints were regarded not only as cheap substitutes for paintings, but also as complementary to paintings. Besides, collecting prints was not limited to people with a restricted budget. Wealthy connoisseurs could aford original paintings, but did not hesitate to buy prints.25 here was a wide public demand for printed reproductions, even wider than the public demand for paintings, which extended downwards from the cultural elite, through the social middle classes, to the lower sections of society where oil paintings were scarcely to be found. As the pre-Raphaelite art critic Frederic G. Stephens once remarked, ‘Where the picture cannot go, the engravings penetrate’.26 Looking at Reproductions Whether one kept reproductions in albums or framed on the wall, the most important thing of course was to look at them. he Dutch cultural magazine De Gids wrote in 1870, ‘Nothing has a more powerful efect than daily contact with the masterpieces of art or with reproductions of these’.27 he nineteenth-century art lover did not view works of art with an innocent eye, not even the reproductions. his raises the question of the impressions and expectations that people had when viewing works of visual art or reproductions of these.28 As yet it remains unclear how art lovers furnished their personal musée imaginaire with visual experiences of original artworks and reproductions. Undoubtedly, diferent people viewed reproductions in diferent ways. Sometimes when they looked at a reproduction, they ‘saw’ the original work, other times they perceived the speciic graphic interpretation itself. he reason for this diferential viewing lies in the ambiguity of a 24 William Hazlitt quoted in: Trevor Fawcett, ‘Graphic versus photographic in the Nineteenth century reproduction’. Art History 9 (1986), 185–212, 185. 25 Research into print culture in the eighteenth century has shown that prints were also owned by members of the elite; see: A. Hyatt Mayor, Prints and People: A Social History of Printed Pictures (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1971), 596. 26 Stephens quoted in: Rodney Engen, Pre-Raphaelite Prints. he Graphic Art of Millais, Holman Hunt, Rossetti and their followers (London: Lund Humphries Publishers, 1995), 8. 27 De Gids 3–4 (1870), 138–139. 28 Ernst Gombrich, Art and Illusion. A study in the psychology of pictorial representation (London: Phaidon, 1993), 251.

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reproduction. It is a representation of the original and presentation of itself. In the irst place, the viewer looks, as it were, ‘through the reproduction’, as if through a window with a view of the original painting. In that sense, the reproduction could function as an aide-mémoire, as the art critic Roger de Piles put it, to renew and refresh the impression made by the absent original. Goethe wrote in a similar way in December 1787 in his Italienische Reise that, in looking at his prints by Marcantonio Raimondi, he saw the works by Raphael he had seen before (ig. 2).29 he role of the reproduction as a representation of the original has been repeatedly stressed from Giorgio Vasari onwards to the nineteenth century.30 Vincent van Gogh, for example, wrote to his brother heo in July 1889 regarding prints ater Jean-François Millet: what I should really like is for there to be more good reproductions of Millet, so that he reaches the people. His oeuvre is particularly sublime when you view it in its entirety and it becomes increasingly diicult to form an idea of it as the paintings get scattered.31

he reproduction was like a relection of the original, or, as the art historian Ernst Gombrich put it in he Use of Images, ‘It is intended to serve as a reminder, a souvenir’.32

29 ‘In order to inform ourselves of the qualities of these frescoes even at a distance we still own reproductions of the original drawings, faithfully rendered by Marcantonio Raimondi, who has oten given us opportunity and reason to refresh our memory and to note our observations’, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Italiaanse reis (Trans. Wilfred Oranje; Amsterdam: Boom, 1999), 476. 30 Anonymous, ‘Un vieux soldat, par Léon Noel, d’après Charlet’. L’Artiste 10 (1835), 98. he photographic reproductions of sketches and drawings by living masters were lauded for ‘the faithful and accurate way in which the character of the masters’ conception and execution is represented’, and Binger’s album was described as ‘a good souvenir of the Dutch art of our age’. Anonymous, ‘Kunstnieuws’. De Kunstkronijk 8 (1866), 71. he new reproductive techniques allowed many people to see and even own an image of an unattainable original, as Wilson indicated in he Art Journal: ‘But even to the enthusiasts for Art the modern mechanical abridgment of labour is not an unmixed evil, for it ofers many compensations by spreading the reinements of life. Not the least certainly of such compensations is the means of bringing large numbers of people under the elevating inluences of Art, by multiplying excellent copies of the highest works of human genius with cheapness which brings them within the reach of thousands who can rarely see, and never possess, originals of the higher merit; for these must ever be too costly for any but the wealthiest to acquire’. H. Wilson, ‘Modern processes of reproduction’. he Art Journal New ser., v. 19 (1880), 270–272, 270. 31 Letter from Vincent van Gogh to heo van Gogh, ca. 9 July 1889, in: Han van Crimpen & Monique Berends-Albert, De brieven van Vincent van Gogh (Den Haag: SDU Uitgevers, 1990), no. 792. 32 According to Ernst H. Gombrich in his study he Use of Images, on eighteenthcentury reproductions, ‘I believe there is a subtle but important change here in the

Fig. 2. Marcantonio Raimondi ater Raphael, he Massacre of the Innocents. 1513–1515. Engraving (28 × 425,5 cm). Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

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In the second place, reproductions were also appreciated as speciic graphic interpretations with their own intrinsic qualities. Goethe, again, once compared a sepia drawing by Rubens of he Four Fathers of the Church with Cornelius Galle’s engraving ater the same; he had both the original and the reproduction before him and stressed their intrinsic qualities.33 his recalls nineteenth-century exhibitions at which the original painting was displayed alongside its reproduction. Looking at such prints, people must have been aware of their speciic qualities and the individuals who made them. his approach to reproductions was explained by Oscar Wilde in his dialogue he Critic as Artist: he etcher of a picture robs the painting of its fair colours, but shows us by the use of a new material its true colour-quality, its tones and values, and the relations of its masses, and so is, in this way, a critic of it, for the critic is he who exhibits to us a work of art in a form diferent from that of the work itself, and the employment of a new material is a critical as well as a creative element.34

Van Gogh too had an eye for the intrinsic qualities of a reproduction, as he wrote to this brother heo in June 1889: the servant girl in the large wallpainting by Leys, when etched by Bracquemont, becomes a new work of art—or the little reader by Meissonier, when Jacquemart makes an engraving of this, for the manner of engraving forms a whole with the subject that is being depicted.35

function of the picture on the wall’; see: Ernst Gombrich, he Uses of Images. Studies in the Social function of Art and Visual Communication (London: Phaidon, 1999), 128–129. 33 Gustav Pollak, ‘Goethe as a Print-Lover’. Print Collector’s Quarterly 4 (1914), 248–275, here 270–271. 34 Even during the seventeenth century, reproduction by an engraver was not regarded as a purely mechanical or slavish activity, for there was always room for the printmaker’s own interpretation of an original work; see: William Robinson, ‘ “his Passion for Prints”: Collecting and Connoisseurship in Northern Europe during the Seventeenth Century’. Cliford Ackley (ed.), Printmaking in the Age of Rembrandt (Boston: Museum of Fine Art, 1981), xxvii–xlviii, here xliv; Oscar Wilde, ‘he Critic as Artist. A Dialogue in Two Parts’. Oscar Wilde, Collected Works of Oscar Wilde. he Plays, the Poems and the Essays Including De Profundis (Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions 1997), 963–1016, here 990. 35 Letter from Vincent van Gogh to heo van Gogh, ca. 9 June 1889, in: Crimpen & Berends-Albert 1990, no. 781.

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r.m. verhoogt he Power of Association

he Art Journal observed in 1858, ‘People like to see the pictures which live again in engravings; they like to compare the engraving with the original, and thus the engraving attains to a peculiar interest through the power of association’ (emphasis added).36 A number of elements played a role in the visual comparison of the original and the reproduction, and vice versa: the translation of the original composition, use of colour, technique, and its size. It was the task of the printmaker or photographer to interpret and represent the original in a convincing fashion. Any printmaker who did not suiciently fulil this brief could expect to meet with harsh criticism. In 1840, for example, an anonymous reviewer in De Gids was extremely critical about several new reproductions, although he did not know all the original paintings: We do not know the original painting, but we can scarcely believe that Mister Pieneman Junior could produce such a coarse drawing as the little image of Madzy Dekama makes one assume; moreover the engraving is as gray as those that disgust us in the German Annuals. We do not wish to criticise the perhaps in some respects censurable painting by J.A. Kruseman, Jochebet; but the ine Jewess’ head, which reconciled us to everything at the viewing, has been poorly represented in Lange’s engraving.37

In reviews of reproductions, the original work could also encounter criticism. When a reviewer for he Art Journal, for example, pointed out the weak points of a print by the engraver S. Bellin, ater the painting he Council of the League by John Rogers Herbert (1810–1890), he attributed these faults to the original painting, rather than its adaptation, and even deplored the fact that the engraver had devoted so much work to it. homas Agnew, the publisher, had also displayed courage, he declared, and was equally blameless: ‘For the “mess” here engraved he is not to be held responsible; the artist ought never to have undertaken a task for which he is totally unit’.38 On occasion 36 ‘People like to see the pictures which live again in engravings; they like to compare the engraving with the original, and thus the engraving attains to a peculiar interest through the power of association’. Anonymous 1958, 112. 37 De Gids (1840), 64. 38 Anonymous, ‘Reviews’. he Art Journal New ser., v. 3 (1851), 36. For the career diferences between painter and engraver, see: T.T. Greg, ‘he engravings of Richard Earlom’, he Art Journal (1886), 241.

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reproductions were regarded as almost an improvement on the original; he Art Journal, for example, declared that the engraving by Samuel Cousins ater Titiana even surpassed the original picture painted by Edwin Landseer: Perhaps in these engravings Sir Edwin Landseer appears more true to himself than even on his own eloquent canvas; at any rate, we know when he hesitated to touch the proof of the ‘Titiana’, the great painter declared that the engraving excelled the picture, and that he could not touch it without injuring, rather than improving it.39

he examples cited here emphasise the extent to which art critics drew their readers’ attention to the qualities of a printmaker’s adaptation.

Colour versus Black and White Reproductions presented works of art in black and white. his translation of a coloured painting into a black-and-white print was an interesting issue, reminiscent of the discussions about translations of Greek and Roman classics into modern languages. he loss of colour was regularly acknowledged and sometimes lamented.40 Nevertheless, the engraver’s palette of black, white, and grey was not deemed essentially inferior to the painter’s colours; on the contrary, the limitations of this graphic palette actually compelled the printmaker to a greater degree of reinement, which could expect to receive extra appreciation.41 Even

39 Anonymous, ‘Reviews’. he Art Journal New ser., v. 4 (1858), 192: discussion of prints ater E. Landseer by T.L. Atkinson, T. Landseer, S. Cousins and J. Faed, published by H. Graves & Co in London. his plate (Titiana and Bottom, Fairies attending: a scene from ‘A Midsummer Nights Dream’ ) was by Samuel Cousins, who had worked on it for four years. 40 For example, see the review of Kaiser’s engraving ater a painting by David Bles in the Aurora-Almanak for the year 1858: ‘the point of painted wit lies in applied colours, which are impossible to render in the engraving. If one had wished to insert a plate ater the ine painting, one should have made an exception to the custom, and should have provided a ine coloured print’. De Gids (1858) I, 489. he Art Journal was also critical about a print by Simmons ater a painting by E.M. Ward, God Save the Queen; although the translation of shadows and highlights was poor, ‘still the subject is suiciently popular in its character to bring success to the print’. Anonymous, ‘Reviews’. he Art Journal New ser., v. 6 (1860), 160: discussion of a print by Simmons ater God Save the Queen by E.M. Ward, published by the Lloyd Brothers, London. 41 Regarding F. Weissenbruch’s lithographic reproduction ater A. Dillens, De Kunstkronijk wrote, ‘he able lithographer has very felicitously succeeded in conquering the great diiculties, which always occur, where the rendering of the many colours in

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in the eighteenth century, it was believed that a black-and-white print could be rated more highly in terms of tonal wealth than a colour painting.42 According to the painter homas Lawrence (1769–1830), it was even possible to suggest colour through a subtle graphic variation of grey tones: ‘An engraver can so meander his shadows as to convey (to the painter’s eye at least) the idea of blue, and (I believe) one or two other colours’.43 Appreciation of black-and-white art is illustrated by a discussion in De Kunstkronijk of Louis Henriquel-Dupont’s renowned engraving ater L’Hemicycle by Paul Delaroche: When we see it again in the engraver’s copper, Paul Delaroche’s composition seems even more worthy and noble. he variety of clothing was one diiculty in the painting; it stood in the way of unity; it challenged and wearied the gaze at the same time through the ininite variety of colour, through countless nuances, not one of which was omitted, while, in the engraving, all those colours dissolved in a half-tone, brought to unity and difering only though black and white, are calmer, lowing together and melting into one in a way that retains the nobility of the painting but gives it more strength and makes the charm of the components surrender to the dignity of the whole.44

he reviewer maintained that the great variety of colours in the original prevented the image from being balanced; in this respect its adaptation as a black-and-white print was only an improvement. When the translation from painting to print was weak, reviewers sometimes gave the printmaker the beneit of the doubt. In its discussion of an engraving ater William Powell Frith’s well-known work Life at the Sea-Side, for example, he Art Journal drew attention to the uneven distribution

a painting through the sole means of black and white, and light and brown, has to be expressed only through his scale of tones between black and white. In the painting the varying objects easily detach themselves from each other through varying colours; the lithographer—and the engraver likewise—have to avail themselves of all kinds of diferent processes, altering the relationship of tones here and there, in order to obtain the same efect. As regards all this, and equally the witty expression of the heads, the lithograph is most felicitous. We hope that the prints are similarly successful, to which end the precision of the drawing and Mister Steuerwald’s press ofer the best guarantees’. Anonymous, ‘Kunstberigten’. De Kunstkronijk 1 (1859), 88. 42 Link 1995, 368. 43 Quoted in: Susan Lambert, he Image Multiplied. Five centuries of printed reproductions of paintings and drawings (London: Trefoil Publishers, 1987), 78. 44 Anonymous, ‘Het Hemicycle van Paul Delaroche gegraveerd door Henriquel Dupont’. De Kunstkronijk 3 (1861), 9–11.

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of light and dark in the original, thereby blaming any objection to the print on the painted original rather than the engraver’s ability.45 Despite this appreciation for the monochrome tones of prints, many printmakers did endeavour to reproduce the colours employed in paintings. During the nineteenth century, colour lithography constituted the best graphic technique for the reproduction of works in colour. Turner’s colourful work presented the medium with an almost impossible challenge, described as follows by he Art Journal: he science and art of chromo-lithography has been put to a severe test in the production of the print that, with its masses of dazzling colours, almost blinds the eye to look at,—an excess of power which, in the horizon especially, it would have been better to keep down, so painfully obtrusive it is.46

Although the reviewer admired the printmakers’ eforts, he would have preferred to have seen Turner’s work reproduced in black and white, rather than peculiar bright colours. Other experiments in colour reproduction were more favourably received. In his journal, the art dealer George Lucas recorded his purchase of several graphic imitations of watercolours, as examples of a ine reproductive technique: ‘Bought them more on account of their extraordinary imitation of watercolours than on account of any peculiar pleasure which they aforded me otherwise’.47 he question arises of whether nineteenth-century viewers experienced the problem of colour reproduction in the same way as today, for it is not inconceivable that they had a diferent view of colour and tone. While use of colour played a central role in the discussion of

45 ‘he composition falls as it were into two parts: a light and a dark part. In fact the work consists of two scenes which the critic believes could not be surveyed by the eye in one go. his diference is even more obvious in the print than in the painting as the use of colour was able to conceal the problem somewhat’; see: Anonymous, ‘Reviews’. he Art Journal New ser., v. 5 (1859), 95. he print was by C.W. Sharpe. 46 ‘hey carried their art as far as it can go: to reach Turner by such a process is impossible, and we confess to entertain a greater love for the engraver’s copies of the master, than for the colour-printer’s: the mind and the eye are not distracted by black and white: both are disturbed by such positive hues as are here’; Anonymous, ‘Reviews’. he Art Journal New ser., v. 4 (1858), 128. 47 ‘Stopped in at Williams & Stevens & bought two imitation water colour drawings, imitated in the printing. Subjects L’Allegro & Il Penseroso. Artist-Absalon-England. Price $ 5 the pair’, journal of G.A. Lucas, 26 November 1852, quoted in: Lilian M.C. Randall, he Diary of George A. Lucas: An American Art Agent in Paris, 1857–1909 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), 4.

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paintings, remarkably—and perhaps tellingly—reviews of prints rarely made mention of any disappointment resulting from an absence of this.48 he impossibility of reproducing colours was such a given that it is debatable whether the absence of colour was regarded as in any way disturbing when viewing individual prints: the visual world of the nineteenth-century public had been shaped to a large degree by a rich black-and-white print tradition, so this public probably possessed a greater sensitivity to tone in paintings and their reproductions than does the modern viewer, whose perceptions have been shaped by colour images. Translating Texture Another interesting element in reproductions is the adaptation of the medium itself—in other words, the translation of a painting into a print. In 1854 he Art Journal was prompted by several colour lithographs to write admiringly regarding their imitation of the original work: Every part of the picture is imitated with wonderful idelity; the manipulation of the artist is most carefully rendered, the colouring is brilliant as if laid on by the hand from the palette; while there is a ‘body’ in the surface which might be mistaken for actual painting in oil. A few more such examples as this, and other of a similar nature that have recently passed under our notice, and we may decorate our walls with works of art scarcely inferior to the originals, at ity or a hundred per cent less than the cost of the latter.49

he reference to the ‘body in the surface’ is an interesting one. Precise imitation of this texture allowed a reproduction to suggest the hand of the original master, as Van Gogh noted in connection with etched reproductions by William Unger and Felix Braquemond ater old Dutch masters: ‘What Unger, Braquemond have done is etched well

48 Although commercial considerations also played a role in such reviews, critics were critical towards subject or execution in other instances. 49 Anonymous, ‘Reviews’. he Art Journal New ser., v. 6 (1854), 60: discussion of the lithograph he Highland Gillie by V. Brooks ater R. Ansdell, published by Lloyd Brothers of London. At a later date, he Art Journal wrote of Rowney’s colour lithographs, ‘such as are desirable acquisitions in homes where works really excellent are coveted, but in which costly originals are not attainable. And as means of intellectual enjoyment the accurate copies are quite as good’; Anonymous, ‘Reviews’. he Art Journal New ser., v. 15 (1876), 223.

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and one can see the manner of painting in their etchings’.50 Meticulous imitation of the original texture produced the illusion of the original medium, although naturally it was impossible to create a perfect illusion. No printmaker could divorce himself from the texture of his own graphic medium, from the scratches of the needle, grooves in the paper, and characteristics of his own hand, although varnishing the surface could more or less erase these graphic elements, thereby producing a facsimile of the original. While the printmaker had to take great pains to imitate brushstrokes precisely, the photographer’s light-sensitive plate made it possible to capture the image without any such manual ‘translation’.51 A photographic reproduction appeared to have been made by an ‘invisible’ hand, for the photographer’s personal contribution mainly lay in the preparations for capturing and multiplying the image. he photographer’s individual interpretation exerted considerable inluence on the end result, as héophile Gautier emphasised in his 1858 review of Robert Bingham’s photographs ater works by Paul Delaroche.52 Although the texture of the original artwork could be photographed with increasing sharpness, the ratio between light and dark, and colour and tonal diferences still varied considerably. Moreover, photographic reproductions were oten retouched, a fact that the art critic Hendrik Bremmer lamented: ‘[T]hey can’t leave it alone. It always has to be made smooth and attractive for people’.53 So, the photographer also had leeway to correct the image, prompting a related debate in the ield of photography between adherents of the ‘moderate’ and ‘orthodox’ standpoints. Bremmer wrote with repugnance: [A] mechanical reproduction is only very ine when it is just like an etching, photographers make collotypes that look Rembrandtesque, as it is called, and for a recent publication of the Meesterwerken der Kunst W. Bode wrote a foreword, in which he praised the reproductions because

50 Letter from Vincent van Gogh to heo van Gogh, October 1885, in: Crimpen & Berends-Albert 1990, no. 538. 51 William Ivins Jr., Prints and Visual Communication (Cambridge, MA / London: M.I.T. Press, 1996), 122 et seq. For this see also: Alophe, ‘L’Avenir de la Photographie’. L’Artiste 12 (1861), 61–63.; see also: D. Diderot, ‘De la gravure et des amateurs d’estampes’. L’Artiste (1865), 151–152. 52 heophile Gautier, ‘L’oeuvre de Paul Délaroche photographieé’. L’Artiste (1858), 153–155. 53 Hendrik Bremmer, Inleiding tot het zien van beeldende kunst (Amsterdam: W. Versluys, 1906), 219.

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r.m. verhoogt they were almost mezzotints, and they were mechanical reproductions! Shouldn’t the irst requirement of a reproduction be that it faithfully represents a work?54

Bremmer resolutely declared, ‘Retouching is a cancer in mechanical reproduction, it should not be used at all, then one has the objective image that one can judge oneself ’.55 Naturally, he was well aware of the limitations to this ‘objective’ image, given the drastic change of colour that occurred in reproduction, but he still preferred photographs that had not been retouched: ‘With the unretouched reproduction I know what’s what, with the retouched work it is extremely hard to identify the limit of retouching’.56 he diferent techniques employed in photographic reproduction meant that some people preferred the ine tone of Braun photographs while others opted for the individual ‘signature’ of a photogravure. Size Matters A radical transformation that occurred during the reproduction of artworks was the change of size. Altering the dimensions of an original work was of course a substantial change, which considerably afected the ratios and balance of the composition. It is thus understandable that some original artists preferred to make such a drastic change to their work themselves, by producing their own reduction in the required format, for example. he size of the inal print was in itself also signiicant.57 With handmade prints in particular, the format provided an indication of the amount of skilled work this represented; the knowledge that an engraver had spent some two years on a plate contributed to the handcrated aura of an engraved reproduction.58 54

Bremmer 1906, 220. Bremmer 1906, 222. 56 Bremmer 1906, 223. 57 he format of the original was sometimes inscribed in the margin of the print, informing the observant viewer of the image’s original size. 58 See, for example, the report on the Mandel engraving ater Raphael’s Madonna della Sedia: ‘For the copper plate of his engraving ater the Madonna della Sedia, Prof. Mandel has commanded 11,000 thalers from the publisher, together with the right to 1,000 prints (to the value of 10,000 thalers), together thus 21,000 thalers. Incidentally the artist spent eight years on this work’; Anonymous, ‘Kunstnieuws’. De Kunstkronijk 7 (1865), 64. he engraver Stang spent seven years on his print ater Raphael; see: Anonymous, ‘Kunstnieuws’. De Kunstkronijk 16 (1874), 23–24. 55

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he use of less labour-intensive techniques such as etching, lithography, and photography slowly but surely drove the handcrated aspect of reproductions into the background. However, in photographic reproduction, large-format images enjoyed a higher status than modest carte-de-visite photographs, as for many years they remained technically demanding, expensive, and therefore exclusive.59 Photography provided new opportunities for enlarging and reducing images. A small-format (photographic) reproduction ofered a completely diferent, yet elegant, impression of an original work. As héophile Gautier wrote, ‘Douée d’une qualité de concentration et de réduction mathématiques, elle [photography] donne à de grandes toiles un peu vides un intérêt et un charme singuliers, en rassemblant dans un petit espace des détails éparpillés’.60 Format was thus a signiicant element in the evaluation of reproductions.61 Although critics considered the individual contribution of the printmaker or photographer when assessing reproductions, this did not mean that they forgot the role of the original artist. In reproductive practice, the painter was oten closely involved in the adaptation of his image, a fact of which critics were aware.62 Checking proofs allowed the original artist to keep an eye on the reproductive process and prevent the printmaker from becoming absorbed in his own interpretation. his artist’s involvement was regularly regarded as an advantage. As early as 1769, the renowned English publisher John Boydell emphasised in his Sculptura Britannica that the best reproductions were made by the painter’s contemporaries, who were ‘both able and willing to give the Engraver all the necessary Advice and Assistance he can require, to forward him in the Execution of his Work; an inestimable Advantage to an Engraver’.63 We also encounter this view in the nineteenth century. he critic P. Burty likewise declared that artworks

59

For large-format photographs by Albert ater works by Wilhelm von Kaulbach, for example, see: Anonymous, ‘De Goethe galerij. Goethe’s vrouwen naar teekeningen van Wilhelm von Kaulbach’. De Kunstkronijk 3 (1861), 25–27. 60 Gautier 1858, 155. 61 For the evaluation of large-format reproductions in the journal L’Art, see, for example: Anonymous, ‘Nieuwe Uitgaven’. De Kunstkronijk 7 (1875), 63 and 80. 62 Discussing the lithograph by F.H. Weissenbruch ater Voor het naar school gaan (Before going to school) by Matthijs Maris De Kunstkronijk emphasised the painter’s own contribution to the reproduction; see: Anonymous, ‘Album der Kunstkronijk’. De Kunstkronijk 8 (1866), 56. 63 John Boydell quoted in: David Alexander, ‘Rembrandt and the reproductive print in eighteenth century England’. Christopher White, Davind Alexander, Ellen D’Oench

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could best be reproduced by the master’s contemporaries, for only the contemporary image adaptor was in a position to comprehend the original work and question the artist if necessary.64 Critics were well aware that a reproduction was not merely the work of a printmaker, but a collaboration between painter and printmaker. Depending on the viewer’s perspective, a reproduction was a relection of the original picture, on the one hand, and an independent work with its own qualities, on the other. In practice, one approach did not necessarily exclude the other, as illustrated by Goethe and Van Gogh. Both ways of viewing occurred among the nineteenth-century public when we consider the reviews of art reproductions. Perceptional psychology has, however, demonstrated that it is optically impossible to simultaneously combine both ways of seeing. Interestingly, the experience of the original painting inluenced the perception of the reproduction aterwards. Van Gogh’s knowledge of the paintings of Millet coloured his perception of the reproductions of it. But looking at the reproduction also inluenced the perception of the original. he writer Anna Bosboom-Toussaint only knew Ary Schefer’s work Christ Consolator from black-and-white prints. Suddenly, she faced the original painting in the Fodor collection in Amsterdam. She was startled: ‘How gaudy Chr[istus] Cons[olator] is, I am sorry I saw it!’65 Conclusion Prints and photographs of works of art gave public access to the history of art, almost for free. From international exhibitions to the local print seller’s shop window, one could see and buy a favourite work

(eds.), Rembrandt in Eighteenth Century England (London: Yale Centre for British Art 1983), 46–54, here 53. 64 Pierre Burty, ‘La gravure et la lithographie. Salon de 1863’. Gazette des BeauxArts (1863), 159–160. Philip Zilcken was also advised by the experienced printmaker Charles Waltner to etch contemporary art, rather than reproduce old masters; see: Pieter Alardus Haaxman, ‘Philip Zilcken’. Elsevier’s Geillustreerd Maandschrit 6.12 (1896), 1–21, here 15. his is not to say, however, that an artist always guided the reproductive process in the direction of a facsimile of the original work. It is conceivable that his aim, too, was not so much to replicate the original work but rather to produce a new interpretation of this. 65 Letter from A.L.G. Bosboom-Toussaint to Potgieter and W. van Ulsen, 7 November 1853, in: Hans Reeser, De huwelijksjaren van A.L.G. Bosboom-Toussaint 1851– 1886 (Groningen: Wolters Noordhof, 1985), 47.

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of art in print.66 he amateur’s private musée imaginaire was mainly based on experiences with graphic reproductions, rather than with the original works of art. he reproductions were displayed on the wall or carefully stored in albums, keeping the impression of the original work alive long ater the painter, the engraver, had died, or the original had vanished from sight and been lost. And if one did not know what to look for, art critics, art journals, and collectors’ handbooks guided the inexperienced spectator. Or, as the art critic Hendrik Bremmer underlined in 1906, ‘If you looked well at your reproductions, you could see more’.67

66 Various reviews of reproductions consistently show how much critics were interested in the original work and how aware they were of the qualities particular to a speciic adaptation in terms of composition, colour and black and white, technique, format, and context. Bremmer also referred to these elements in his review of reproductions from 1906. He believed that, instead of viewing all reproductions in the same way, it was essential to pay attention to the intrinsic qualities of the individual print or photograph; see Bremmer 1906, 218–219. 67 Bremmer 1906, 218.

POTGIETER’S ‘RIJKSMUSEUM’ AND THE PUBLIC PRESENTATION OF DUTCH HISTORY IN THE NATIONAL MUSEUM 18001844 Ellinoor Bergvelt

In 1844, the celebrated Dutch author Everhardus Johannes Potgieter (1808–1875) published his criticism of the Rijksmuseum (national museum) in De Gids, which at the time was the most important cultural periodical. Potgieter—who was one of the founders and editors of De Gids—argued in his essay that the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam should ofer an overview of Dutch history; however, Potgieter’s criticism had no efect either within the museum or anywhere else in the Netherlands.1 he Rijksmuseum remained primarily an art museum— or rather a museum of paintings—that also had a print room. It was only in the new Rijksmuseum building, which was designed by architect Pierre Cuypers (1827–1921) and opened in 1885, that a separate history department presented the Dutch past, not only in paintings but also in three-dimensional objects. To explain why Potgieter’s calls went unheard in 1844, I shall address the following questions: Which—and whose—past was represented in the paintings in the Dutch national museum in the irst half of the nineteenth century? Did the museum rooms present a coherent view on the Dutch past—or was such a task not possible? And, in the light of this book, how accessible was this museum to the general public? One thing is clear: the Romantic ideas about the Dutch past— as expressed by Potgieter and shared by many Dutch historians and men of letters—clashed with those adhered to within the art museums. he Dutch connoisseurs, like their foreign counterparts, had international standards, which meant that Dutch painting, even that from 1 Everhardus Johannes Potgieter, ‘Het Rijks-Museum te Amsterdam’. De Gids 8.2 (1844), 17–26, 208–216, 391–423, 585–595, and 599–609. A recent historical interpretation of this text in the intellectual context of De Gids: Remieg Aerts, De Letterheren. Liberale cultuur in de negentiende eeuw: het tijdschrit De Gids (Amsterdam: Meulenhof, 1997), 114–116. And an art-historical interpretation in Ellinoor Bergvelt, Pantheon der Gouden Eeuw. Van Nationale Konst-Gallerij tot Rijksmuseum van Schilderijen (1798–1896) (Zwolle: Waanders Uitgevers, 1998), 154–159.

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the Golden Age, was deemed inferior to art from the southern regions (and the more southern the better): southern Netherlandish paintings were better than those from the northern Netherlands (at least Rembrandt was considered to be inferior to Rubens),2 as was art from France (Poussin, Claude Lorrain) and the Italian Renaissance and later (Raphael, Domenichino, Guido Reni). As for sculpture, the height of perfection was to be found in sculpture from classical antiquity. Such old-fashioned, classicist ideas about art were very tenacious in Dutch artistic circles. However, I shall irst describe the exceptional situation in the Netherlands regarding history and art—and thus museums—and sketch the history of the Dutch national art museums in Amsterdam and he Hague until 1844.3 First, free access to the visual past in the Netherlands did not start around 1800: art collections had been freely accessible in several Dutch town halls since the end of the sixteenth century. Following the iconoclasm of 1566, some of the altarpieces and other artworks that had previously been in the possession of churches and cloisters had been saved from the hands of the iconoclasts and kept by the cities in their town halls. Later, when the municipal militia (or civic guards) were disbanded in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, their art collections—consisting of group portraits and various items of applied art (such as silverware)—were also saved by the cities. When the guilds were abolished by the irst Dutch Constitution (1798), the same happened to the guilds’ collections of paintings and decorative arts. Everybody—citizens and foreigners—could visit these municipal collections, which could be considered protomuseums.4 2 As appeared when in 1817 the Fourth Department of the Royal Dutch Institute of Arts and Sciences decided, ater a lot of discussion, that a bust of Rubens rather than Rembrandt should be made. he decisive fact was that Rubens was a better historical painter, while Rembrandt was better in expression, colour, and ‘dat tover-achtige’ (that magic[al thing]). Historical paintings were paintings with historical, biblical, or mythological subjects. he Royal Dutch Institute was founded by King Louis Napoleon in 1808 and was based in Amsterdam. Most of the fourteen members of the Fourth Department who were present at the meeting (most of them resided in Amsterdam!) preferred Rubens to Rembrandt. Bergvelt 1998, 131 (n. 250). 3 See Bergvelt 1998. 4 Ellinoor Bergvelt, ‘Tussen geschiedenis en kunst. Nederlandse nationale kunstmusea in de negentiende eeuw’. Ellinoor Bergvelt, Debora J. Meijers, Mieke Rijnders (eds.), Kabinetten, galerijen en musea. Het verzamelen en presenteren van naturalia en kunst van 1500 tot heden (Heerlen: Open Universiteit / Zwolle: Waanders Uitgevers,

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Second, popular prints and illustrated books and schoolbooks provided easier and better access to Dutch history in images than did any museum. A print published by the Maatschappij tot Nut van ’t Algemeen (Foundation for public beneit) can serve as an example of such popular imagery (ig. 1). he Maatschappij was founded in 1784 as one of many Enlightenment bodies that wanted to improve Dutch society. his particular foundation started out by educating the lower classes and their teachers, and it later established popular libraries and savings banks. As part of the education of the lower classes, it published schoolbooks and accompanying woodcuts like the print with twelve images of national men and women: two poets (the eighteenth-century Huibert Cornelisz. Poot and the seventeenth-century Jacob Cats), two seventeenth-century admirals (Michiel de Ruiter and Piet Hein), two seventeenth-century painters (Jan Steen and Rubens—not Rembrandt),5 one doctor (the eighteenth-century physician Herman Boerhaave), the only Dutch pope (the sixteenth-century Adrian), one writer-philosopher (Desiderius Erasmus, ca. 1466–1536), and three ladies who were famous for various reasons. he irst, seventeenth-century Anna Maria Schuurman, was an intellectual, but here is depicted modelling (and is thus the print’s third artist); Kenau Simonsdr. Hasselaar defended the city of Haarlem against the Spaniards (1572–1573) and was therefore a war hero like de Ruyter and Piet Hein. And the third lady was Jacoba, the iteenth-century duchess of Bavaria, who at the end of the eighteenth century was seen as an exemplary woman with various Enlightenment virtues.6 We will come across many of these twelve

2005), 343–372. See also Debora J. Meijers, ‘he Dutch Method of Developing a National Art Museum: How crucial were the French coniscations in 1795?’. Ellinoor Bergvelt, Debora J. Meijers, Lieske Tibbe & Elsa van Wezel (eds.), Napoleon’s Legacy. he Rise of National Museums in Europe, 1794–1830. Berlin: GH Verlag, 41–53. 5 At the time, Rembrandt was the most important artist of the northern Netherlands, although Rubens was regarded as the better historical painter (see note 2). As long as the Flemish and Dutch schools of painting were considered to be one— namely, until the mid-nineteenth century—Rubens was the champion of both schools. See Bergvelt 1998, 130–132. 6 Frans Grijzenhout, ‘Tempel voor Nederland. De Nationale Konst-Gallerij in ’s-Gravenhage’. E. de Jong, G.h.M. Lemmens, P.J.J. van hiel (eds.), Het Rijksmuseum. Opstellen over de geschiedenis van een nationale instelling (Weesp: Fibula-Van Dishoeck, 1985), 1–75, here 16.

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Fig. 1. Vaderlandsche Mannen en Vrouwen (National Men and Women). Woodcut (406x330 mm). Print published by the Maatschappij tot Nut van ’t Algemeen (Foundation for Public Beneit), since ca. 1790. Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv.no. RP-P-OB-102.143.

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igures later in this paper.7 he so-called Nutsprenten (public-beneit prints) were very popular and were published time and again.8 hird, in the nineteenth century there were two Dutch national art museums, as there still are: the Nationale Konst-Gallerij in he Hague (est. 1800 and the predecessor of the Rijksmuseum, which was established in Amsterdam in 1808) and the Mauritshuis in he Hague (est. 1816). his is an unusual situation, as European countries generally have only one national art museum. he existence of two national art museums is a relection of the political situation in the Dutch Republic before (and partly ater) 1795, the year in which the French armies invaded the Netherlands and put an end to the previous, federative republic, consisting of seven provinces with a stadtholder who had to be chosen from the House of Orange9 and who, once chosen, was no more than commander in chief of the army and the leet. Before 1795, the Netherlands was characterised by two centres of power (he Hague and Amsterdam) and by animosity between the Orangists (followers and friends of the House of Orange) and their enemies (oten the city of Amsterdam, but in the eighteenth century primarily the Patriots). his ‘let-wing’ group revolted against the House of Orange between 1780 and 1787, when a Prussian army helped the latter to defeat the Patriots. Between 1787 and 1795, the Patriots went into exile, but they returned with the French armies in 1795. hey then founded a Patriot republic (the Batavian Republic) and started the irst national museum in 1800 as one of the irst institutions of the new, centrally organised state. he economic and political situation of the country was very bad, and the museum was seen as providing an opportunity to do something about it. It was thought that the morals of the citizens of the Batavian Republic could be improved if they were shown the good examples of the Batavians (a west Germanic people living in the Netherlands, who in

7 Conspicuously absent are members of the House of Orange; the Maatschappij tot Nut van ’t Algemeen was a Patriot (= anti-Orange) foundation. 8 he irst part of the accompanying schoolbook was printed in 1791. his woodcut was published by various printers, all working at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Information from Karin Hoogeland, email 17.1.2008. he most recent object depicted in this print is the monument to Boerhaave in the Pieterskerk in Leiden, which was made in 1762. 9 In 1747, the stadtholdership became hereditary. Although there was not much diference between a stadtholdership and a monarchy, the Netherlands stayed a republic in name until 1795.

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69 ce revolted against the Romans) and the Dutch men and women of the ‘golden’ seventeenth century. When the morals were uplited, the economy and politics would soon follow—at least, that was the reasoning at the time. However, both the collection and the building that housed it were strongly reminiscent of the hated House of Orange: the collection comprised some of the paintings the Oranges had let behind in their palaces when they led to Great Britain (the French had taken the best paintings to Paris). Although the people of the Batavian museum tried to redress the balance by purchasing portraits and other depictions of enemies of the House of Orange (who necessarily were friends of the Batavians), the museum, as long as it stayed in he Hague, had an unmistakably Orange lavour. In 1806, the emperor of France sent his brother, Louis Napoleon, to be king of Holland, which he ruled until 1810. Ater some hesitation about which Dutch city to choose as the capital of the kingdom (he Hague, Utrecht, or Amsterdam), in 1808 Louis Napoleon ordered the national art collection to be transferred to Amsterdam, where it was installed as his Koninklijk Museum (royal museum) on the third loor of the Royal Palace on Dam Square, the former Amsterdam Town Hall. he French king was responsible not only for the move to Amsterdam, but also for the emphasis in the present-day Rijksmuseum on paintings from the Dutch Golden Age, as a result of his purchases and the link with the art collection of the city of Amsterdam. Louis Napoleon ordered the city’s seven most important paintings to be transferred on loan to his museum in the Royal Palace; they included Rembrandt’s he Nightwatch and he Syndics and van der Helst’s Celebration of the Peace of Westphalia (Münster). Ater the return of the House of Orange in 1813, and ater William I had been made king of the united northern and southern Netherlands (roughly today’s Benelux), two changes were made regarding the national collections. First, Louis Napoleon’s former Royal Museum was renamed ’s Rijksmuseum (national museum) and was relocated to the largest canal house in Amsterdam, the Trippenhuis on Kloveniersburgwal. Second, a second national art museum was formed in he Hague around the House of Orange’s collection of nationalised paintings, some of which were returned from the Louvre in 1816.10

10 Only 126 of the approximately two hundred paintings were returned; see the list published by Beatrijs Brenninkmeijer-de Rooij, ‘De schilderijengalerij van Prins

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he oicial name of this museum was Koninklijk Kabinet van Schilderijen (royal cabinet of paintings), but it was better known as the Mauritshuis, the name of the building in which this museum has been located since 1821. Just as the Mauritshuis was a symbol of the stadtholder’s power, the Amsterdam museum is representative of the successive enemies of Orange: the city of Amsterdam, the Batavian Republic, and Louis Napoleon. No one thought of combining the two museums, let alone merging them with the most important collections in the southern Netherlands, namely those in the municipal museums in Brussels and Antwerp. he southern Netherlands remained united with the northern Netherlands until the Belgian Revolt of 1830. he war with the Belgians, which ended in 1839, brought an almost complete stop to any spending of public money on art museums. he Belgian Revolt was the start of the age of ‘national indiference’—a term coined by the Amsterdam alderman Emanuel Boekman11—which lasted until about 1870. During this period, cultural life was organised by private societies; the national museums, of art or otherwise, barely survived. However, during the reign of William I, who was the irst king of the House of Orange (1815–1840), both the Rijksmuseum and the Mauritshuis were funded by the government, and both were supposed to give an overview of Dutch and Flemish paintings and preferably exhibit a masterpiece by each Dutch and Flemish painter. Moreover, the Mauritshuis collected and showed primarily international paintings, and the Rijksmuseum also collected international prints in the National Print Room (Rijksprentenkabinet), which had been combined with the museum since 1816.12 History was of only secondary importance in both museums, and that leads to my fourth remark: the national museums were not seen as instruments to give the general public an education in Dutch history, except during the very irst

Willem V op het Buitenhof te Den Haag (2)’. Antiek 11 (1976 / 1977), 138–176, here 161–176. See, about the recuperation, heodoor Herman Lunsingh Scheurleer, ‘De stadhouderlijke verzamelingen’. H.E. van Gelder, C. Reedijk, A.B. de Vries (eds.), 150 jaar—Koninklijk Kabinet van Schilderijen, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, Koninklijk Penningkabinet (’s-Gravenhage: Staatsdrukkerij, 1967), 11–50, here 36–42 and Bergvelt 1998, 89–90. 11 Emanuel Boekman, Overheid en kunst in Nederland (Amsterdam: Menno Hertzberger & Co., 1939), 15–35. 12 he National Print Room was also concentrating on art rather than history. Prints like the ones published by the Foundation for Public Beneit were not collected before 1844.

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period (1800–1805/6) and ater 1885 (in the new museum building). In the meantime, both museums were primarily schools for artists, where they could come to study the works of their predecessors. hus, Potgieter’s plea in 1844 for a complete change of the Rijksmuseum was responded to only in 1885 (and then only partly) in Cuypers’ new Rijksmuseum. Why did it take so long? Public and History in the Dutch National Art Museum he Nationale Konst-Gallerij (national art gallery) he irst national museum—the Nationale Konst-Gallerij (national art gallery)—opened its doors in May 1800. It was housed in the west wing of a former palace of the princes of Orange, Huis ten Bosch (house in the wood), near he Hague. his was a problem for the museum, as the Batavian Republic supported the ideals of the French Revolution and as such was opposed to the ‘tyrants’ of the House of Orange. However, in the middle of this palace—in the Oranjezaal (Orange room)— was the painted memorial to Stadtholder Frederic Henry, prince of Orange (1584–1647), which was made around 1650, ater his untimely death. he Oranjezaal had already been open to the public in the eighteenth century, and in 1767 a catalogue containing descriptions of all the paintings was made.13 So, at least since the eighteenth century, this room had been accessible, although it is not clear whether one had to pay to enter. We do know, however, that the Nationale Konst-Gallerij was open every day, but admission was not free.14 Because of its limited accessibility (at the time, Huis ten Bosch was outside the centre of he Hague, and the entrance fee was rather high), not many people could visit it: no more than several thousand people a year visited the Nationale Konst-Gallerij. All visitors received a guided tour by curator Jan Gerard Waldorp, starting in the rooms

13 Jan van Dyk, Beschryving der schilderyen in de Oranje zaal, van het vorstelyke Huys in ’t Bosch den onvergelykelyken heldt Fredrik Hendrik, Prins van Oranje en Nassau; door zyne weduwe Mevrouwe de Princesse Amalia van Solms ter eeuwiger gedachtenisse opgerecht naauwkeurig beschreeven (Den Haag: Wed. O. van hol en Zoon, 1767. Also editions in 1838 and 1856). 14 It was only free for people who had given gits to the museum; the regular visitors had to pay an entrance fee of thirty and later ity-ive cents. Artists had to pay even more (sixty cents) if they wanted to make copies of the paintings.

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and cabinets of the west wing of the former palace and ending in the Oranjezaal. What kind of museum was this? What had changed since the House of Orange had let this palace and their possessions had been coniscated? To begin with, the collection consisted of what had been let in the other palaces of the House of Orange, minus the best paintings, which had been taken to Paris. A lot of family portraits, as well as portraits of admirals and generals, had been kept, as had decorative paintings, hunting scenes, and some historical objects. he history and art of the House of Orange dominated this museum. hat the main part of the museum was devoted to the hated tyrants of the ancien régime was of course somewhat ironic. Although the Batavian Republic was rather poor, it nevertheless tried to change the content of the museum and redress the balance by purchasing portraits of adversaries of the House of Orange. For instance, the irst acquisition (in 1800) was the portrait of a hreatened Swan (ig. 2), which at the time was considered an allegory of Grand Pensionary Johan the Witt (1625–1672). he swan is depicted defending his nest against a dog, which is in the let-hand corner of the picture. here are several words on the painting: ‘de pensionaris’ (the pensionary) next to the swan, ‘Holland’ next to the nest and its eggs, and ‘de Viant van de staat’ (the enemy of the state) next to the dog. he words refer to Johan de Witt, who is seen here defending Holland against the enemy, England (or the prince of Orange, or both). De Witt had been head of state from 1653 until 1672, a period during which the Orange stadtholders were not in power. It later became clear that these texts could not have been written by the painter, Jan Asselijn (ater 1610–1652), as he died before Johan de Witt became grand pensionary. Nevertheless, this picture was acquired in 1800 because of its association with de Witt, an outspoken enemy of Orange.15 he hreatened Swan was initially placed in the irst room of the Nationale KonstGallerij, which was devoted to the history of the country, as was the Monument Room.16 hese two rooms can be regarded as the ‘history department’ of the museum; the ‘art department’ was located in the other three rooms and some smaller cabinets. he history department

15

Bergvelt 1998, 42–43. However, in 1804 curator Waldorp placed the hreatened Swan in the room with the other animal paintings. Bergvelt 1998, 37 (n. 63). Did he no longer believe the interpretation of the swan as Johan de Witt? 16

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Fig. 2. Jan Asselijn (ater 1610–1652), he hreatened Swan. Before 1652, oil on canvas (144x171 cm). Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv.no. SK-A-4.

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contained paintings and various objects related to the history of the Netherlands. he old-fashioned, international canon of European art prevailed in the art department. he preferences of the museum director and curator were decidedly neoclassicist; they were not interested in the simple scenes of farmers and citizens or in Dutch landscapes, which in the twentieth century would be seen as typically Dutch. hey preferred Gerard de Lairesse, Adriaen van der Werf, Melchior d’Hondecoeter, Bartolomeus van der Helst, Godfried Schalcken, Anthonie van Dyck, and Peter Paul Rubens over Adriaan Brouwer, Adriaan van Ostade, Frans Hals, and Rembrandt.17 If there had been enough money, the museum management would have preferred a collection with paintings by Raphael, Domenichino, Guido Reni, Murillo, and Poussin, like those held by other European museums. At irst, the hreatened Swan was hung in the irst historical room alongside a portrait of Admiral Michiel de Ruyter; a portrait of another admiral—Aert van Nes—along with his wife and son; a portrait of Stadtholder William III, who was also king of Great Britain; an allegory of the struggle between Protestants and Roman Catholics during the twelve-year truce at the beginning of the seventeenth century; and a picture of a naval battle with the Spanish in 1602. hus, portraits of historical persons dominated this room.18 Portraits were also on show in the Monument Room; for instance, there was a portrait of the iteenth-century duchess, Jacoba of Bavaria (already known from the woodcut of the Foundation for Public Beneit), along with a chair that was supposed to be hers, but is now considered a sixteenth-century one, made some one hundred years ater her death. his room also housed other objects that were thought to have belonged to Admiral Michiel de Ruyter: a canon and a sword, both

17

As can be seen in the prices paid for a ‘Rubens’ (3,300 guilders) and a ‘Rembrandt’ (775 guilders), Bergvelt 1998, 46–48. See also Ellinoor Bergvelt, ‘De canon van de Gouden Eeuw. De collectie Van der Hoop en de opvattingen van horé-Bürger’. Ellinoor Bergvelt, Jan Piet Filedt Kok, Norbert Middelkoop (eds.), De Hollandse meesters van een Amsterdamse bankier. De verzameling van Adriaan van der Hoop (1778– 1854) (Zwolle: Waanders Uitgevers / Amsterdam: Amsterdam Historical Museum and Rijksmuseum, 20041), 25–47, 196–204, 208–214. 18 We know exactly what was hanging on the walls because curator Waldorp made elaborate drawings of the walls with the pictures, sometimes including their frames, individually depicted: Pieter J.J. van hiel, ‘De inrichting van de Nationale Konst-Gallerij in het openingsjaar 1800’. Oud Holland 95 (1981), 170–227. he irst historical room is described in ibid. 186–191.

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made of gold, and rubies and diamonds. hey were nationale relieken (national relics) that had been in the stadtholder’s collection and then handed over to the Batavian rulers. It later turned out that the canon and the sword were made in eighteenth-century Sri Lanka.19 While the portrait of Jacoba of Bavaria and her chair were in the same room, a depiction of one of her castles—Teylingen—was hung elsewhere,20 and although de Ruyter’s golden canon and sword were in the Monument Room, his portrait hung in the irst room of the museum. his characterises the history of the Dutch national museum in the nineteenth century: consistency was not the strong point of the presentation. If you wanted to see all the objects related to one person—such as Michiel de Ruyter or Jacoba of Bavaria—you had to look in several rooms. We can assume that during his tour curator Waldorp was making the connections among these scattered objects while implementing the policies of the Batavian Republic: educating the general public and showing them the virtues of the heroes of the past—like Michiel de Ruyter, Jacoba of Bavaria, and Kenau Simonsdr. Hasselaar—as examples for the contemporary citizens of the Batavian Republic. However, if one wanted to be informed about Dutch history in a systematic way, it was better to read a book, such as the one by Simon Stijl or the illustrated one by Jan Wagenaar, which was also published in an illustrated edition for children.21 To conclude the presentation of Dutch history in this irst period, it must be noted that because of the predominance in the original collection of the House of Orange of portraits from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, no real overview of Dutch history from the Roman time until 1800 could be seen in the gallery. he museum director did not make a ‘shopping list’ of the important people or scenes in Dutch history that were missing, for which the books by Stijl and Wagenaar 19

Ibid., 213–219. In the corridor, ibid. 184. 21 Simon Stijl, De Opkomst en Bloei van de Republiek der Vereenigde Nederlanden; voorafgegaan door eene verhandeling over de opkomst en den ondergang van Oude en Hedendaagsche Republieken [door F.H. Turpin] (Amsterdam: Petrus Conradi / Harlingen: F. van der Plaats & junior, 1774); Jan Wagenaar, Vaderlandsche historie, vervattende de geschiedenissen der Vereenigde Nederlanden, inzonderheid die van Holland. Van de vroegste tyden af: uit de geloofwaardigste schryvers en egte gedenkstukken samengesteld (21 vols.; Amsterdam: Isaak Tirion, 1749–1759); Jan Wagenaar, Vaderlandsche historie verkort; en by vraagen en antwoorden voorgesteld (Amsterdam: Isaak Tirion, 1759). 20

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could have been useful. he acquisitions were made partly for historical and partly for artistic reasons when the paintings became available on the market.22 Although some portraits of enemies of the House of Orange had been purchased for the museum, the House of Orange dominated, certainly at the end of the tour: the Oranjezaal is an overwhelming masterpiece of seventeenth-century art. he Royal Museum of Louis Napoleon During the Kingdom of Holland (1806–1810)—under Louis Napoleon, the brother of Napoleon—the national museum’s collection was moved from he Hague to Amsterdam, where it was housed on the third loor of the Royal Palace (the former Amsterdam Town Hall) and called the Royal Museum. Although no visitor numbers are known, we can assume that some tens of thousands people toured this building.23 As it was located in the middle of Amsterdam, it was much more accessible than the Huis ten Bosch had been. It is another of the ironies of Dutch museum history that it was not the Batavian Republic that made the national museum freely accessible, but this autocratic ruler. he opening times show that it was not the general public that was considered to be the most important (they could visit on only three days of the week), but artists and foreigners, who had daily access. his museum was primarily meant as a school for artists, and it stayed that way at least until the 1860s, when daily access was introduced for the general public. he fairly modest museum of the Batavian period, which was predominantly concerned with history, was turned into a true art museum by Louis Napoleon’s purchase of two major collections of art from the Golden Age. he king also ordered that the city of Amsterdam’s seven most important paintings were to be in his Royal Museum, as loans—as some of them still are, like Rembrandt’s Nightwatch, the

22 Contemporary art, however, was not collected in this period: Bergvelt 1998, 39–51. 23 1860 is the irst year for which we have visitor numbers. In that year, the Rijksmuseum in the Trippenhuis was visited by 44,796 people, of whom 15,256 were from Amsterdam (stadgenoten), 3,641 were from the country (landgenoten), and 25,899 were foreigners (vreemdelingen); Archive Rijksmuseum (access number 476), Rijksarchief Noord-Holland, Haarlem, Ingekomen Stukken, inv. no. 26, nr. 130 (1.1.1861). A visitors’ book had been introduced in 1844, but visitors were not obliged to sign it or give their names, addresses, or professions.

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artistic masterpiece of the museum ever since, and his Syndics. While the emphasis in the museum in he Hague had been on the House of Orange, in the Royal Museum of Louis Napoleon the focus was on the city of Amsterdam. he seven most valuable paintings were chosen from the many Amsterdam paintings that had been on show in this building when it still was the Town Hall of Amsterdam. hat building of course had been freely accessible since its opening in 1655.24 he other paintings of the city were kept in the new municipal oices until 1885, when they were brought to the new Rijksmuseum.25 he king had ordered that his Royal Museum should consist of an art department, a separate room for contemporary paintings,26 and a separate room for the national historical paintings. he historical paintings were hung in the museum’s large room, along with the biblical and mythological scenes. Altogether, there were 199 paintings of battles, views, memorable events, and famous men, including the seven Amsterdam paintings, along with the three-dimensional objects in showcases. he art department was distributed among the other, smaller rooms.27 he museum’s two most important paintings at the time—Rembrandt’s Nightwatch and Bartolomeus van der Helst’s Cel-

24 Also here a catalogue of the paintings had been published by the same author who had catalogued the Orange Room, Jan van Dyk, Kunst en historiekundige beschryving en aanmerkingen over alle de schilderyen op het stadhuis te Amsterdam (Amsterdam: Pieter Yver, 1758). 25 he Amsterdam Historical Museum was founded only in the twentieth century (1926 in the former Weigh-House on the Nieuwmarkt; since 1975 in the former Municipal Orphanage in Kalverstraat). In 1975, numerous important Amsterdam paintings were returned by the Rijksmuseum to the city and exhibited in this new municipal museum. Norbert E. Middelkoop, Gusta Reichwein & Judith van Gent, De oude meesters van de stad Amsterdam. Schilderijen tot 1800 (Bussum: hoth, 2008). 26 See, about the contemporary art during the reign of Louis Napoleon, Ellinoor Bergvelt, ‘Lodewijk Napoleon, de levende meesters en het Koninklijk Museum (1806– 1810)’. Eveline Koolhaas-Grosfeld et al. (ed.), Lodewijk Napoleon en de kunsten in het Koninkrijk Holland (Zwolle: Waanders Uitgevers, 2007), 257–299. 27 ‘Le grand Salon est entierement décoré de Pieces d’Histoire, la plus part concernant l’Histoire du Païs et representant plusieurs Batailles, évenements mémorables, Portraits d’Hommes Illustres, Vues, Antiquités et Curiosités, au nombre de 199 Tableaux, des quels les sept le plus remarquables, appartiennent à la Ville d’Amsterdam . . . Dans les autres appartements sont exposés le reste des Tableaux d’Historie au nombre de 71 et 86 Tableaux de Genre, 95 Tableaux de Paijsage, 16 Tableaux de Marine, 33 Tableaux de Gibier Mort, de Fleurs et de Fruits et 52 Tableaux modernes, ou de Maîtres encore vivans: le nombre total des Tableaux se monte à 552 Pieces’. Museum director Cornelis Apostool’s report for Lebrun, copy in Archive Rijksmuseum (access number 476), Rijksarchief Noord-Holland, Haarlem, Ingekomen stukken, inv. no. 4, nr. 18 [undated, second half of 1810].

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ebration of the Peace of Westphalia—both hung in the large room with the other historical pictures and paintings with biblical and mythological subjects. Since the eighteenth century, van der Helst’s painting had been considered the collection’s most important historical painting, as the Peace of Westphalia (1648) celebrated the moment that, ater an eighty-year war, the Netherlands was recognised as an independent country by the other European nations. he Nightwatch, on the contrary, was considered to be a painting without any historical subject; it was ‘just’ a masterpiece by Rembrandt, something of artistic rather than historical importance.28 History is now seen diferently, and he Nightwatch is considered to be not only an artistic masterpiece, but also illustrative of social history, in this case the functioning of the civic guard in Amsterdam in the seventeenth century. Judging by the numbers, it seems that the museum considered history the most important: there were 199 historical paintings, 71 tableaux d’Histoire, 86 genre paintings, 95 landscapes, 16 marines, 52 contemporary paintings, and 33 hunting scenes and lower and fruit still lifes. However, most of the acquisitions, just as later in the museum’s history, were made for artistic and not for historical reasons.29 he roughly two hundred pictures that hung in this room did not give a very clear picture of Dutch history, and there was no longer a guided tour or a Waldorp to clarify matters. However, in 1809 an alphabetical catalogue was printed, referring to the numbers that were attached to the paintings. he director, Cornelis Apostool, included some arbitrary comments in the catalogue; some of his comments are of a historical nature, while others are of an artistic or appreciative nature.30 Too many subjects were still missing to give a balanced overview of Dutch history in the museum rooms; moreover, many paintings were barely visible as they were hung high on the walls. he contribution of Louis Napoleon to the Dutch national museum was not so much in the history department as in the art department. He greatly improved especially the Dutch Golden Age art collection: the seven masterpieces loaned by the city of Amsterdam combined 28 However, some people—for example, the British visitor Sir Joshua Reynolds— preferred the van der Helst to he Nightwatch. Harry Mount (ed.), Sir Joshua Reynolds. A Journey to Flanders and Holland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 91. Most artists and connoisseurs in the eighteenth and nineteenth century preferred Rembrandt. 29 Bergvelt 1998, 68–77. 30 Ibid., 78–83.

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with the architecture of Jacob van Campen’s town hall obliterated the contribution of the House of Orange, a contribution that had been so overwhelming in the Huis ten Bosch.31 What prevailed in Louis Napoleon’s Royal Museum was the image of the power of Amsterdam. ’s Rijks Museum in the Trippenhuis (1817–1885) he House of Orange returned in 1813; two years later, the Congress in Vienna made the combined territories of the northern and southern Netherlands into one kingdom, headed by the son of the last stadtholder. William I was the irst king of the House of Orange. He renamed the museum ’s Rijks Museum and in 1817 placed it in the Trippenhuis, where it was combined with the National Print Room (Rijksprentenkabinet). he Trippenhuis building was situated very near Amsterdam’s Jewish quarter. he museum was open to artists and foreigners every day, and to the general public on only two days a week.32 Nevertheless, as there still was no entrance fee, numerous people in Amsterdam came to see the collection, especially during the fair in September and during the Jewish feast days in October.33 We have a description of the rooms (two large and ive smaller ones) as arranged by the director in 1817. Apostool applied the same principles as he had done in the Royal Museum. he largest room on the second loor was destined for seventy-seven paintings (including the seven large Amsterdam paintings) representing the ‘history of our homeland’. his room was also the meeting room of the Royal Dutch Institute of Arts and Sciences, which was housed in the Trippenhuis. he large room on the loor above contained the other historical pictures and the biblical and mythological scenes (a total of eighty-three paintings). he antiquities and other rarities—such as the national relics—were displayed in showcases. he cabinet pictures were hung 31 Part of the collection of the National Art Gallery stayed in he Hague, where it was given to the city of he Hague. Some of the paintings ended up in the Mauritshuis: Ernst Wilhelm Moes & Eduard van Biema, De Nationale Konst-gallery en het Koninklijk Museum. Bijdrage tot de geschiedenis van het Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam: Frederik Muller, 1909), 135–140. 32 So, the three days for the general public in the Royal Museum were reduced to two in the Rijksmuseum in the Trippenhuis. 33 Higher visitor numbers are reported for these reasons in September and October 1860 in the document mentioned in note 23. Many years before 1860, extra visitors to the Trippenhuis in September are also mentioned by director Apostool. Bergvelt 1998, 99–100.

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in the smaller rooms, organised by genre: still lifes (thirty-one), Italian or Italianate landscapes (seventy-six), Dutch landscapes and marines (ity-ive), and tableaux de genre (seventy-eight). his arrangement was tailored to the studies of contemporary painters.34 In 1816, the museum held 444 paintings and 50 objects. his changed in 1825 when the Ministry of the Interior decided that the national collections had to be reorganised. All three-dimensional objects were to be moved from the Rijksmuseum and sent to other national museums in he Hague or Leiden. hus, in 1825 all historical objects—including the national relics—were taken from the Rijksmuseum and sent to the Royal Cabinet of Rarities in he Hague. he director did not protest; in fact, he stated that they are not very important: they are important only if one believes that they are authentic, which he clearly did not believe.35 However, in 1885 the sixteenth-century chair of the ifteenth-century Jacoba of Bavaria, and the eighteenth-century arms of the seventeenth-century hero, Michiel de Ruyter, were returned from the Royal Cabinet of Rarities to the historical department in the new building designed by Cuypers. As a consequence of these changes, ater 1825 the museum in the Trippenhuis was a gallery of paintings only, albeit with a print room that contained prints and some drawings. Apostool had to alter the presentation in that year,36 which he did based on artistic criteria, grouping the paintings according to genre even more strictly. he still lifes, landscapes, marines, and interiors stayed in the same rooms, but the contents of the two larger rooms—that is, historical paintings of

34 Also since Louis Napoleon, there had been some ity contemporary paintings. his number was slowly growing. he paintings could be seen in the National Print Room (but only on request). hat lasted until 1838, when the nineteenth-century paintings (only by deceased masters) from both the Rijksmuseum (60) and the Mauritshuis (166) were combined in the Museum for Paintings by Living Masters in Pavillion Welgelegen near Haarlem. Ellinoor Bergvelt, ‘Nationale, levende en 19de-eeuwse meesters. Rijksmusea en eigentijdse kunst (1800–1848)’. E. de Jong, G.h.M. lemmens, P.J.J. van hiel (eds.), Het Rijksmuseum. Opstellen over de geschiedenis van een nationale instelling (Weesp: Fibula-Van Dishoeck, 1985), 77–149, here 106–108. 35 ‘Wat de Oud & Historieele Zeldzaamheden betret; deeze zyn ook weinig belangryk, er zyn al eenige Historieele Reliquien doch zonder bescheiden of bewyzen en de belangrykheid derzelve bestaat in het gelove hetgeen men aan de echtheid derzelve geliet te geeven’, letter from C. Apostool to Adm. OK&W, 8.2.1825 (‘verzending van oudheden naar den Haag en Leijden’), Archive Rijksmuseum (access number 476), Rijksarchief Noord-Holland, Haarlem, inv. no. 36, Kopijboek, p. 160. 36 Also because of an exchange with the Mauritshuis in the same year (seven paintings from the Rijksmuseum were exchanged for three from the Mauritshuis).

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all sorts (Dutch history and biblical and mythological scenes)—were divided: the historical paintings went into one room, the portraits into the other. Dutch portrait painters could now restrict their study visits to the Rijksmuseum to just one room. he portraits were arranged as a sort of ‘regents’ chamber’ in the museum room, which doubled as the meeting room for the Royal Dutch Institute of Arts and Sciences. It was about this room that Potgieter was to write his criticism on the Rijksmuseum, which since 1825 had been intended even more so to be a school for artists, and not as a place to educate the general public in Dutch history. In the other large room (the one hung with historical paintings), the pictures showing excerpts from Dutch history were scattered over the walls, between scenes from the Bible and Greek and Roman mythology. If the contents of the two large rooms had been combined, a more systematic overview of Dutch history could have been ofered, although numerous important persons and scenes would still have been missing. However, although the rooms were organised by genre, this was not why they had been hung there: artists were supposed to study their predecessors’ style and, for instance, the colour and composition of their work. At the same time, the general public were shown examples of works by the best Dutch and Flemish artists: they were supposed to develop their taste and look at stylistic characteristics and not so much at the content of the paintings. Most of the acquisitions made between 1816 and 1830 were of paintings that were deemed artistically important,37 and not of works of art that should in some way arouse a ‘feeling for the fatherland’ in the viewers’ breasts. Ater the period of the Batavian Republic, the historical aspect became subordinated to the artistic merits of the paintings. Nevertheless, it was an international canon that prevailed in the Rijksmuseum. Its director, and the director of the Mauritshuis, would have preferred an international collection, with paintings by Raphael, Rubens, and Rembrandt (in that order).

37 he directors of the two national art museums had no inancial budget; therefore, every time they wanted to acquire something, they had to apply for the money and present their arguments for the acquisition to their superiors. hey wanted to present each Dutch and Flemish seventeenth- and eighteenth-century artist, preferably in the form of a masterpiece. Although they preferred classicist masters, they felt it was their duty to ofer an encyclopaedic overview of all possible styles and genres in the Dutch and Flemish schools of painters.

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he few historical acquisitions that were made in the period before 1830 were lesser (and cheaper) paintings, mostly portraits. But instead of the portraits of politicians, princes, and the naval heroes of the Batavian period, Apostool concentrated on portraits of artists (including self-portraits), poets, and other cultural heroes. Interestingly, no portrait of the Dutch hero in the war against the Belgians, J.C.J. van Speijk (1802–1831), was included in the museum collection,38 as it was an art museum—another example of the gap between art and history (or nationalism). he paintings were hung in the ‘regents’ chamber’ room with portraits, and when the members of the Royal Dutch Institute of Arts and Sciences convened to discuss their recommendations for the minister or the king, their predecessors gazed down on them from the walls. 1830—the year of the Belgian Revolt—marked the end of almost all purchases for the Rijksmuseum and Mauritshuis until around 1870. No major gits or legacies entered either national art museum during that forty-year period. he few collectors whose paintings were not sold ater their death mostly favoured the municipal rather than the national museums: it took a long time before the dominance of the cities in the cultural life in the Netherlands came to an end. As a consequence, almost no new acquisitions entered the museums, and thus no changes in the museum rooms had to be made. he museums and their collections were virtually static between 1830 and 1870. It was in the middle of this period of ‘national indiference’ that Potgieter wrote his essay. Potgieter’s ‘Rijksmuseum’ It seems that Potgieter had purposefully waited until the old director of the museum died, ater a long illness, before publishing his essay in De Gids.39 Although the title of his essay—‘Rijks-Museum’—suggests

38 hat happened in 1832. Apostool refused to accept a miniature portrait of van Speijk as a present, as it did not look like him and the artistic quality was insuicient. However, we do know that Apostool devoted himself to the erection of a monument and to the striking of a medal to commemorate van Speijk. Ellinoor Bergvelt, ‘Kunst, musea en Oranje. Een geschiedenis van wankelmoedige relaties’. De Negentiende Eeuw [special volume: Orangisme in de negentiende eeuw] 23.1 (1999), 63–64 (n. 20). he miniature portrait ended up in the Royal Cabinet of Rarities in he Hague, and thus eventually in the collection of the Rijksmuseum. 39 Bergvelt 1998, 154–159.

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otherwise, he does not discuss the national museum in Amsterdam as a whole, but concentrates on the room that contained the historical portraits, which was located in the ‘regents’ chamber’ on the second loor of the building. here, Rembrandt’s Nightwatch and van der Helst’s Celebration of the Peace of Münster (Westphalia), 18 June 1648, in the headquarters of the crossbowmen’s civic guard (St. George guard) hung opposite each other. As an author with a strong interest in history, Potgieter emphasises Dutch history in the museum. According to him, the content is more important than the style of a painting, and history is more important than artistic achievement—the exact opposite of the ideas adhered to within the art museums. He compares paintings to mirrors, and to him, painters are no more than artisans who mechanically put on canvas what they see before their eyes. In his view, the most important painting was not he Nightwatch but the van der Helst—a view that had been held since the eighteenth century by other people who had an interest in history. his was because the Peace of Westphalia was still considered the most important event in Dutch history, as it was at Münster that the independence of the country was recognised by the other European nations. According to Potgieter, the van der Helst was also of historical importance, as the painter had depicted the ‘heroic citizens, with their splendid arms and luxuriant tableware’, which could teach the nineteenth-century Dutch the joy of life.40 In Potgieter’s opinion, the Dutch could be proud not of Dutch art but of Dutch history, namely the power that the Dutch Republic once possessed. he better this power was represented, the better the paintings. As a consequence, he Nightwatch—which at the time was considered to be a painting without any historical subject—was an artistic masterpiece by Rembrandt devoid of any historical importance. Potgieter wanted the museum to provide an overview of Dutch history, and he even made a list of what should be represented, which marks the diference between him and the museum people of that period: others only made lists of artists who were missing, but never of key individuals and events in Dutch history. Potgieter would have liked the missing portraits of his literary, political, and military heroes of the Golden Age to be on show on the museum walls; moreover, he wanted to witness the realisation of the scenes that had not yet

40

As cited in Bergvelt 1998, 157.

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been depicted. He requested collectors, both commoners and the king, to donate from their collections what was missing from the museum. However, nobody—neither king nor commoner—reacted. Potgieter’s ideal museum presentation was to begin in 1555 with the abdication of Emperor Charles V and end in 1673 with the reconciliation of the naval heroes Michiel de Ruyter and Cornelis Tromp in front of Stadtholder William III. According to Potgieter, Dutch history before 1555 and ater 1673 was not worth mentioning or showing. Nevertheless, Potgieter’s aim was directed at the present in order to end the so-called Jan Salie-geest (the sleepy spirit) of the Dutch. he power of Holland had been declining since the eighteenth century because of the mentality of the Dutch (sleepy, no longer enterprising).41 He wanted the museum to ofer examples for his contemporaries by showing them their illustrious ancestors, which was quite comparable to the aim of the museum of the Batavian Republic. Potgieter envisaged a historical museum along the lines of the Musée historique at Versailles, which had been established in 1837. Its Galerie des Batailles included portrayals of all important battles in French history from the early Middle Ages onwards. However, what was possible in France was completely out of the question in the Netherlands: there was no king who was interested in Dutch history or wanted the Dutch parliament to spend any money on a historical (let alone an art) museum. In contrast to the benefactors of the other national museums in Europe, the Dutch were not interested in the Rijksmuseum.42 Although Potgieter’s point of view (history) was completely diferent from what the museum people aimed at (international art), he recognised perfectly well what had caused the decline of the national collection in the Amsterdam Trippenhuis. A national consciousness with regard to the paintings in the Rijksmuseum, as expressed by Potgieter, was not shared by others. According to Potgieter, it was provincialism and urbanismus, indiference and a lack of money, that prevented the establishment of a new national gallery. It took a long time before 41 Jan Salie and all he stood for was described in 1842 by Potgieter, Maartje Janse, De geest van Jan Salie. Nederland in verval? (Hilversum: Verloren, 2002). 42 However, they were interested in Artis, which at that time was a closed foundation for natural history, sciences, and musical performances; see Donna C. Mehos, Science and culture for members only: the Amsterdam Zoo Artis in the nineteenth century (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006). In the mid-nineteenth century, this private foundation had much more money available to build zoological museums and form collections of nature and ethnography than the two national art museums.

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urbanismus and provincialism disappeared. With the lowering of the economy since the 1870s, money became available to build the new Rijksmuseum, which was designed by the architect P.J.H. Cuypers. Potgieter’s ideal—a systematic overview of Dutch history—was probably realised only in the reorganised rooms of the history department in the 1930s.43 Diference between Art and History I believe that the sorry state of the Rijksmuseum was a result not only of indiference and a lack of money, but also of the complete separation between history (where cultural nationalism was very present, also in the Netherlands)44 and art (where international standards reigned). he existence of an international canon in the two art museums seems to be in conlict with the international turn towards a historical nationalism. Publications like the catalogue Het Vaderlandsch gevoel—which accompanied a Rijksmuseum exhibition (1978) of Dutch nineteenth-century historical paintings—also suggest that in the Netherlands, as in the rest of Europe, an ideology of cultural nationalism was permeating all ields of cultural life.45 hat, however, was not the case. In the irst place, compared to the many landscapes and still lifes, not very many historical paintings were made in the nineteenth century (and the few that were, were made for private persons), and they were certainly not collected for the two national museums.46 Numerous historical paintings eventually ended up in the collection of the Rijksmuseum, but in the period until 1844, the two national

43 Johan Bos, ‘ “De geschiedenis is vastgelegd in boeken, niet in musea”. Van planvorming tot realisatie. Het Nederlands Museum voor Geschiedenis in het Rijksmuseum, 1922–1939’. Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 45.4 (1997), 262–309. 44 See for instance Lotte Jensen, De verheerlijking van het verleden. Helden, literatuur en natievorming in de negentiende eeuw (Nijmegen: Vantilt, 2008). 45 Het Vaderlandsch gevoel. Vergeten negentiende-eeuwse schilderijen over onze geschiedenis (Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum, 1978). 46 See, for numbers of paintings produced in the early nineteenth century by genre, Bergvelt 1985, 142–143 (n. 223 and 224). It seems that the two museum directors did not like to have paintings with subjects from Dutch history in their museums, not so much for reasons of space (many such paintings are large), but more because of the lack of artistic quality; ibid., 101–102. However, because of the high costs, some of these paintings were acquired by the king and placed in the museums; ibid., 100–101 (n. 132 and 133).

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art museums were not about history but about art; which at the time in the Netherlands meant international, classicist art, where historical paintings (that is, paintings with biblical, mythological, or historical subjects) were the highest form of art.47 And thus, in the second place, during the reign of William I (1814–1840), most of the money that was spent for the Mauritshuis went to foreign paintings, which itted perfectly in an international, albeit somewhat old-fashioned canon of art (among the purchases were works by seventeenth-century painters like the Spaniard Murillo and the Italian Guido Reni).48 Also here, these works were collected as examples of the styles of their makers and not for their content. However, even more of the king’s money was used to purchase antiquities: the most expensive acquisition for any Dutch museum in the nineteenth century was not a Rembrandt (he Anatomical Lesson of Dr. Tulp was acquired for the Mauritshuis in 1828 for thirty-two thousand guilders) or a Vermeer (he Love Letter for the Rijksmuseum in 1892 for fourty-one thousand guilders), but the antique cameo that the king purchased in 1823 for ity thousand guilders for the Royal Cabinet of Coins and Medals in Leiden.49 his is also very much in conlict with the current ideas about nineteenth-century Holland, which is supposed to have been interested only in its own art.50 In both art museums (and also in the Fourth

47 his seems contradictory: although historical paintings were the highest form of art, in the museums these paintings were collected not for their content but because they were artistic examples of the work of their makers. 48 See, for the purchases of King William I, Bergvelt 1998, 92–96. Mostly Dutch and Flemish paintings were purchased for the Rijksmuseum (foreign paintings were too expensive). Etchings by Rembrandt were acquired for the Royal Print Room, but otherwise the directors concentrated on reproductive prints ater masters like Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci. 49 See Bergvelt 1998, 94 (ill. 47, IV), 116–117 (ill. 68, XI), 249 (ill. 147, XVI). See, for the Vermeer (for which the Dutch government had to pay only iteen thousand guilders, as the rest was paid for by the Vereeniging Rembrandt), also Pieter J.J. van hiel, ‘1892. Johannes Vermeer. De Liefdesbrief’. Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 31.3 (1983), 197–199. 50 So much so that people tend to read the opposite of what is written. For example: Saskia de Bodt, Halverwege Parijs. Willem Roelofs en de Nederlandse schilderskolonie in Brussel 1840–1890 (Gent: Snoeck-Ducaju & Zoon, 1995), 16, writes that William I purchased for his museums primarily old Dutch masters, referring to Ellinoor Bergvelt, ‘Koning Willem I als verzamelaar, opdrachtgever en weldoener van de Noordnederlandse musea’. C.A. Tamse & E. Witte (eds.), Staats- en natievorming in Willem I’s Koninkrijk (1815–1830) (Brussel: VUBPress / Baarn: Bosch & Keuning Uitgevers, 1992), 261–285. However, in this article I conclude the same: William I spent most of his money on antiquities and foreign paintings and not on Dutch and Flemish paintings.

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Department of the Royal Dutch Institute of Arts and Sciences), Dutch painting was considered subordinate to foreign art; only in landscape painting (alas, a subordinated genre of painting), a speciality of the Dutch, were the Dutch the best. Although historians (and art historians) of the twentieth and twenty-irst centuries would like to see ideology—that is, political51 and religious52 arguments or considerations—in Dutch museum history, they are not there, at least not in the early nineteenth century. It is clear that in the early nineteenth century, art in the Netherlands was deemed unimportant. hat was the case when ater 1816 nobody gave a thought to the two national art museums (or four, if one includes those in Antwerp and Brussels)—at least nobody thought of combining them as a means to further the unity in the kingdom of William I—and again, when in 1830 the expenditure for the national art museums almost completely ceased (while in 1838 a Japan collection was purchased to form a museum in Leiden in order to promote industry and exports to the East).53 And yet again, in 1855, the space in the room where he Nightwatch and the van der Helst

When I started my research, inspired by the exhibition and catalogue Het Vaderlandsch Gevoel in 1978, I expected to ind changes in acquisition policy for the museums each time a new government took over. However, that was not the case: only the change in regime between the Batavian Republic and Louis Napoleon was a real rupture, since it was the latter’s artistic and not historical ideas about what to purchase for the museum(s) that prevailed. History was of lesser importance in the Rijksmuseum until 1880, when director J.W. Kaiser published a new version of the paintings catalogue of the Rijksmuseum. his is the only catalogue in the history of the Rijksmuseum in which historical data about the paintings are more important than artistic information. Also the changes in ideas about art, connected with political changes (1806–1813; 1813–1830; 1830–1840), which are pointed out by Eveline Koolhaas and Jenny Reynaerts, cannot be found within the art museums. See Eveline Koolhaas, ‘Nationale versus goede smaak. Bevordering van nationale kunst in Nederland: 1780–1840’. Tijdschrit voor Geschiedenis 95 (1982), 605–636 and Jenny Reynaerts, ‘Balanceren op het koord van de geschiedenis. Nederland 1787–1848’. Ronald de Leeuw, Jenny Reynaerts, Benno Tempel (eds.), Meesters van de Romantiek. Nederlandse kunstenaars 1800–1850 (Zwolle: Waanders Uitgevers, 2005), 32–36. 52 he criticism of William II and his collection of foreign masters is interpreted as coming from a Protestant background against this ‘Roman Catholic’ collector and his collection: Ellinoor Bergvelt. ‘Een vorstelijk museum? De rol van de kunstverzameling aan het Haagse hof van koning Willem II (1840–1850)’. Johann-Christian Klamt & Kees Veelenturf (eds.), Representatie. Kunsthistorische bijdragen over vorst, staatsmacht en beeldende kunst, opgedragen aan Robert W. Scheller (Nijmegen: Valkhof Pers, 20042), 44–46. However, the earlier museum people did not think in these terms, at least not before 1853, when the Roman Catholic bishops were reinstated in the Netherlands. 53 his was the start of the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden; Bergvelt 1998, 96 (n. 64). 51

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were hanging was reduced, as the space was needed by the Academy of Sciences, the successor to the Royal Dutch Institute of Arts and Sciences, from which the arts were removed in 1851—another example of the fact that art was deemed inferior to sciences and economics and that cultural nationalism certainly did not pertain to the art museums. he diference between history and art was, next to indiference and a lack of money, the reason that Potgieter preached to deaf ears in 1844. he lack of money ended in the 1870s when the Dutch economy started to lower again, so much so that this period (1870–1930) is called the Second Golden Age. he indiference also ended at about that time. However, even if the paintings with subjects from Dutch history in the art museum had been arranged in a systematic way, only a very partial history of the Netherlands could have been shown on the museum walls. It was not until the 1880s that history was reintroduced to the Rijksmuseum, by means of the inclusion of the Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst (Dutch museum for history and art) in Cuypers’ new museum building; however, the history museum (and later department) was always separated from and deemed inferior to the art departments.54 And even in the Cuypers building, no systematic history of the Netherlands was presented. It was not until the 1930s that this museum (later the department of Dutch history) was rearranged in a systematic way. But it is only now, in the twenty-irst century, with the preparations for the new Rijksmuseum,55 that the barriers between the art and history departments have been removed. However, in Potgieter’s time it was not Dutch history to which the visitors had free access in the Rijksmuseum, but to Dutch (and Flemish) art history.

54

his museum had existed in he Hague since 1876; Bergvelt 1998, 200–201. he opening of which is projected to occur in 2012/2013; see http://www .rijksmuseum.nl/hetnieuwerijksmuseum/do-tijdpad?lang=en, viewed on 4 December 2008. 55

SINGING OF CONQUEST? OPERA, HISTORY, AND THE AMBIGUITIES OF EUROPEAN IMPERIALISM Peter Rietbergen

For Joost Langeveld, ‘mentor in musica’

Introduction: From Opera as Politics to ‘History Opera’ Ever since its ‘invention’ in the late sixteenth century—at the court of the Medici, in Florence1—melodrama, in the original sense of the word, has been a prime vehicle for the representation of power. To put it more bluntly, ‘opera’—per musica—oten served as a means for political propaganda. Rulers needed to reach the political nation, the elites without whose support they could not function. hese elites, who were already well versed in the politics of the day, had to be impressed with the political messages of the governing group. Consequently, throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, European princes (both religious and secular) rightly perceived and indeed constructed melodrama as a Gesammtkunstwerk: following the baroque ideal of the bel composto, they set out to make it as persuasive a medium as possible for as large an audience as possible—one should not forget that, for example, the Barberini Opera House, in seventheenth-century papal Rome, held some 2,200 spectators. Since time immemorial, themes taken from history have been used to convey contemporary political messages. So, political opera, too, mostly took its subject matter from the past, whether it was biblical, classical, or in a more narrow sense, European-historical.2 To what extent (given the above remark about the size of early modern audiences) this constitutes public access to those pasts per se remains, of course, to be seen.

Stanley Sadie, History of Opera (New York: Norton, 1990). Carl Dahlhaus, ‘Die Historie als Oper. Gattungsgeschichte und Werkinterpretation’. Carl Dahlhaus, Vom Musikdrama zur Literaturoper (München: Piper, 1989). 1

2

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Even within the irst two subgenres, the theme of cultural contact and cultural conlict provided both librettists and composers with both dramaturgically and politically exciting possibilities, as can be seen when one analyses, for example, Mozart’s La Betullia liberata (1771) or Paccini’s Alessandro nell’ Indie (1824). However, I propose to concentrate on those operas that pretend to re-create actual moments from European history, more speciically from the history of European overseas relations. Preliminary Remarks Before going into the main questions raised in this essay, three preliminary remarks seem relevant, all related to an analysis of the problem whether free access to the past can, somehow, be considered part of the phenomenon of the history opera. he critical theorists—not only the Marxist-Socialist analysts in the late nineteenth century but, far more so, the neo-Marxists of the 1960s—who have branded opera as a ‘typically’ bourgeois phenomenon, somehow linking it to the capitalist economy of Europe’s industrial age, only showed they knew little about the history of the genre. While, admittedly, opera was created in and for a courtly context, already in the seventeenth century the bourgeoisie took to it as well. Indeed, though in some parts of Europe aristocratic elites, until the end of the eighteenth century, continued to enjoy their opera in private (that is, in opera houses that did not admit non-nobles), this was not always so. Certainly in the many city republics of Europe— Amsterdam, Bremen, Hamburg, to name but a few—opera was performed in theatres that made no such socio-legal distinctions. But even in France’s capital, the royal opera house had its parterre, where both people from the bourgeoisie and the lower classes oten clamorously reacted to the performances given, though it oten is unclear whether they did so because the music ofended them or because the libretto’s message was not to their taste—or, indeed, simply because this was a major opportunity to make themselves publicly heard.3

3 J. Ravel, he Contested Parterre: Public heater and French Political Culture, 1680–1791 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999).

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With the numerical growth of of the European middle class, from the late eighteenth century onwards, and with the cultural changes that accompanied it (for example, the bourgeoisie’s wish to emulate aristocratic culture in all its perceived idiosyncracies), attending the opera became a popular pastime4—all the more so since attending religious, nonliturgical dramatic music lost ground during the Enlightenment and its revolutionary atermath.5 Moreover, when in the early nineteenth century most private (that is, court and noble) theatres were abolished, the aristocracy, too, had to turn to the new opera houses built to accommodate the ever larger group who wanted and could aford to go there. Consequently, auditoriums, by now certainly more public than ever, became yet bigger, while orchestras, opera troupes, and other performing groups grew in size, too. Even instruments and, perhaps, voices had to increase their pitch to reach the growing audience. Nor, so research suggests, was the audience only growing; since the lower classes increasingly came to the theatre, the bourgeoisie per force had to escape to the opera to keep its high culture-proile. Indeed, all through the nineteenth century both the theatre and the opera remained, by and large, bourgeois, or middle class venues.6 Finally, since opera now very much became an economic commodity, its inanciers and impressarios7—oten entrepreneurs, though they might operate in close contact with urban elites and national governments8—did nothing to discourage this growth, seeking publicity in every way possible to lure as many spectators as possible to the opera house with topics that were certain to seduce them, historical ones being among the most popular. Inevitably, new performances of (privileged) privacy and enhanced conspicuousness replaced the older, aristocratic-noble rituals. Seating—

4 Anselm Gerhard, he urbanization of opera: music theatre in Paris in the nineteenth century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000); B. Emslie, ‘he domestication of opera’. Cambridge Opera Journal 5.2 (1993), 167–177. 5 Peter Rietbergen, ‘Het Nieuwe Testament verklankt. Muziekdramatische interpretaties als instrumenten van kerstening in negentiende-eeuws Noordwest Europa’. C. Caspers et al. (ed.), Wegen van Kerstening in Europa (Budel: Damon, 2005), 139–154. 6 H. Gras & H. van Vliet, ‘Paradise lost nor regained: the social composition of theatre audiences in the long nineteenth century’. Journal of Social History 38.2 (2004), 471–512. 7 For example J. Rosselli, he Opera Industry in Italy from Cimarosa to Verdi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984). 8 For example J. Fulcher, he Nation’s Image: French grand opera as politics and politicized art (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987).

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in stalls, boxes, and so on9—in the opera house very much became a matter of money, as, for example, in the New York Opera’s ‘diamond horseshoe’, the tier of boxes where tiaras were shown. he auditorium itself became a theatre to show one’s status. Indeed, the seeing and being seen, the publicising of the self that always had been part of the opera-going act, became increasingly important, being enacted in ostensibly separate and yet publicly visible social spaces geared to the diferent classes who attended the opera.10 My second remark concerns, inevitably, the perennial question of whether we can gauge the impact of a work of art on its public. Obviously, I would like to know if history opera in any way did inluence the audience’s sense of past, whether ‘the’ past or their past(s). However, for the better part of the history of opera—and, for that matter, of the other performing arts—there are no sources to help us answer this question other than in a largely impressionistic way. If one has contemporary reviews at all—not a common feature of public cultural space before the nineteenth century—these address, in the case of opera, the qualities of the work and its composer, or, more oten, of the performers, as well as, even more oten, of the staging. It is only seldom that the wider cultural context is analysed and the reception by the public relected upon. Undeniably, history opera was, certainly since the beginning of the nineteenth century, a very public and, indeed, large-scale cultural phenomenon. But though it used all the emotionally efective means of music and the theatre, thus addressing all the senses, my assumption that, by its very nature, it must have created a historical sensation that may or may not have converged with information about the past conveyed through other channels must remain unproven. Last, but not least, we should note that in studying history opera— indeed, in studying the melodramatic genre as such—a strange phenomenon has occurred. Even nowadays, many musicologists and many more music lovers blightly assume and publicly state it was the composer who determined the message, political or otherwise. hus, for example, Le Nozze di Figaro oten is interpreted as the relection

9 R. Martorella, ‘Occupational specialization and aesthetic change in opera; some historical inquiries’. International review of the aesthetics and sociology of music 10 (1979), 89–98. 10 For example J. Davis, ‘Opera and Absolutism in Restoration Italy, 1815–1860’. he Journal of Interdisciplinary History 36.4 (2006), 569–594, here 547.

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of Mozart’s supposed and irrepressible revolutionary love of liberty— actually, the interaction between, for example, Mozart and his librettist Da Ponte was a far more complex one.11 he general assumption of the composer’s predominance obviously stems from the fact that over the past two hundred years the musical part of opera has been extolled to such an extent that composers have achieved cult status, while librettists, if mentioned at all, usually have been blamed for everything a composer was not able to realise. However, this situation was a comparatively new one. Well into the eighteenth century, the writer of the operatic textbook, the libretto, was recorded and applauded, while the composer, oten, remained unknown.12 Only since, for example, Verdi, Wagner, and Puccini (and, on a wider scale, from the early twentieth century onwards) have composers begun to participate in the writing of the lyrics or even to create their own textbooks altogether. hough nowadays, too, we tend to praise the composer rather than the writer of the lyrics, if we study opera, especially political opera, for the messages it contains, we should concentrate on the libretto and its author. Consequently, over the past decades a new scholarly subspecialism has arisen. hose readers interested in the secrets of librettology, especially in its structural-hermeneutical tradition, should preferably peruse the pages of the Cambridge Opera Journal. hey contain both the high victories gained by intelligent, close-contextual cultural reading and the low depths reached by oten ill-judged postmodern overinterpretation. ‘History Operas’—Conquest Operas: he Baroque Vicissitudes of Montezuma Precisely since opera oten was meant to carry a political and hence public message, the choice of topic was important. It would be fascinating to know, on the basis of quantitative research, if—with the

11 A. Steptoe, he Mozart-Da Ponte Operas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990). 12 Peter Rietbergen, ‘Montezuma gememoreerd. De barokke opera als “machine” voor de overdracht van cultuur en ideeën’. Hans Bots et al. (ed.), Schelmen en Prekers. Genres en cultuuroverdracht in vroeg-modern Europa (Nijmegen, Vantilt, 1999), 191–236.

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coming of the Enlightenment at the end of the seventeenth century, and the advent of revolution during the last decades of the eighteenth century—a slow decrease in the popularity of biblical and classical/ mythological themes occurred, and ‘true’ history became more en vogue. Moreover, given its ideological potential, one might assume that the theme of conquest would be a preferred vehicle for a political message, whether the opera’s patron was a private-public person such as a ruler, or the state—the nation, even—that wanted to inluence the audience’s cultural-political notions. However, to statistically answer the two above questions is well nigh impossible. hough the corpus of European operas, from the beginning of the seventeenth to the beginning of the twentieth century, numbers in the hundreds, many of the operas are not easily accessible in modern editions of text and music.13 Indeed, far more are forgotten entirely, gathering dust in libraries where their oten hand-written scores have been deposited when, ater a few moderately succesful presentations, or, indeed, ater one disastrously unsuccesful performance, it was decided that they were a commercial or artistic failure, unable to capture the audience’s always ickle mood. Admittedly, the resurgence of ‘ancient’ music, since the late nineteenth century, as well as, since mid-twentieth century, the economic need for the recording industry to produce a constant stream of new releases have resulted in the rediscovery of many forgotten masterpieces. Yet, the number of works that were actually written and composed is far greater than the number of texts one is able to retrace, let alone consult. My own research has led me to understand the increasing importance in European politics of Europe’s complex relations with the non-European world—especially, of course, those parts of the two Americas that had been conquered and now were governed by Portugal and Spain, and by the British, as well as the world(s) of Asia that, precisely since they largely remained unconquered, fascinated Europeans perhaps even more.

13 Franz Stieger, Opernlexicon. I. Titelkatalog (Tutzing: Schneider, 1975); Eberhard hiel, Libretti. Verzeichnis der bis 1800 erschienen Textbücher (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1970).

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But though baroque opera oten was set in non-European worlds, it only rarely tackled the (near-)contemporary history of those worlds and their political importance for Europe. Rather, in most such operas the place where the ‘other’ lived was presented as diferent in both space and time and, hence, as unrelated to Europe.14 he only major exception to this rule is the group of musical dramas based on the perhaps oldest and certainly most obvious story linking Europe to distant regions—namely, the classical-medieval Alexander romance and its many ramiications. It was, also, the most popular. Indeed, precisely the Macedonian monarch’s many travels and adventures, as well as his exciting amourous exploits, provided the subject matter for dozens of Alexander-related operas written during the ancien régime. For example, Pietro Metastasio’s retelling of the tale of Alessandro nell’Indie alone created a libretto that inspired no fewer than forty composers between its irst publication in the 1720s and its last setting in the early 1820s.15 Another (albeit much smaller) group that somehow tells of the links between Europe and its ‘signiicant others’ consists, of course, of operas dealing with the Crusades of the eleventh and twelth centuries. However, instead of being used for a political message—beyond, that is, the obvious one of Europe’s (that is, Christendom’s) wish to regain the Holy Land—the texts of these musical dramas, too, seem rather to relect Europe’s need for exotic, adventurous settings in which to place a tale of romantic love and should certainly not be subjected to ideological-political overinterpretation. Keeping in mind the above caveat, on my counting, only a handful of pre-nineteenth-century opera texts can be linked to Europe’s more recent—that is, since the late 1400s—contacts with other cultures and their worlds. Basically, these are the ive works, written and composed in the late seventeenth and during the eighteenth century, that represent the arrival and vicissitudes of the irst discoverer, Columbus, amply dealt with by Maehder.16 A few more works somehow represent the momentous as well as sensational episode of Hernan Cortez’

14

Rietbergen 1999. Peter Rietbergen, Europe. A Cultural History (London: Routledge, 2006). 16 Jürgen Maehder, ‘Mythologizing the Encounter. he representation of the “discovery” on the opera stage’. Carol Robertson (ed.), Musical Repercussions of 1492: Encounters in text and performance (Washington D.C.: he Smithsonian Institute, 1999). 15

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conquest of the empire of the Aztecs in Mexico, culminating in the socalled ‘noche triste’ of 30 June 1520. It was then that the small band of Spaniards who had irst reached the coasts of mainland Middle America the year before toppled the regime of Emperor Montezuma. In many ways, this moment, which I myself have studied in some detail, could be seen as the ‘birth’ of Latin America—of European colonialism and imperialism.17 From the mid-1660s onwards, John Dryden’s play he Indian Queen (1664) was set to music by a number of composers—Henry Purcell amongst them—and proved lastingly popular, though it was, from a historical point of view, a largely ictional tale of preconquest Mexico. Its sequel, he Indian Emperour (1665)—equally popular, as the avid music and theatre lover Samuel Pepys tells us in his Diary—did set out to give the story of Spanish imperialism, ending on an appropriately tragic note with Emperor Montezuma’s suicide. Yet it does suggest that, in the long run, the Spanish conquistadores and their Aztec subjects learned to live together, which of course represented the version of history preferred by imperial Spain and its historiographers. Regardless of whether the rumour of the operatic success of this tale spread from London to other European capitals—perhaps by diplomatic channels—it did inspire the Venetian writer Alvise Girolamo Giusti when he wrote a Montezuma libretto that was then set to music by Antonio Vivaldi (only recently rediscovered) for the 1733 Venetian precarnival or, rather, opera season. In 1765 Antonio Cigna-Santi wrote another Montezuma text, this time for the royal opera at Turin. During the subsequent decades, his treatment of the topic proved popular with a number of composers, including Joseph Haydn, who set it for a performance at the princely palace of Eszterhásza. Both Giusti and Cigna-Santi loosely based themselves on a reading of Antonio de Solis’ Historia de la Conquista de Méjico (Madrid, 1684). However, while Giusti ends his interpretation of the conquest story on a conciliatory note—with Montezuma sighing that, with the coming of Spain and Christianity, Mexico will enter a new phase of its history—Cigna-Santi is less ambiguous and at the same time more bloody: he has the emperor bequeath his realm to Cortez in order to revenge himself on his Aztec enemies. his fable did, of course, serve to legitimise the Spanish conquest.

17

For the following: Rietbergen 1999.

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While variations of this eighteenth-century librettic rendering of the tragedy of sixteenth-century Mexico remained popular well into the early years of the nineteenth century, they do not ofer the most interesting interpretation of the story of Montezuma. In Spring 1755, the Prussian king Frederic the Great ordered the text of his own version set to music by his court composer, Carl-Heinrich Graun. Using a number of earlier texts, both literary and historical, the king created a wholly idiosyncratic interpretation of the tragic emperor, presenting him as a monarch who, although nominally pagan, nevertheless practices tolerance and humanity, ruling accordingly; however, he is attacked by a self-confessed Christian, a self-proclaimed civilised being, whose actions nevertheless are basically intolerant, merciless, and indeed inhuman in their cruelty when measured against the universal human values proclaimed by those same Europeans. hus, Cortez the conqueror epitomises the ‘old’, unenlightened Europe, which Frederic spent his life to try to combat and change. Fascinating though it is, Frederic’s opera does not seem to have survived its irst Berlin performances. It would have been illuminating to know the reactions of the audience who, in Berlin as in Venice—and, it has to be added, in many other European towns as well—were not restricted to the nobility and other sections of the elite, but did indeed include the (upper) bourgeoisie as well.18 Changing Views of Conquest? he abovementioned argument notwithstanding, it was only from the early nineteenth century that opera became a mass medium. Increasingly, it was precisely the now burgeoning middle class who appropriated the genre as a form of aesthetic, high-brow amusement.19 Yet, its ability to adroitly manipulate the sensus politicus was never underestimated by the men who commissioned musical drama. Indeed, opera remained a favourite vector for the transfer of those images of the past that those in power considered necessary to uphold a desired (political, cultural) present. Consequently, like history painting exalted the 18

Rietbergen 1999. Ph. her, In der Mitte der Gesellschat. Operntheater in Zentraleuropa, 1815–1914 (Vienna: Oldenbourg Verlag, 2006); K. Maase, Grenzenloses Vergnügen. Der Aufstieg der Massenkultur, 1850–1970 (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1997). 19

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national past, or, as I have argued elsewhere, of a variety of (national) pasts—mostly departing from hodiecentric premises—so did many history-based operas.20 Sometimes a painter even realised that his grand-scale evocations of the past would be deinitely enhanced by grand-scale music. hus, in the 1840s, Wilhelm von Kaulbach, painting his cinemascopic rendering of the ‘Fall of Jerusalem’—which in many ways is a conquest picture since it really sets out to represent the triumph of Christianity—decided to compose an oratorium to dramatically enhance the visual efect of his huge canvas. However, because the nineteenth century was not only the Age of Nationalism but also the Age of (European) Imperialism, it is not surprising that the non-European world and, speciically, imperial history now provided the themes for (grand) opera, too. Nevertheless, I must admit that, perusing the lists of titles available for research, I did discover far fewer of these imperialist operas than I had expected. Nor did the ones I did ind follow the patterns outlined by the scholars who have turned European imperial culture into such a thriving industry. For example, despite the suggestive (albeit highly selective) reconstruction of Europe’s relations with the Islamic Near East proposed by the late Edward Said, I had to conclude that European music lovers of the nineteenth century were not regaled with dozens of operas that took the one most logical of topics for their subject matter, the Crusades. For would one not have predicted that the epic struggle for the Holy Land would have been popular with both writers and composers, given the fact that, besides being wars of conquest, they presented endless possibilities for setting contemporary anti-Islamic feelings—as well as contemporary notions about Europe’s increasingly political, rather than economic, role in the Near East—in a historical and obviously romantically appealing setting? Admittedly, we have Gioacchino Rossini’s Maometto II, reworked as L’Assedio di Corinto (1820–1826). It is set in 1459 but actually celebrates the Greek War of Independence of the early nineteenth century. We have Giacomo Meyerbeer’s Il crociato in Egitto (1817/1824) and, of course, Giuseppe Verdi’s I Lombardi alla prima crociata, reworked as Jerusalem (1843/1847), which does tell of one muslim’s conversion to Christianity. And we have a

20 Peter Rietbergen, ‘Verbeeldingen van het verleden in woord, beeld en spel. Een complex cultureel continuüm voorbij de wetenschappelijke tekst’. Tijdschrit voor Geschiedenis 117.2 (2004), 187–206.

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few others. Yet I feel one can only meaningfully construct a Crusading opera sub-subgenre of the conquest subgenre if one accepts that it contains no more than a dozen works. Of the conquest subgenre, I propose to analyse three examples, randomly chosen to be evenly spread over the nineteenth century, precisely because they promise to highlight three conquerors whom the audience, if one wants to characterise their cultural context as orientalised in the Saidian sense, were meant to interpret as European heroes. My texts are Gaspare Spontini’s Fernand Cortez, ou la conquete du Mexique, irst performed in 1809; Giacomo Meyerbeer’s L’Africaine, irst staged in 1865; and Alberto Franchetti’s Cristoforo Colombo, the musical showpiece of Italy’s elaborate 1892 Columbus celebrations. Given the fact that these three operas relect the traditional practice that prevailed until the end of the nineteenth century, the irst question is always, Who wrote the lyrics? hen, of course, one should try to ind out what, if any, historical sources they used to portray the relationship between Europe and its other worlds, and how they translated the material into their own chosen medium. Moreover, one needs to analyse the extent to which the laws of the opera libretto dictated the translation, the transformation of historical information. Obviously, it is important to study the people responsible for commissioning these operas—their reasons and the general cultural context in which these pieces were supposed to function. Finally, we need to address the problem of the reception of these pieces, beyond the music, asking how the intended message of the text—or, indeed, of the entire mise-enscène—was actually received by the (various European) audience(s). Rather than systematically and analytically answering these questions, I will present my indings as a running story. In the Montezuma Tradition? In 1808, Gaspare Spontini set his music to a text written by Victor Etienne de Jouy and Joseph Esmenard.21 he former was a well-known journalist and writer, the latter Napoleon’s oicial censor of the Parisian

21 Paolo Fragapane, Spontini (Bologna: Sassone, 1954); Charles Bouvet, Spontini (Paris: Rieder, 1930).

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theatres. he composer was the favourite of France’s imperial couple. Indeed, the emperor, obviously believing in music’s ability to move the masses, considered him the musician ‘best qualiied to serve his projects and add lustre to his reign’.22 Consequently, the lyricists and the musician cooperated within the overtly political framework that determined all art production during the Bonaparte epoch. In this case, it seems that none other than Napoleon himself suggested the plot, for which Esmenard then drew the outlines. In 1808, the emperor was planning to invade Spain and hoped that an opera based on the story of the Spanish invasion of Mexico in the 1530s might be used to convey his own political message: as had been the case in early sixteenth-century Mexico, early nineteenth-century Spain, too, was in the throes of the forces of evil (that is, an obscurantist priesthood) and hence should be liberated by the forces of good (that is, of civilisation as brought by the Enlightened French). To latter the people he wanted to thus save, the Spaniards were given the role of the heroic protagonists in the new opera. Instead of accepting that most operagoers would know that the sixteenth-century Iberian conquistadores had brutally massacred the Mexicans—for three centuries, the leyenda negra had been quite efective in blaming the Spaniards—Jouy and Esmenard fashioned a strange tale clearly meant to accommodate Bonaparte’s ideology and policy. his is the more surprising since at least Jouy wanted his text not to be a myth, but rather a real historical epic, as he indicated in his Avant-Propos historique to the 1809 Paris edition of the opera’s music and text. True enough, the work starts from the known facts, with a number of episodes taken from the canonical, although obviously Eurocentric and not always factually correct invasion history. Obviously assuming that historical veracity did matter to convince the audience, Jouy, regardless of costs and logistics, even introduced no fewer than seventeen horses on the stage, arguing that ‘they are by no means intended as a mere spectacular efect; their object is to recall the surprise and terror felt by the Mexicans on irst seeing them, and the part they played in this memorable enterprise’.23 To stress the less-than-civilised state in which the Aztecs live, their irst collective appearance is in a danse barbare, during which they

22 23

Bouvet 1930. Bouvet 1930, 49.

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chant that the invaders, a few of whom have been taken captive, should be sacriiced to the gods. In their turn, the Spanish prisoners declare their willingness to die for their country, and thus gain immortal fame. Montezuma is shown vacillating between fear for the invaders, whom he wants to meet, and his high priest’s wish that they be immediately put to death. Singiicantly, the tale’s heroine, an Aztec princess in love with Cortez, describes him to her emperor as someone who ‘d’un Dieu consolateur nous apporte les lois’—a man who ‘on behalf of a God of Mercy brings us the Law’—and beseeches him to liberate the prisoners. In other conversations, she stresses the power of the Spanish God, juxtaposing him to the blood-decked idols of her own people. In the end, she concludes that their laws, their many arts, and their God make the Spaniards superior—a typically Enlightened, and also very French, analysis of European culture. When Cortez appears, dominating the opera’s second and third acts, a close reading of the text reveals an interesting point: quite obviously, he is modelled on Napoleon, described in terms that echo the emperor’s preferred self-image: he is a leader who, through the power of his words and the strength of his will, convinces his soldiers to follow him wherever he leads them. But of course the ultimate aim is not war, but peace, as Cortez declares: the peace that, in the second act, the choeur des deux nations demands as the basis for a harmonious life: ‘D’une paix sans afronts / que ce jour soit le gage, / qu’elle unisse à jamais l’un et l’autre univers’ (‘Let this day be the reward of a peace without dishonour and forever unite both our worlds’). his was, of course, never the message that the Spaniards held out to the Aztecs, though, admittedly, quite a few Iberian missionaries reasoned in this vein. It was, undoubtedly, very much the ideology Napoleon used to legitimate his conquests. he response, voiced by a choir of Mexican women, is equally what Napoleon so loved to hear: ‘Enfans du Dieu de la Lumière qui parmi nous portez vos pas’—(‘You children of the god of light who now towards us come’). hus did they welcome the soldiers of Cortez. In their turn, these exclaim that never did the ‘bright star of the Enlightenment shine on more beautiful shores’. Ater having quelled a rebellion amongst his troops, who tell him they would rather take the Aztec ofer of gold and leave than continue their perilous trip to the capital, Cortez/Napoleon gains the upper hand again with promises of fame and honour, claiming, ‘cette terre est à moi’—(‘this land is mine’).

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Montezuma, desperate, decides to commit suicide when Cortez and his men inally reach Tenochtitlán, hearing Cortez/Napoleon exclaim, ‘Enfans de la gloire, / ce monde est à vous; / dans sa course ininie, / qui peut arreter le vainqueur? / qui peut résister au génie’ (‘Children of glory, this world now is yours. Who can halt the genius in his victorious course?’). It is, of course, again Napoleonic rhetoric, rather than anything Spanish. In the end, entirely contrary to received historical wisdom, Cortez marries his Aztec paramour, and les deux mondes, the worlds of America and Europe, unite in brotherly love, with the former supposedly accepting the civilisation the latter pretended to bring. We should not forget that Napoleon, avidly eyeing Africa and Asia, did indeed have grandiose (albeit totally unrealistic) plans for world domination. As far as I have been able to reconstruct, the two librettists basically must have reworked the interpretations of the Cortez story that had become popular in musical Europe during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, as outlined above, preferring, however, the reconciliatory scenario used by Giusti to the bloodier one profered by Cigna-Santi. However, it has been suggested that Jouy and Esmenard relied on Fernand Cortes, a not very succesful tragedy written by Alexis Piron and irst performed in 1744. My reading of the play does not support this attribution. Dedicated to King Philip V of Spain and, according to the author’s preface, based on historical fact, the text is, basically, total iction. It introduces Montezuma as an Enlightened, emphatically anticlerical prince, who battles against the idolatry of his people—suggesting that, rather, King Frederic of Prussia may have read this play and used it for his Montezuma. he Aztec emperor wants to marry the daughter of a Spanish colonial governor but in the end, mortally wounded by his own men, gives her to her true lover, Cortez, admonishing him to bring Christianity to his empire. Despite his eclectically creative choices from a number of sources, both factual and ictive, Jouy himself seems to have been less than happy with the political restrictions imposed upon him by his commission. He felt he could not very well leave out any reference to the obvious violence perpetrated by the Spaniards against the Aztecs. Yet he did choose to present Cortez and his men as enfans de la gloire when they destroyed the great pyramid of the Aztec capital. Indeed, Huitzilopochtli’s temple, presented as the sanctuary of the ‘god of evil’, and the religious culture it symbolised, marked the Mexicans as barbarians, who had to be forcefully prevented from sacriicing alive the

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Aztec princess who had sided with the conquerors. When in the end the sanctuary is destroyed and Cortez marries the woman—a choice for the traditional happy ending Jouy privately deplored as well—the conquistador claims the new world for himself and for his religion. Nevertheless, despite the partly unhistorical, politically manipulative end, the audience did not react as the French emperor and his writers had hoped. Quite the opposite happened.24 Although presented with spectacular mass scenes set within more than usually sumptuous stage decorations paid for from the imperial cofers—which inaugurated an operatic fashion for decades to come—the Parisian operagoers did not see the arrival of the Spaniards in Mexico as the beginning of liberty, nor did they equate the actions of the sixteenth-century conquistadores with the role propagandistically attributed to the nineteenth-century French forces marching on Madrid. On the contrary, they transferred their sympathy both to the underdog of the past, the Mexican ruler Montezuma and his people, and to the underdog of the present, the people of Spain who now were forced to welcome the French ruler.25 hus, France’s persisting revolutionary feelings returned with a vengeance: instead of lauding their own emperor and his soldiers as the bringers of peace and prosperity, the public sided with the victims of imperialism. However, though the audience did not take to the political message conveyed in the opera’s text—indeed, the piece was dropped from the Parisian stage ater one season—they did like the music. In his later years, Spontini moved to Prussia. Starting in 1817, he reworked his (by no means inefective) score no fewer than three times, each time using a revised libretto, thus ensuring the continued musical success of his venture well into the 1830s. Not America, or Africa, but Asia Giacomo Meyerbeer26 certainly was not as politically constrained as Spontini and his text writers. In 1837/1838, this hugely proliic and

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Bouvet 1930, 48. George Jellinek, ‘Fernando Cortez. Gaspare Spontini’. he Opera Quarterly 22.1 (2006), 187–189. 26 Siegfried Döhring, ‘Meyerbeer—Grand opéra als Ideendrama’. Lendemains 31.2 (1983), 11–21. 25

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popular composer started setting to music a text given him by the equally proliic and popular author Eugène Scribe.27 Intermittently working on the project, not until 1863 did their collaboration result in L’Africaine, which the composer considered his masterpiece, though he did not live to hear and see it performed. he title of the work is strangely misleading. he irst three acts are set in late iteenth-century Lisbon. Only the two last acts take the audience abroad, but not to Africa, as they might have expected—and as, indeed, the composer had originally planned. he action now takes place in India, for though Meyerbeer had set out to create an opera situated in Spanish Africa, he changed his mind ater reading the famous sixteenth-century epic of Portuguese colonialism Os Lusiadas, by Luis de Camoes. Meyerbeer also was fascinated by the life of Vasco da Gama, who in 1498 had been the irst European to reach India by way of the Cape of Good Hope. Consequently, the composer asked the librettist to change the location as well as the plot of the story. To acquaint himself with the seafaring exploits of the Portuguese and the early history of Lusitanian-Indian contacts, Meyerbeer did consult a number of scholarly studies, both in English and in German. Musically, he retained the tam-tam, originally used, supposedly, to produce some African local colour, but he also introduced the glockenspiel, which may have given the audience some vague reminiscences of Indian temple bells. Before the opera starts, Da Gama has met and taken captive an Indian princess. On his return to Portugal, he gives her to his iancée, Dona Inès. How should we interpret the story that follows? If I were a devotee of the orientalism theories of Edward Said, I would argue that Vasco da Gama, representing Europe, discovers India, as represented by Selika. He is enchanted by her—and, consequently, wants to possess her, to conquer her. Yet, on his return to Portugal, he rejects her in favour of his European bride-to-be, who moreover becomes Selika’s mistress as Europe became India’s master. However, on Vasco’s second voyage to the East, it is she, Selika, who saves him from death. Again enchanted and seduced, he now promises to honour and marry her. Still, in the end he does not, but returns to Inès instead. Selika

27 Karin Pendle, Eugène Scribe and French Opera of the Nineteenth Century (Ann Arbor: UMI Press, 1979).

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is rejected again and dies by her own hand. With her, symbolically, India’s hope of an equal, fruitful relationship with Europe dies, too. Even if I were a Saidian, I would hesitate to argue that, consciously or subconsciously, a man like Scribe actually did set out to thus translate Europe’s colonial history—whether he was introducing his own, coded interpretation or, for that matter, assumed that the audience, consciously or subconsciously, would interpret for itself his text in that way. Indeed, I very much doubt it.28 Excursion I: Unequal, Imperial Relations as Unequal, Male-Female Relations? However, one may perhaps suggest that the conventionally Romantic operatic theme of the overbearing man and the willing (but sometimes rejected) woman takes on another meaning in such ‘oriental’ operas as Louis Spohr’s Jessonda (1822/1823), Gaetano Donizetti’s Dom Sebastien, roi de Portugal (1843), Franz Berwald’s Drottningen av Golconda (1863/1864), Leo Delibes’ Lakmé (1883), and Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterly (1903), most of which are situated in Asia, as is L’Africaine, too. Indeed, one might argue that these operas constitute a smallish sub-subgenre in which the conquest theme is in a way personalised, as well as sentimentalised, reducing any possible wider colonial or imperial connotations to the story of the love between a European male and an Asian female. Spohr based his Jessonda on a longtime favourite, Antoine Lemierre’s play La Veuve du Malabar (Paris 1770), which told its audience about one of the customs they most deplored in India’s otherwise fascinating culture: the Hindu habit of suttee, which demanded that a widow follow her dead husband onto the funeral pyre. Spohr’s German librettist Eduard Gehe rewrote the tale, setting it in sixteent-century Goa. Jessonda, the widow of a Rajah, is rescued from her dire fate by a fellow countryman, who, for amorous reasons of his own, has decided to side with her former lover, the Portuguese captain Tristan d’Acunha— a name that, though referring to a historical person, is here used to

28 Peter Rietbergen, Europa’s India. Tussen fascinatie en cultureel imperialisme (Nijmegen: Vantilt, 2007).

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portray an entirely ictitious conquistador. In the end, the two of them liberate Jessonda. Donizetti considered Dom Sébastien to be the best work he ever composed. It certainly was one of the grandest of the many grand operas he wrote, asking for some impressive (though, in the end, perhaps inancially crippling) staging. Using a libretto written by, again, Eugène Scribe, he tackled the complex last days of Portugal’s ill-fated last independent indigenous king. he historical Dom Sebastiao was the man who mounted a Crusade against the Moors in Morocco and who in 1578 was killed in the battle of Al-Kasr al-Kebir. Portugal then was annexed by Spain, but for decades legend had it that Sebastian had not ater all died, but would return, to once again bring independence to his country. Most of this is discarded in Donizetti’s or rather Scribe’s opera. he king, in love with a Moorish girl forced to convert to Christianity—actually a not uncommon fate for the many Moors who did live in sixteenth-century Portugal—inally meets his end in Lisbon when, with her help, he tries to escape the intrigues of those Portuguese who, favouring the Spanish cause, want to depose him. Berwald, Sweden’s most famous nineteenth-century composer, is said to himself have written the text of his opera about the queen of Golconda—long famous in Europe as the fabulous diamond- and gold-rich kingdom in southern India. When the work was inished, it was not performed, however, although its overture became a very popular piece. he music could only be heard in its entirety when, on the occasion of Berwald’s centenary, in 1968, the royal opera in Stockholm decided to stage it. I ind the opera remarkable mostly because it closely resembles Spohr’s Jessonda. And yet it does not. True, in Berwald’s piece, too, we ind a woman being rescued from death by a man, a French oicer, which seems to point to a Gallic source for Berwald’s inspiration. But Aline, the queen in question, is only apparently Indian. Actually, she too is French, having reached the far shores of India ater a series of bizarre adventures that recall the vicissitudes of the protagonists in yet other European oriental operas like Mozart’s Entführung aus dem Serail. Nor did Berwald’s libretto reach back to Lemierre’s theatre piece only. Indeed, the story of his tale needs to be outlined in some detail, since it is in a way exemplary of the many and intricate links that exist between the store of literary texts available for use as libretti and the music composed for them.

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I discovered that in 1803 a comic opera was composed by Henri Bertan, based on a libretto by Jean-Baptiste Vial and Edmond de Favières, titled Aline, reine de Golconde. he same tale was used by François Boieldieu for an opera he wrote in St Petersburg in 1804. In their turn, they obviously used the extremely popular though highly improbable picaresque prose tale about a French milkmaid who becomes queen of an Indian kingdom, published in 1761—and reprinted in 1803—by the libertine French nobleman/author Stanislas de Boulers. Incidentally, it had already been turned into an opera-ballet in 1766, by Pierre Monsigny, and used as a libretto again by the German composer Johann Schulz sometime before 1800. Yet, contrary to some of his predecessors, whose work he may or may not have known, Berwald chose to give his tale a mock-tragic note, in highlighting the queen’s narrow escape from death at the hands of a jealous husband, before the two protagonists join again in a happy end. In Delibes’ Lakmé—nowadays mostly known for its melliluous lower duet and its soprano show stopper, the famous bell song ‘Où va la jeune Hindoue’—is based on the 1880 novel by the hugely popular French orientalist writer, Pierre Loti. he eponymous heroine, daughter of a Hindu priest, falls in love with a British oicer, Gerald, who accidentally enters the sacred precinct where she lives. Her father, enraged at the blasphemy, stabs the trespasser. When the two lovers yet escape, indicating Lakmé’s readiness to leave her people and culture for a life in Europe—suggesting its superiority?—it is Gerald’s fellow oicer Frederic who reminds him that he, a British oicer, cannot marry his beloved. Lakmé, realising he will desert her, commits suicide. Madama Butterly was irst peformed in 1904. Set in 1890s Japan, Puccini and his librettist Luigi Ilica seem to have based the story on the American David Belasco’s 1900 play Madam Butterly, which was largely indebted to John L. Lang’s 1898 novella Madame Chrysanthème, which, in its turn, originated in a real-life American-Japanese relationship. Yet, the Puccini opera also suspiciously repeats the basic structure of Lakmé. No wonder, since it deinitely refers to another novel by Pierre Loti, who was well known to milk his successes and who, moreover, had lived in Japan and taken a Japanese girl, Okiko-san, as his common-law wife. Now it is an American oicer, one Pinkerton, who falls in love with a Japanese geisha, who, to show her love, is

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willing to renounce her faith. Ater they have married—according to Japanese custom—Pinkerton leaves her with child, promising however to return ‘one beautiful day’, as Butterly sings in ‘Un bel dì vedremo’, perhaps the best-loved aria in this opera. When he does return, he is married to an American girl, who claims his and Butterly’s signiicantly blond-haired child. Butterly hands over her little son to his father, to America—putting the Stars and Stripes in his small hand—and commits suicide. No need to say that the opera, soon performed in a Japan that started thirsting ater Western culture and yet, precisely in doing so, wanted to escape Western imperialism, met with no few problems there. In this imperial context, one may read the libretti of these ive operas as ever so many tales of conquest. Ater all, white, Western men are shown winning the unconditional love of the Eastern heroines. Yet, there are diferences between the attitudes represented in the works that compose this small group. he irst two are seemingly oblivious of any European misgivings about interracial and interfaith problems. Whether the need for a happy end (rather than some tragic inale) determined these choices is not clear. We do know, however, that Jouy—who ater all was the librettist for Spontini’s Cortez—had not dared to conclude his text for Spontini’s greatest success, La Vestale, with the Vestal Virgin’s death, arguing that while [h]istoric truth demanded that the guilty Vestal should sufer the death to which her sin exposed her; but was this fearful catastrophe—which might have been introduced by means of a narrative in regular tragedy—of such a nature that it could be consummated before the eyes of the spectator? I do not think so.

he third opera in this selection, Berwald’s, only plays with the possibility of an Indian-European opposition/union. In fact, he repeats a ploy used since the Middle Ages in many poems, novels, and hence operas, positing the hero and heroine in two opposite cultures—Islamic and Christian—to inally reveal that the Islamic person is actually European and Christian ater all. For centuries, it has been Europe’s way to evade having to face the possibility of interracial mingling. Even in the 1990 ilm epic Dances with Wolves, the heroine, before marrying the white-American hero and bearing his children, turns out to be an equally white girl, long ago captured and raised by the native Indians.

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Indeed, one may read the rejected woman theme that decides the fate of Lakmé and Butterly and, of course, Meyerbeer’s Selika in L’Africaine precisely as a relection of the growing European fear of the efects of miscegenation, of interbreeding with other races. By the mid-nineteenth century, that ‘danger’ had become articulated in consequence of the greatly increasing number of such relationships, which worried most colonial governments and certainly Europe’s more vociferous Christian elites. In all three operas, this fear seems to operate despite the fact that the women were, indeed, willing to adopt the culture of their beloved men—they were, if one wants to use jargon, participating in a sacriicial myth that denoted or even sealed the passage from the one culture, presented as inferior, to the other, which deemed itself superior. All this notwithstanding, I feel that both Scribe’s libretto for L’Africaine and the Loti-based ones used by Delibes and Puccini allow the listener to voice a critique, however conventionally Romantic, of precisely the attitude and interpretation outlined above. We do know that contemporary audiences, at least of Puccini’s Butterly, oten sided against the European male and with the Oriental female.29 he males might have come and conquered, but they hardly behaved like heroes. To me, the obvious, though unanswerable question in this context is, of course, whether a dawning awareness of a changing female perspective of these speciically gendered tales did inluence both lyricists and composers to slowly alter their position. Ater all, women went to the opera almost as much as (their) men, certainly from the second half of the nineteenth century onwards, as is shown by recent Dutch research.30 Inevitably, the management of opera houses must have considered their tastes and preferences, too, in accepting or rejecting the works proposed for performance, or in commissioning them in the irst place.

Excursion II: Close Reading ‘Jessonda’ hough on irst view not concerned with conquest, the libretto of Jessonda nevertheless addresses a number of issues that help to further 29 30

William Ashbrook, he Operas of Puccini (London: Cassel, 1969), 101, 116, 117. Gras & van Vliet 2004.

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highlight the theme of my essay, although I am again the irst to warn against overinterpretation. hus, one might ask whether one is right in assuming that Spohr’s librettist, Gehe, basically meant to oppose a civilised, Christian Europe to a pagan, barbarous India. he custom of suttee is condemned and with it the Brahmins, the priest caste who uphold it as part of their policy to retain power over the populace. Nadori, the monk who loves Jessonda’s sister and, in order to make her his, is willing to break his vows and collaborate with the Portuguese, voices his criticism in a cleverly constructed aside to his conversation with Dandau, the high priest, who orders him to inform Jessonda of her fate on the pyre, while at the same time admonishing him to suppress his own sexual urge: (D/N) Den Trieb der Erde zu bekriegen, mit Geisseln schlage deinen Brust / mit Geisseln schlag’ ich meine Brust. Erliegt der Leib, der Geist wird siegen, durch Schmerz verklärt zu Himmelslust. (D) Geh’denn, des Todes heil’ger Schauer begleite, Priester, deinen Schritt. (N) (Gleich Schatten zieh’n die stumme Trauer der Schrecken und der Wahnsinn mit.) (D) Sobald der Todesbot’ erschienen schnell stürzt das Leben in das Grab. (N) (Ich hör’es, seh, es mäh’n Brahminen der Erde Blumen lächelnd ab.) (D) Wir schleudern aus dem Schoss der Nächte in uns’rer Macht, zu unserm Ruhm, Fluch oder Segen auf Geschlechte; es blüh’, es herrsch’ das Priesterthum. (N) Sie schleudern aus dem Schoss der Nächte in ihrer Macht, zu ihrem Ruhm, Fluch oder Segen auf Geschlechte; es blüht, es herrscht das Priesterthum.

Summarising the text, one sees that Gehe presents the Brahmins as the protoypes of clerical obscurantist power and, moreover, as a priesthood that is hostile to sex—thus allowing, albeit indirectly, the audience to relect on situations still prevailing in their own Christian world, too. Moreover, Nadori remembers: ‘In des Tempels öde Hallen / Festgebannt mit Seel’ und Leib, / Könnt’ ich nur Gebete lallen’ (‘with

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body and soul chain’d within this temple’s sterile halls, I mindlessly did pray’). hus, in a few words, Gehe manages to present a new, Romantic view of Christianity that condemned not only empty spiritual servitude but empty ritual as well. Meanwhile, I wonder whether it was a conscious choice on the librettist’s part when he has Nadori argue that it is the voice of humanity—rather than of the Christian god—that admonishes him to save Jessonda? Yet, Jessonda’s sister does see the Europeans as diferent and, implicitly, more humane. For as they near the city, ‘Den santern Gott verkündend’—(‘Singing the praises of a more merciful God’), they ‘Erklären . . . der Frauen Opfertod für Frevel’ (‘hey state that this form of female sacriice is an abomination’). he sentiment attributed here to a representative of the native, tobe-conquered people is, though not directly, linked to the ethics of conquest as interpreted by the Portuguese themselves. hey declare that those who die in war will be hailed as heroes by their compatriots. Tristan, entering into the particulars, argues that the Portuguese, ater they irst arrived in India, settled peacefully there on the basis of treaties—which, in a sense, was not historically untrue. Since then, he tells his men and the opera audience, they have been treacherously killed by the natives and therefore are now at liberty to regain with arms what was taken from them. He exclaims, ‘Und herrlich weh’n die Fahnen unsers Glaubens. / Verreint denn mit der Krat die Milde, / denn auch im Krieg lässt sich der Friede üben. / Mitt Gott für unsern König!’ (‘he banners of our faith do wonderfully wave. With force, now mercy joins, for in war, too, peace always should be sought. With God we now go forth, to battle for our king’). Nevertheless, Tristan confesses that his wandering and warlike existence only became blessed with peace when he learnt to love Jessonda: a sentiment that of course prefectly expressed Europe’s early nineteenthcentury Romantic notions about the restraining and civilising efect of womanhood. Indeed, it was a notion that, from the second half of the century onwards, induced metropolitan governments to propagate the migration of European women to their peripheral provinces. But then again, to free Jessonda from ‘Barbarenhänden’, as Nadori has described her situation, Tristan does feel that violent action is necessary: ‘Auf, zu den Wafen! / Nun schlägt die Stunde, / wo jene Götzenbilder stürzen, / und glanzvoll über ihre Trümmer / der Glaube siegend wandelt’ (‘To arms, then, for the hour has come when all those idols be destroyed and faith will rule victorious o’er their ruins’).

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Watching the tumultuous scene that follows, any European operagoer who had read the increasingly detailed and scholarly informed literature about Indian religion must have realised that Gehe’s descriptions and interpretations were, to say the least, ambiguous, although they made for spectacular staging. In the end, the idol is torn down. Yet, when Jessonda knows she will be spared, the librettist does not have her thank the Christian God. Rather, she praises love as the supreme liberating force—another topos that Gehe must have taken from Enlightened and Romantic rhetoric. he Portuguese, however, having the last word, sing, ‘Bekämpt, gestürzt das Götzenthum, / dem Gott der Schlachten Preis und Ruhm!’ (‘Idolatry has been destroyed, so now let’s praise the god of war’). In short, the messages that contemporary listeners may have read or heard in Gehe’s text must have been mixed, representing, I feel, the equally mixed feelings about, and the historical-scientiic representations of both European and non-European cultures, as well as the relations between them, that came to characterise public debate in nineteenth-century Europe. Back to ‘L’Africaine’: Conquest or Critique of Conquest? On the evidence of some of Scribe’s lyrics, one might present yet another interpretation of L’Africaine. On the one hand, Da Gama has an almost metaphysical sense of mission, transcending the vulgar lust for power and proit usually associated with European imperialism. On the other hand, as if to counterbalance his ideal, the second male hero of the opera, the Indian Nelusko, is represented as the saviour of his people: opposing Vasco’s grand vision of empire, he succesfully ights for his nation’s freedom—a very nineteenth-century notion, too, albeit one that was applied to European peoples, irst, and only long aterwards to the non-European subjects of Europe’s imperialism. We do not know the reactions of the audience that was given Scribe’s text and Meyerbeer’s music in 1863. he production in the Paris opera was grandiose: it even used a revolving stage, where ships could pass one another. But did the operagoers actually hear and perceive beyond what was, if supericially viewed and interpreted, a simple Romantic tale? For though it was set in exotic surroundings and though the text may lead one to speculate about deeper layers of meaning, in the end it did boil down to a man vacillating between two loves and, inally,

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doing his duty by the woman he had promised to marry. Or should one argue that, rather than stressing, for example, moral imperatives, nonaristocratic birth, or a similar European issue as the major motive for Vasco’s choice, it is race that determines it in this European-nonEuropean context? he First Conqueror Of course, amongst those who paved the way for Europe’s world wide dominance, Cristoforo Colon takes pride of place, whether we believe he hailed from Genua or Lisbon. Not surprisingly, he has been the protagonist of a great, indeed a surprisingly great number of texts set to music—of operas as well as secular oratorios and of cantatas with one or more vocal soloists.31 Taking all these manifestations of more or less scenic-dramatic music together, in eighteenth-century Europe ive diferent productions can be counted, as well as, between 1794 and 1800, three in the young United States. From 1800 onwards, until the four hundredth anniversary of ‘the discovery’ in 1892, I count no fewer than twenty-ive productions, of which at least nine—the operatic ones—used a text by that proliic writer of lyrics, Felice Romani, who irst produced his version of a Columbus libretto in 1828. Inevitably, 1892 did show an outburst of conquest singing. In New York, a contest for a prize composition resulted in a cantata written by a German musician that, or so it was announced, would be performed by four soloists, some one hundred instrumentalists, and no fewer than one thousand male singers ‘from the leading societies’—an indication of the very public, mass-oriented nature of contemporary music and, consequently perhaps, the reach of its messages. Both in Europe and in the Americas, eight more operas and cantatas were produced. Meanwhile, in the early 1890s, the name of Alberto Franchetti had been suggested to the organisers of Italy’s Columbus manifestations by none other than the grand old man of Italian melodrama, Giuseppe Verdi, who himself politely declined the city of Genua’s commission to write an opera for the festivities.32 31

homas Heck, ‘Towards a bibliography of operas on Columbus: a quincentennial checklist’. Music Library Association Notes 49.2 (1992), 474–497. 32 Luca Zoppelli, ‘he Twilight of the True Gods: Cristoforo Colombo, I Medici and the Construction of Italian Style’. Cambridge Opera Journal 8.3 (1996), 251–269.

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he young composer was given a libretto by the well-known writer Luigi Ilica, who, it has to be said, without acknowledging it seems to have used material from Romani’s Colombo. To judge by the original four-act text, Ilica tried to combine a number of elements. On the one hand, there is Isabella, the Spanish queen who supports Columbus precisely because she has an ecstatic vision of the world, of a New World: he clouds, as if alive, passed over the sky . . . the air throbbed with birds and song, hymns leapt over the waves and billows . . . mysterious rays rained daylight . . . lights of angels winged all around . . . And on the horizon a bright shore rose between sky and sea.

he seafarer, Columbus, on the other hand, is presented as dreaming of discovering facts, of verifying ideas—for example, about reaching Asia via the Atlantic Ocean. It is not clear whether, for reasons of personal gain and glory, he just feigns to join in Queen Isabella’s dream—of countless of pagan people redeemed by Christianity—or whether he, too, believes the old religion will rescue new worlds and their inhabitants. While at sea on his way thither, the compass and the stars seem to present facts that cannot be easily interpreted. He sings, ‘So have I been dreaming? / And were you lying, o my thoughts? / And is what seemed a fact to me, / or need of a fact, / no more than a mirage?’ Once the Genoese has arrived on the shores of his dreams, following the operatic law that dictated that every hero has his heroine, he falls in love with an Indian queen—as if Ilica wanted to mix the Cortez story with the Columbus one. Somewhat contrary to all this partly fanciful representation of the past, both the writer and the composer yet wanted to present Columbus against his historical background, using the obviously biased early sixteenth-century Historia de las Indias of Bartolomé de las Casas. To it, Ilica added his own biases. he harsh treatment meted out by the gold-thirsty Spaniards to the Indians with which the opera opens is largely attributed to the servants of the Iberian church—a relection of young Italy’s strong anticlericalism that may have combined with a growing susceptibility for the lot of America’s native peoples. However, since the new nation needed the support of the papacy, Ilica

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and Franchetti (an assimiliated Jew) moderated their criticism of the Christian priesthood in the second version, which they produced in 1895, almost immediately ater the irst performances in Genoa and Milan had proven that the opera was, if anything, far too long. In subsequent rewritings produced in 1923 and 1936, other elements were lost as well. hus, the love interest that quite unhistorically had been attached to Columbus was discarded. Now, his faithful friend Guevara falls for the Indian princess Iguamota, who adores him—‘You are like God who descends from heaven for me’, which almost seems to echo Selika, the heroine from L’Africaine—and she saves him from a plot against the Spaniards. Putting duty above passion—undiluted European-ness above miscegenation?—Guevara yet leaves her, thus repeating the pattern characteristic of all these operas. he most important change concerned, perhaps, Ilica’s and Franchetti’s original inale, contained in the last two acts. hese showed Columbus’ dream to create a New World of justice, of tolerance: the dream not of a sixteenth-century Spaniard, but of a true, Italian, nineteenthcentury liberal hero. He sings, in my translation from the Italian, Justice returns to the land, and a sense of pity conquers every heart. No more hate, no more war, no war over race and colour. Over the entire human family, who were strangers to one another, the God of peace now rules, the God, the God of love now rules.

For whatever reason, the last act was deleted, and with it the rationale of the protagonist’s great efort. What remained was a truncated, dramatically incoherent text in which, contrary to historical truth, the hero is arrested and inally dies, disappointed in his hopes—without further reference to the fate of the historical Indians but for a single line: ‘he ground is soaked in blood! / he new shore is furrowed with blood’. Unmistakeably, however, even the remaining (almost thirtyminute-long) epilogue sung by Columbus is impressive. It is a pity that the text was maltreated as much as it was since Franchetti’s music, which owes to such other composers as Giordano, Ponchielli, and of course Wagner, is yet original, innovative, and captivating, especially in the way it succeeds in making the individual voices merge with the symphonic-orchestral low, thus creating unity throughout the work.

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Inevitably, I will have to return to a question I asked in the opening paragraphs of this essay. Can we expect history opera—opera pretending to be, at least partly, true to a historical theme and the facts associated with it—to transmit scholarly knowledge, a consensual representation of the past? Well, perhaps we can. It obviously was the pretension of many a librettist, as shown by the example of Jouy, cited above. Yet, just as ilms set in the past oten tell us more about the present of their makers than about the period portrayed, so do history operas—certainly the ones presented above. In the musical dramas I have analysed, the historical context—taken from Europe’s contacts and conlicts with the non-European world since the late iteenth century—is, quite evidently, an allegory of the European present in which the text and the music were conceived. Surprisingly, however, by and large only few authors did exploit this context to extol colonial or imperial visions as conceived in that present. Nor did they interpret ‘the otherness’ of the non-European peoples involved from any overt—or even covert—one-sided perspective of European cultural superiority. Indeed, a perspective that questions such ideas oten seems a possibility implied in the text. And, inally, even the racial elements that some might be inclined to read into parts of the texts are, I feel, subtexts only—if that. What the majority of these operas set out to do is, perhaps, embody conlicts of ideas—but basically these are nineteenth-century ideas, not plausibly transferable to the historical period represented. Indeed, they are ideas that relect contemporary notions. hough set in exotic, nonEuropean worlds, and though taking their plot from events for which European historical sources existed, the politics that emerge from a closer reading of the libretti oten are nothing if not messages about the European culture and politics of the day. Moreover, they basically are aimed at a contemporary European audience. he failed message of Esmenard and Jouy targeted Napoleonic France and its imperial stance that posed as a policy of liberty. And if my interpretation is correct, Scribe and Meyerbeer, writing within the context of post-1848 European culture, seem to extend that libertarian message even to non-European peoples. As to the Ilica-Franchetti opera, the case is rather more complicated, since the text was altered not one but several times, to such an extent that the original message, or messages, did change almost beyond

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recognition. Yet I feel that, despite the musical references to American-Indian culture—modal writing and ostinato rhythms amongst them—and despite what I have just said about the message contained in the texts that later were deleted, the opera never really was about the discovery of the New World and its consequences. It always was, I think, about the tragedy of a man’s dreams being unfulilled. But to have Columbus dream of an all-human society in the ifteenth century was, to a mostly educated late nineteenth-century audience, clearly an anachronism. In act two of the opera, the real message transpires, as it becomes evident that Columbus dreams of a society that can be improved by science and all that modernity can ofer. So, the opera must have been about the dreams of its late nineteenthcentury, liberal Italian listeners—or, at least, of that part of them with whom Franchetti and Ilica liked to share their own vision of the ways to create a better world. In short, like so many historical novels, and so much of history painting—two nineteenth-century cultural genres increasingly used to somehow inluence visions of and perspectives on pasts European and non-European—history opera, including conquest opera, seems to mainly present past contexts for present-day ideas. In short, history opera, too, ofered its audience not access to ‘the’ past as it was reconstructed by historians, but to ‘a’ past that recreated a speciic vision of the present.

NINETEENTHCENTURY NATIONAL OPERA AND REPRESENTATIONS OF THE PAST IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE Krisztina Lajosi Artistic Representations of Historical Awareness In the nineteenth century, the past was moulded into history not only on the pages of scholarly books or historical novels, but also in the theatre and opera houses. Drama actually preceded the other literary genres in its interest in representing, reinterpreting, and making public the past.1 Although there were epic poems focusing on famous historical igures already in the Middle Ages, they could not compete with the complexity and public efect of drama. he Renaissance chronicle plays of Shakespeare and Marlowe and the eighteenth-century historical dramas of Schiller can be considered the forerunners of nineteenthcentury historical novels. Later, with the rise and popularity of the novel in most of western European literature, history plays lost their public appeal. Nevertheless, the Netherlands can be seen as an exception because, as Lotte Jensen (2008) argues, late nineteenth-century history plays were of great importance in shaping the Dutch historical and national consciousness. In many eastern European literatures, historical drama started to lourish early in the nineteenth century, while the popularity of the novel began to grow only from the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. he time lag between western and eastern European literary developments might be explained by the diferences between their social, economic, and political contexts. In general, we might say that modern social trends reached eastern Europe later than they did most of the western European countries partly because of external geopolitical factors that deined eastern Europe as a ‘periphery’ compared to the western European ‘centres’. he lack of infrastructure, inancial bases, and an educated middle-class reading public resulted in a delayed development of the novel in eastern Europe.

1

Georg Lukács, he Historical Novel (London: Merlin Press, 1989), 89.

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herefore, it was the theatre and drama where historical topics were cultivated and transmitted both to elite and illiterate audiences. Yet, in spite of the diferences in the nineteenth century between western and eastern European literary developments, these areas had an important aspect in common: the immense popularity of musical theatre and opera. Gradually, opera became the dominant art form on the European stage, and with the growing number of public opera houses, it could reach a large audience. While the French grand operas had a more cosmopolitan character, operas in central and eastern Europe, Italy, and Russia incorporated elements of national politics and local folklore. he fusion of history, folklore, politics, and local settings resulted in a special genre called national opera. hese national operas became a very efective means for spreading historical awareness and shaping national consciousness. hey recycled well-known historical narratives already popularised by prose theatre or epic poetry and accompanied them with popular folk tunes. Oten these stories, heroes, and tunes were already charged with cultural and political signiicance and had been involved in shaping the cultural identity of a certain community. In other cases, they were either simply forged or thoroughly re-created by nineteenth-century men of letters in order to it the nationalist ideology. he allegoric and symbolic function of both text and music turned these operas into cultural palimpsests with many superimposed layers of meaning. hus they could become a lieu de mémoire of the nation and as such were efective means of representing the past in the public sphere. Many nineteenth-century playwrights, composers, and actors regarded their profession as a national mission and considered theatre a suitable medium for promoting the cultivation of the vernacular and creating a national public sphere. However, oten without any nationalist intention of the authors, works of art were considered by the public to be national or were turned into national symbols by the discourse of the time. he performance of Auber’s La muette de Portici in 1830 in Brussels had a signiicant role in starting the revolutionary riots, which led to the independence of Belgium. A similar case is that of Ferenc Erkel’s (1810–1893) opera, Hunyadi László (1844), which I am going to discuss as a case study in this paper. hroughout Europe, the political instrumentalisation of the past produced a set of images about the Other as opposed to Us2 and cre2 Manfred Beller & Joep Leerssen, Imagology (Amsterdam / New York: Rodopi, 2007), 17.

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ated historical narratives that depicted contemporary political struggles as the natural result of longue durée processes. When the irst ideas of modern nationalism reached eastern Europe, both the historical consciousness and the national ideas had a more complex and assertive nature than in western Europe. One of the reasons was that most eastern European nations and ethnic groups were striving for political independence, too. Many countries in east-central Europe belonged to the Habsburg Empire, and each had a diferent degree of autonomy. Furthermore, these countries were multi-ethnic, and every ethnic group had diferent historical rights and varying political status. his resulted in a web of conlict with the world powers that were seen as their ‘oppressors’ (the Habsburg Empire, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire) and a rising enmity among themselves. he case study that is going to be discussed in this paper—Ferenc Erkel’s Hunyadi László—will illustrate that nineteenth-century art in general and opera in particular were not only a relection of these political frictions, but also oten active agents in mobilising the crowds and shaping national identity. History in Opera In the atermath of the French Revolution and the following Napoleonic wars, dynasties, empires, states, and subjects had all been preoccupied with the (re)deinition of their identity in the new world order. heatre and opera became important agents in shaping the new identity and public sphere of postrevolutionary Europe. Historical topics and the artistic representations of social and political issues were never foreign to the operatic stage: many Mozart operas raised serious social questions, and history was a regular source of inspiration for composers as early as Monteverdi and Händel. Yet in the nineteenth century, there is a shit of interest from the representation of classical igures of mythology and ancient history towards the outstanding characters of the local history (Erkel: Hunyadi László, Bánk bán; Wachmann: Mihai Viteazul; Smetana: Dalibor) or local mythology (Smetana: Libuse; Wagner: he Ring of the Niebelungen). Instead of kings and queens being central (Händel: Julius Caesar; Monteverdi: L’incoronazione di Poppea), opera narratives were dominated by the ‘common man’ (Glinka: A Life for the Tsar) or, even more so, by the people, the crowd, which was represented on the stage by huge choruses.

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History came to be more than the account of dynasties. Instead of the private struggles of the rulers (Donizetti, Anna Bolena, Maria Stuarda), the fate of entire nations became the focal issue on the stage. Individual drama appeared to be strongly intertwined with public issues (Norma, Aida), and the life story of the individual was depicted as inseparable from the course of general history (Don Carlo, Boris Godunov, Prince Igor, Nabucco, I vespri Siciliani). Historical consciousness penetrated every aspect of human experience, and the sense of actively inluencing the course of historical events, which previously had been the privilege of royals and high oicials, became more and more the reality of the Everyman. Even though class diferences were still strongly deining society, the idea of a common cultural heritage created a new solidarity among the people, a new cultural consciousness that became the foundation of the modern nation. In the nineteenth-century national imagination, the I dissolved into a sense of We, while the We assumed a more and more culturally deined monolithic identity. Opera had a great advantage over prose theatre in representing and creating the ‘unisonality of the people’3 because of its use of the singing chorus. In opera, the idea of history appeared irst and foremost in the libretti. hese texts were based on already widely known famous literary works. Walter Scott (Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor), Victor Hugo (Verdi: Rigoletto, Ernani), Schiller (Verdi: Don Carlos), and Shakespeare (Verdi: Macbeth, Falstaf ), to mention only a few, gave inspiration for opera composers and librettists. On a musical level, history appeared only later on the operatic stage. Exotic and folk tunes had already been used before the nineteenth century for the musical representation of local colour to depict a remote land or an alien milieu (Mozart: he Abduction from the Seraglio; Borodin: Prince Igor). Nevertheless, the conscious use of musical archaism—incorporating historical music into the operatic score—was quite rare. When nineteenth-century composers rediscovered the ‘early music’ of previous eras, the sense of history and historicity of music was explored and used in contemporary works as a conscious poetic principle. In the nineteenth century, mainly due to such factors as colonisation, war against the Ottoman Empire, and the Napoleonic wars, new and ‘exotic’ musical worlds appeared on European operatic stages and

Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Relections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (New York / London: Verso, 1991), 145. 3

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in concert halls. his is the period when the á la Turk and all’Ongarese (Turkish- and Hungarian-style music) became extremely popular in instrumental compositions as well as in operas. he new interest in the exotic and the folk brought these cultures closer to the European elite public, while at the same time it triggered an interest in local culture among the learned elite in the peripheries and urged them to (re)deine their cultural and national identity. National Opera Before the nineteenth century, there were only a few public opera houses in Europe. Two of the best known were the Teatro San Cassiano in Venice, which opened in 1637, and the opera house in Hamburg, which opened in 1678. But these were exceptions to the rule. Most of the theatres and opera houses were the property of royal courts or wealthy aristocrats. In the nineteenth century, operas underwent several signiicant changes: many public opera houses were built all over Europe, and they were funded mostly by private donations instead of oicial state support. his meant that the inluence of state policy over the operatic stage diminished. While the language of the libretti had previously been either Italian, French, or, rarely, German, in the nineteenth century, new vernacular languages appeared on the stage: operas were sung in Czech, Polish, Greek, Hungarian, or Romanian, bringing the works of art closer to the national audience. While folk music had previously been used only occasionally, beginning in the nineteenth century, the exception became a rule. Folk tunes dominated the musical texture of many nineteenth-century operas. his new historical and cultural context led to the development of a new genre: the national opera. he 1980 edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians includes a deinition of national opera in the chapter on ‘Slavonic and National Opera’, asserting that national operas satisied the hunger for national heritage with folk music and libretti based on national history, myth, legend, and peasant life. he 2001 edition of he New Grove reduces the treatment to a half page on ‘National Traditions’ and no longer suggests a strong connection between national operas and Slavonic cultures.4 National opera was a typical and popular genre of

4 Stanley Sadie (ed.), he New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (29 vols.; London: Macmillan, 2001), 17:689–707.

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the nineteenth century, and it became a sort of virtual lieu de mémoire of nations. People did not start a revolution ater reading a poem or a novel, but some uprisings did actually begin in theatres and opera houses. If Marshall McLuhan was right in saying that ‘the medium is the message’,5 we may ask precisely what opera’s message was and why no other art form could deliver it. he Volkstümlichkeit (in the manner of the folk) was a characteristic of most of late eighteenth-century music, especially the opera bufa, where folk motives were used to imitate and express couleur locale that was associated with idyllic peasant life and pastoral scenery. he various local styles of peasant igures and the musical lingua franca for all the other characters still relected a ‘horizontal’ view of society, in which class rather than the nation was the determining factor of communal identity. However, as soon as folklore and language were considered essential elements of a vertically deined community or nation, their cultural value increased. And also the stock of national culture soared in general, since it became a core issue for the newly born public sphere and a recurrent topic of political discourse. Opera, this formerly aristocratic entertainment, became a main expression of cultural nationalism in east-central Europe. he Romantic exaltation of music was certainly one of the important factors in this process. he other was a political ideology that had already gained importance in theatrical practices: the liberal claim that a legitimate state should be built on ‘the people’ rather than on God, a dynasty, or imperial domination. Romantic ethnic nationalism and liberal civic nationalism both played an important role in the nation-building movements of the nineteenth century. What were the institutional and historical causes for theatre and opera developing into a cultural and psychological ‘factory’ of ethnic and civic cohesion and self-image? According to George Steiner, we cannot understand the Romantic movement unless we recognise the impulse towards drama and dramatisation in general.6 Shelley argues in his Defence of Poetry that since drama is the authentic expression of a nation’s soul, the decline of the dramatic art marks the decline of the nation:

5 Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media (London / New York: Routledge, 2003), 7. 6 George Steiner, he Death of Tragedy (London: Faber and Faber, 1961), 108.

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And it is indisputable that the highest perfection of human society has ever corresponded with the highest dramatic excellence; and that the corruption or the extinction of the drama in a nation where it has once lourished is a mark of a corruption of manners, and an extinction of the energies which sustain the soul of social life. But, as Machiavelli says of political institutions, that life may be preserved and renewed, if men should arise capable of bringing back the drama to its principles.7

he idea that the stage and the nation are connected is not new. It can be traced back to ancient Greece, where drama, especially tragedy, was regarded as the highest form of cultural practice. Nineteenthcentury thinkers revived this view of drama and wished to transform the theatre into a public forum as in antique Greece. Architects like Gottfried Semper (1803–1879) and Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781–1841) designed theatre buildings in ancient Greek style, such as the Neues Schauspielhaus in Berlin or the theatre in Dresden, and published inluential theories on the relation and importance of Greek architecture and nation building. Georg Lukács argued that from the point of view of nation building, the public character of drama and its direct impact on the spectators constituted the great advantage of historical drama over the historical novel.8 Performances could raise the public’s historical awareness, especially opera, which, more than traditional theatre, had music and singing in its favour. Above all, it was the chorus, a mass of people singing together, that represented the most obvious liaison between life and drama, audience and stage. In the eighteenth century, the theatre fulilled the function of nineteenth-century opera. However, it was a special theatrical genre, the melodrama, that attracted the public and deined dramatic poetry for the next century. Peter Brooks argues that in order to understand the passion in the nineteenth century for the theatre and for the theatrical in general, we should analyse the ‘melodramatic imagination’ of the age, which began to dominate the public sphere in the time of Napoleon. he popularity of the melodramatic imagination paved the way for the success of nineteenth-century operas.

Percy Byssche Shelley, ‘A Defence of Poetry’. Charles W. Eliot (ed.), English Essays: From Sir Philip Sydney to Macaulay. he Harvard Classics, vol. 27 (New York: Bartleby, 2001), 27. 8 Lukács 1989, 130. 7

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Melodrama, the French version of the singspiel, was written for a large public that extended from the petit bourgeois to Empress Josephine.9 While French melodrama was democratic in style, aiming to reach a popular audience, it was also searching for more aesthetic coherence and self-consciousness. Brook traces the origins of the melodrama back to the pantomime theatre of the late eighteenth century, when only the so-called patented theatres, like hèatre-Français, the Opéra, and the Italiens, were given monopoly by state oicials to perform both the classical repertory and full-scale new productions. he secondary theatres had to be content with ballets, pantomimes, and puppet shows. Since speech—and thus performing the pieces of the classical repertory—was forbidden, these secondary theatres used music and gesture as their major means of expression. hese musical pantomimes became more and more elaborate and incorporated pieces of dialogue, coming close to the genre of the nineteenth-century mélodrame. he French Revolution abolished the monopoly of the patent theatres and liberated the secondary theatres, which had already been equipped with a well-developed theatrical style of combining music, movement, and stage design in order to convey the message of the play that attracted a mostly uneducated audience. Napoleon reestablished, for a while, the patent and a strict censorship of the theatres, radically reducing them in number. In his opinion, classical French tragedy was the most suitable expression of imperial glory. Yet theatre in general, and melodrama in particular, was lourishing in Paris. he Restoration in 1814 brought freedom to all the theatres again, possibly due to the conscious policy of an insecure monarch: People absorbed their theatre-going in massive doses: an evening’s entertainment would consist of various curtain raisers and aterpieces, as well as one and sometimes two full-length plays, and would last ive hours or more. . . . Stage theatricality was excessive, and life seemed to aspire to its status, as if in ictional representation of the historical epic of Revolution, bloodshed, battle, and Empire that the nation had been playing out.10

9 Peter Brooks, he Melodramatic Imagination (New Haven / London: Yale University Press, 1976), xii. 10 Brooks 1976, 86.

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During and ater the Restoration, the prestige of classical French tragedy and the popularity of melodrama joined forces in another genre that came to dominate the Parisian stages and later all of Europe: the grand opera. his monumental operatic genre enjoyed the inancial support of the traditional public of the Opéra so that it could aford lavish spectacles with more developed and complex stage machinery than the Baroque theatre. However, the previous popularity and aesthetic norm of the melodrama undeniably inluenced grand opera’s theatricality and its broadening range of topics. he great musical stage tableaus and the excessive sentimentality of the performances were all remnants of melodrama, which became a guiding poetic principle of grand operas. Lukács pointed out that dramatic portrayal makes man much more the centre of the story than epic does. He quoted Schiller, according to whom the direct efect is more crucial to drama than to epic: ‘he action of drama moves before me, I myself move round the epic which seems as it were to stand still’.11 While the reader of the epic has greater freedom of interpretation, the spectator of the drama is totally dependent on theatrical efects. Opera as a multimedia art form could enhance this dramatic efect. However, the revival of choral music meant the greatest step towards Romantic nationalism, since it could unite people both physically and mentally.12 Choral music was not sung in the church, like in the medieval times, but rather in public spaces. It is signiicant that Wagner’s Mastersingers displaced the song contest from the church to the Festival Meadow and that the inal judgment came neither from the church or town oicials, nor from the tradition of the tabulatur, but from the Volk. Ater the French Revolution, the nation and the nation-state replaced God and the king in popular imagination. he former rituals and state ceremonies were illed with a diferent kind of secular and national content. Folk and art became revered concepts in a Romantic redeinition: Romantic choral music was associated not only with Gemütlichkeit, the conviviality of social singing, celebrated in the Männerchor texts for which Schubert had supplied such a mountain of music, but also with

Lukács 1989, 132. Dietmar Klenke, Der singende ‘Deutsche Mann’: Gesangvereine und deutches Nationalbewusstsein von Napoleon bis Hitler (Münster: Waxmann, 1998). 11 12

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Philip Bohlman also points out that the art of singing helped spread of the idea of nineteenth-century national music and opera. He argues that epic songs and ballads were protonational genres. he epic ‘is the story of the proto-nation’, represented through the deeds of ‘the individual whose heroism mobilises the nation, and whose leadership provides a metaphor for the nation’s own coming to age’.14 Epics chronicle the longue durée history of the nation. Ballads are the stories of the individuals and events that form together a national mosaic. National operas combine both of these two forms. In Germany and Austria, the singspiel, the vernacular comic opera, represented primarily the Romantic Volkstümlichkeit and the Gemütlichkeit. In France, Rousseau’s Le devin du village, and in Italy, the opera bufa, this sung-through musical genre that conquered all the European stages by the 1750s epitomised comic opera, being easily accessible for the common audience. In France, England, and Germany, countries with a lourishing theatrical tradition, simple musical numbers—tunes well known to the folk—were inserted into the spoken dialogues, thus adding to the entertainment value of the plays and making them popular. As Taruskin points out, only a character ‘simple’ enough could sing these simple songs, which resulted in an unprecedented increase in rural settings. Before the advent of nineteenth-century nationalism, peasants and common people on the stage represented only their class, not their country. In Lortzing’s comic opera Zar und Zimmermann (1837), a work that raises many social issues, the Russian fugitive soldier Peter Iwanow becomes in the end the oicial representative of his country, but only because of the tsar’s benevolence. Iwanow is not yet the representative of the people. His acts are only motivated by his vested interest in marrying the girl he loves. In contrast, Ivan Susanin in Glinka’s opera A Life for the Tsar (1836) already acts in the name of his people and is ready to sacriice his life to help the tsar.

13 Richard Taruskin, he Oxford History of Western Music. vol. 3. he Nineteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 162. 14 Philip Bohlman, he Music of European Nationalism (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC CLIO, 2004), 37.

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Contrary to the ‘simplicity’ of the German comic singspiels, the operatic stage became in France the place for reenacting the nation’s history. Tragedy was the most suitable genre for this purpose. In the period of the July Monarchy (1830–1848), the Académie Royale became the site of the monster opera spectacles. In these grand operas—beginning with Rossini’s Guillaume Tell (1829)—national destiny became a recurrent issue on the operatic stage. With the theatricality and sentimentality of the melodrama, and the economic and social support of the ‘oicial’ theatre industry, grand operas became megaproductions, a thriving business for their producers and a favourite of the public. he Italian opera bufa, German singspiel, and French grand opera represent, in fact, three diferent national styles, as well as three different approaches to the concept of the nation and its operatic representation. A mixture of all these genres can be found in the so-called national operas that became popular in east-central Europe. he opera bufa was the irst to bring onto the operatic stage common people and to represent their social problems. he singspiel brought to the foreground the folksiness and conviviality of common social singing. he grand opera raised awareness of history in general and national history in particular. In the multinational Habsburg Empire, nineteenth-century nation building not only was a question of a political and social transformation like in France or Germany, but also actually threatened the very existence of the whole state, because many ethnic groups wanted to establish their own separate state. Topics of folklore and history became a potential menace for the Viennese authorities, since they reminded the public of a separate cultural consciousness that was seen as diferent from and sovereign to the imperial identity. In spite of harsh censorship, the intelligentsia and some Enlightened aristocrats were ardent supporters of national theatres and national cultural practices in general. Since a large portion of the empire’s population lived in rural conditions, the singspiel with its folksiness could easily reach a wide public. However, the increasing interest in history and historical drama in the spoken theatre paved the way for the grand opera. his operatic form also contained passages of folk music and dances. National opera, a hybrid genre, was ideologically the descendant of historical dramas that had already canonised and popularised certain topics and historical igures, and musically a mixture of singspiel and grand opera.

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It is impossible to approach national opera solely from a musicological point of view. hese operas were actually discursive formations, artistic products of the cultural and social practices of the age. hey shaped the historical consciousness of the public more efectively than did scholarly historiographies. Most of the works that were regarded national operas were crossbreeds of accumulated national mythology and nineteenth-century political ideology. As John Neubauer (2002) points out, national operas relied on foreign ideas and aesthetic currents. In spite of the explicit claim of national authenticity and purity by artists and critics, in reality, the European nineteenth-century national canons were hybrid. Nonetheless, they were able to shape the national consciousness of the people, since the appropriated foreign elements mingled with the already familiar recurrent topics of the historical, literary, and musical memory. Plots drawing on history and being perceived as an allegory of the contemporary local or rural settings, the language of the libretto written in vernacular, hints of folk tunes or well-known local melodies incorporated into the music, and the historical transformation of theatres and opera houses into important sites in the public sphere contributed to the perception of certain works as national operas. Hunyadi László and the Hungarian Cultural Memory he Appropriation of a Hero hough many Hungarian musicians and intellectuals were interested in the idea of national music and pleaded for the creation of ‘a truly national opera’, Ferenc Erkel never participated in these theoretical debates. Erkel’s operas became popular and were regarded as national because of the way they were received by a wide public. As a case study I have chosen Erkel’s Hunyadi László (1844), an opera that had an important role in the Hungarian revolution of 1848. People sang its choruses on the streets and requested the actors to perform Erkel’s work on the stage during the revolution. he educated Hungarian public was familiar with the igure of László Hunyadi already before Erkel’s opera. His character had been recycled in several historical chronicles and works of art, and his life story became one of the most important elements of Hungarian his-

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tory. his distinguished position is partly due to the fact that he was the brother of the famous Hungarian king, Matthias Corvinus Hunyadi (1443–1490), but it is more importantly due to his conlict with the young Habsburg king, László V (1440–1457), which eventually led to his public beheading in 1457. His clash with the Habsburgs was seen as an allegory of the centuries-long struggle of the Hungarians with the Viennese authorities. Attuning the Hungarian revolution of 1848 On 4 March 1848, Sándor Lukács (1822–1854), a lawyer and radical politician, read the claims of the Hungarian parliamentary opposition party in Győr’s theatre, which was illed with urban intellectuals. Ten days later, on 14 March, in the same theatre, the actors could not inish the irst act of the drama Könnyelműek (he frivolous) by Zsigmond Czakó (1820–1847), because the audience repeatedly interrupted the performance with loud shouts demanding the Rákóczy March from the players. he next day everyone in the audience wore traditional Hungarian garments and sang the Szózat composed by Béni Egressy. In Szeged on 17 April 1848, the performance of Ede Szigligeti’s Szökött katona (he runaway soldier) turned into a political meeting. hree days later, an enthusiastic political uprising followed the play of an amateur theatre company. In Arad on 17 March, the audience demanded a gipsy band, instead of the oicial theatre programme, to play the Rákóczy March and chorus passages from the Erkel’s Hunyadi László. On 26 March in Rozsnyó, the theatre company had to change its program because the audience requested from the actors the Szózat and the Himnusz. On 26 March, a play about King Matthias Hunyadi was followed by ‘national songs’ in the auditorium of the city hall. In Temesvár, a passionate revolutionary public gathered in the theatre to sing the Szózat and the Himnusz. In Pest, the audience interrupted the performance of Katona’s Bánk bán and demanded patriotic songs.15 All these examples illustrate the overwhelming importance of music at the beginning of the Hungarian revolution of 1848. he enthusiasm did not diminish during the war for independence in 1848–1849,

15 Tamás Katona (ed.), A magyarországi hadjárat 1849 (Budapest: Európa, 1988), 352–353.

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although performances became scarce. he actors in the cities occupied by the Austrian army were prevented from playing the revolutionary repertoire. Just as during the French Revolution in 1789, the revolutionary crowd shaped the repertory of the theatre. he Hunyadi story and Katona’s Bánk bán became favourites of the public. In one of the yearbooks published in 1848, we can read the program of a typical evening in the theatre: the Rákóczy March, an orchestrated version of the Himnusz (which later became Hungary’s national anthem), a folk song, the recital of Petői’s Európa csendes (Europe is silent), another folk song, and the choir from Erkel’s László Hunyadi titled Meghalt a cselszövő (he schemer died) with orchestra and choir.16 In the intermissions of plays, verbunkos and other national dances were performed. A Russian oicer, Mihail Lihutin Dormindontovic, who lodged in a garrison in Nagyvárad, noted in his diary that Hungarian programs were performed in the theatre every day and included either a Hungarian play or a compilation of Hungarian dances, among which the quick csárdás was the audience’s favourite.17 Verbunkos and csárdás music, the Szózat and the Himnusz, as well as some passages from Erkel’s opera Hunyadi László were the most popular tunes of the Hungarian revolutionary public. hey were received and understood as national by a wide interpretive community, whatever their diferences and party preferences. he verbunkos, this military recruiting music whose popularity goes back to the eighteenth century, was just it for the purposes of the revolutionary committees that recognised quite early the role of theatre as a public sphere. Verbunkos and the Rákóczy Song recalled national memories about the former Rákóczy rebellion and war of independence (1703–1711) against the Habsburg rule. In 1848, the political situation of the country resembled that of Rákóczy’s period. he Rákóczy March became a national symbol, together with Erkel’s Hunyadi László, whose explicit historical allegories were tailored to the contemporary political situation in the country. hese tunes became popular during the revolution through a bottom-to-top process, by the will of the public.

16 Ferenc Kerényi (ed.), Magyar Színháztörténet 1790–1873 (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1990), 358. 17 Katona 1988, 794.

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Recycling the Figure of László Hunyadi in the Hungarian Cultural Memory In 1844, six months ater the opera’s irst performance, the leading poet of the age, Mihály Vörösmarty (1800–1855), published his drama version of the Hunyadi story, entitled Czilley és a Hunyadiak (Czilley and the Hunyadis). In 1848, Sándor Petői (1823–1849) wrote the poem A király esküje (he king’s oath), in which the main character is not László Hunyadi but King László V, who reneged on his oath. In 1853, in the bleak postrevolutionary years, János Arany (1817–1882) wrote a ballad entitled V. László, focusing again on the weak and peridious king. It is worth noting how the dramatic accent shited: before the revolution, the dramas focused on László Hunyadi’s tragedy and on the traitor and scheming igure of Czillei. During the revolution, King László V became the central igure of the literary works. Ater the bloody oppression of revolution, Arany’s ballad focused on the remorse and horror of the traitor king for having killed the national hero. he treacherous king became a symbol of the Austrian repression ater 1848. he Hunyadi topic was very popular among nineteenth-century Hungarian painters. Witness Hunyadi László siratása (1859; he mourning of László Hunyadi) by Viktor Madarász (1830–1917), V. László eskűje (he king’s oath) by Béla Vízkelety (1825–1864), Hunyadi László búcsúja (1866; László Hunyadi’s farewell) by Gyula Benczur (1844–1920), and V. László (1870) by Bertalan Székely (1835–1910). A bronze statue by László Dunaiszky (1822–1904), Hunyadi László és Czilley Ulrik (1846), should be also mentioned as representative of the Hunyadi theme. László Hunyadi became a marker of national identity in the nineteenth century, linked to the other popular legend cycle about his brother King Mátyás Corvinus, commonly called Mátyás the Just. While in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, King St. Stephen and the leader of the nomadic Hungarians, Árpád, were popular topics in the arts, in the nineteenth century, the Hunyadi myths became the cornerstone of the Hungarian national narrative. Ferenc Kölcsey’s (1790–1838) poem Hymnus (1823), for which Erkel composed the music, contained the line, ‘és nyögte Mátyás bús hadát Bécsnek büszke vára’ (‘and the proud castle of Vienna moaned under Mátyás’ army’), which refers to King Mátyás’ siege of Vienna in 1485. his ‘glorious’ past act was sadly contrasted with the nineteenth-century

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situation, when Hungary was subordinated to Vienna. he mythic history of the Hunyadi family, which was in every respect a Hungarian success story, presented itself as an excellent example of resistance against the Habsburgs. It was seen as an appropriate thesaurus of national heroes that could express and represent in a more or less uniied picture all the existing national paradigms. Why could many Hungarians recognise themselves as a nation in this opera more than in any other one until then? According to the strongest national paradigm around 1840, the nation could be deined as a group of people sharing common traditions. A community with shared traditions also had to involve a common historical narrative that would create coherence within this community. herefore, the only stories that could function as elements of nation building were those that could suggest and advance national unity and that would be recognised as such by many. Hunyadi János and his sons were just it for this role. Unlike the protagonists of the other Hungarian operas who were of either aristocratic or peasant origin, the Transylvanian Hunyadi family belonged to the middle-class nobility, and János had earned his title and recognition with military excellence. he Hunyadis were the representatives of the nation and not the appointees of the foreign Habsburgs. Erkel’s Hunyadi László he opera’s main dramatic conlict can be summarised as follows: in spite of the former royal pardon publicly granted to László’s mother, László Hunyadi is beheaded by the order of the Habsburg king László V as punishment for the death of Czilley, the king’s uncle and advisor, who was killed by Hunyadi’s men. he plot of the opera follows the well-known story of the Hunyadi family as preserved in the Hungarian historical memory. he faithful and honest László Hunyadi, the weak and treacherous King László V, the scheming and power-thirsty Ulrich Czilley, and the proud nationalist Hungarian nobleman Gara are the main characters of the opera. he two women igures, László Hunyadi’s mother, Erzsébet, and his iancé, Mária Gara, do not play an active role in the story. Both are depicted as sufering because of the history—in a feminist reading, one might say that they are the victims of men—even though both try to inluence events: László’s mother makes the king swear not to punish László for Czilley’s murder, and Mária Gara prepares to save László from her father’s terrible

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plan. But eventually, they are unable to rescue their beloved, and the men’s world has the inal say in the course of history. Mátyás, László’s younger brother, appears only twice and does not have a signiicant or active role in the story. Nevertheless, Mátyás represents the hope of a better future in the dramatic-poetic structure of the opera. Gara’s harsh individualistic thirst for power and László’s hubris of trusting the king are presented as equally fatal mistakes. Only the uncompromisingly strong policy of Mátyás, who could still create a strong bond with ‘the people’, is a viable solution, according to the logic of the story. Since the story relies on dichotomies of ‘we’ and ‘the others’ as relected in the divided chorus between the Hungarians and the mercenaries in Act I, one might expect that the division is going to appear in the music as well: verbunkos associated with Hungarian characters, and some international musical style with the king and the other foreigners. However, this is not the case. Hunyadi László is a blend of Italian, German, French, and Hungarian musical styles. he overture, which was composed in 1845, a year ater the irst performance, can be considered the irst Hungarian symphonic poem, for it is a harmonious web of all the main arias and choirs from the opera. he verbunkos numbers create coherence; echoes can be heard of the Rákóczy March in both the slow and fast sections; and the opening choir of the Hungarians and the renowned ‘Meghalt a cselszövő’ (he schemer died) are both written in verbunkos style. he king’s aria, stuck in the chorus of the Hungarians, is also a verbunkos. his might be interpreted as a symbolic musical representation of the king’s hypocrisy. He seems to be in tune with the Hungarians when he promises not to revenge Czilley’s death, but he never takes his oath seriously. he text and music are in dramatic tension. King László V sings in verbunkos notes, ‘You base rebel, / death calls for death! / Your deed will be met by / the executioner’s axe on your throat! / he blood which has been shed / can only be washed away by your blood. / Wherever you are: the judge’s sentence / shall ind you!’ his predicts László’s fate and death, though the Hungarians seem to trust the king at this point, for they cheer him on in the inal lines of the choir: ‘he schemer is dead / Long live our dear country and the wise and good King! / Long live László, long live King László! / Long live the sage and great King!’ It is remarkable that the king appears and leaves the stage accompanied by verbunkos tunes. Gara, Mária’s father, who turns against Hunyadi and arranges his death, sings a long

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aria also based on verbunkos music. he verbunkos functions here as a double symbol: on the one hand, it refers to Gara’s Hungarian aristocratic origin, and on the other hand, it expresses his passionate desire to govern the country. Social diferences are a major source of the conlict between Gara and Hunyadi. Gara is representative of an eighteenth-century aristocratic concept of the nation, while Hunyadi, by the right of his father, is chosen by the people to lead the country. hree contesting nation concepts clash with one another in the opera: the king and his supporters form one group, Gara the second, and László and his supporters the third. Gara represents of the view of nation as ancestry. He does not like the king and is concerned about the country’s fate, but he cannot accept Hunyadi as governor. Hunyadi, however, has the support of the people. He is the symbol of a national unity of social classes. he king is pictured as a weak character who can be easily inluenced. He is almost obsessively afraid of the Hungarians, especially Hunyadi. His weakness is shown when he agrees to back Czilley’s plan of killing László Hunyadi, when he is afraid to punish Hunyadi’s people for Czilley’s death, and when Gara convinces him to send Hunyadi to the gallows. In the 1840s, Hungarians could easily recognise in the weak King László V their Emperor Ferdinand V (1793–1875), who was protected by Metternich just like László V by Czillei. he protection of the feeble king was in both cases only a manoeuvre to exert unperturbed political power. he opera had a huge impact not only because of its topic, but also because of the use of verbunkos style. Erkel’s music was just as efective as the libretto. An inexperienced, weak king, the villain foreigner Czillei, and the Hungarian nobleman Gara brought about the tragic end of László Hunyadi. According to popular interpretations that are highly contested by professional historians, a similar treachery, that of count Károlyi (1669–1743), led to the suppression of Rákóczy’s war of independence. Internal conlicts and external force led to the tragic end of both independence movements. his was the opera’s dénouement, as well as the end of Rákóczy’s war of independence, to which the verbunkos music alluded. he memory encoded in the music made it sound as if it would forecast the dénouement of the real-life events in 1849. French and German elements characterise the recitatives that link the arias and dances. he structural principles of the closed scenes are echoes of French grand operas, but the content and representation of

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the scenery remain Hungarian to the very end. Despite the remarkable part that international musical styles occupy in this opera, the verbunkos still dominates. In spite of his eclectic style, Erkel could create coherence and compose an opera that was recognised as undisputedly Hungarian by the contemporary audience. Contemporary listeners regarded Hunyadi László as a national opera in spite of its eclecticism. Its national character can only be understood within the framework of the Hungarian culture that shaped both the Hunyadi myth and the practice in which the verbunkos could emerge as Hungarian national idiom. he reenactment of history evoked a strong emotional response and had an impact on the formation of the nineteenth-century national consciousness. he interplay between synchronic and diachronic levels contributed to the reception of this opera as a national work of art. he diachronic level involved the revival of certain patterns of the past that were remembered and preserved throughout the centuries as national history by historiographers and artists. he synchronic level could be deined as an interrelation of the contemporary aesthetic, social, and political discourses and practices that made history public and presented it as a national narrative shared by all the people belonging to a certain cultural community. he diachronic and the synchronic levels reinforced and legitimated their own systems by cross-referencing each other. One could argue—and modernists do— that nationalism emerged on the synchronic level. However, these imagined communities did not and could not emerge from a vacuum: the stories, images, and practices that were used to create a national coherence in nineteenth-century society were stored in the cultural memory of the community that was imagining itself as a nation. Once we acknowledge that the nation is an imagined community that did not evolve as a natural, organic authentic entity but rather as a complex conceptual construct created in the dynamic network of both internal and external cultural, political, and social exchanges, we can start to investigate these interactions and recursive patterns. We have seen that the combination of the popular verbunkos music and the well-known story of László Hunyadi was an expression of the national experience. his national experience was conveyed by the interplay of the diferent layers of national history and cultural memory: the irst level was the libretto’s Renaissance story of László Hunyadi; the second, Ferenc Rákóczy’s war of independence, was represented by the verbunkos music that became popular in that period;

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and the third was the present level, the political opposition to Vienna, relected by the previous two levels. he conlict with the house of the Habsburgs, which tried to constrain or oppress the sovereignty of the Hungarian nation, has been a recurring topic in Hungarian cultural memory. he Hunyadi story, popular in the theatre and in published literary works, was recycled and transformed through the centuries. he major character types were also well known from earlier literary works: the treacherous king, László V, who saw his power jeopardised by Hunyadi; the igure of the foreign schemer, Czilley, who misused the king’s trust in order to eliminate his rival, László Hunyadi; the Hungarian aristocrat Gara, whose thirst for power was so strong that he could sacriice his daughter’s happiness and László’s life to acquire the rule of the country; and the national hero, László Hunyadi, who became a victim of his own hubris. he nineteenth-century audience could recognise its aspiration for national independence in the interplay of historical layers, each of them referring to the same idea: freedom versus oppression, the ancient right of the Hungarian nation to liberation from the autocratic rule of the Habsburgs. In spite of the many Italian, French, and German motives, it was regarded as Hungarian because the recurring verbunkos theme created a sense of cohesion. he multilayered opera represented the historical myth of Hungarian freedom from Habsburg oppression on both musical and textual levels, creating a sense of narrative longevity recognised as national history.

‘REAPING THE HARVEST OF THE EXPERIMENT?’ THE GOVERNMENT’S ATTEMPT TO TRAIN ENLIGHTENED CITIZENS THROUGH HISTORY EDUCATION IN REVOLUTIONARY FRANCE 17891802 Matthias Meirlaen

‘Revolution starts when the tyrant ends’,1 the young Jacobin revolutionary Louis Antoine Simon de Saint-Just argued on 27 December 1792 at the trial of Louis XVI. With these words, he voiced the political feelings that had gained the upper hand ater three years of revolution. Since the downfall of the absolute monarchy, it was no longer considered possible to reconstruct contemporary society in a moderate way by making laws based on the ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity. A totally new order had to be established, and before this could be done, tabula rasa had to be made with the ‘old regime’. he mistaken past had to be erased from the public scene literally as well as symbolically. All statues that once had been set up by the Bourbons were destroyed, churches were closed, street names that referred to monarchy, feudalism or religion were replaced by names that relected the revolutionary ideals, and so on. Only ater this destructive action, could be given birth to a new Republican era. In order to herald the advent of a new age, a new secular calendar was invented.2 But—paradoxically—the revolutionaries’ desire to break with the past did not imply the end of the historical revival that had been developing all over western Europe since the middle of the eighteenth century. he least one can say is that the way the revolutionaries dealt with the past was ambiguous. On the one hand, by destroying all symbols of the ancient social structures, they wanted to emphasize that a new, high-minded age had arrived, while on the other, they tried to legitimize the order they had established by appealing to historical arguments. Many revolutionaries, for example, admired the political system Michael Walzer, Régicide et Révolution. Le procès de Louis XVI (Paris: Payot, 1989), 287. 2 Robert Gildea, he past in French History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), 20–21. 1

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of democratic Athens and adored the manner the Roman Republic functioned. Oten, their awe for antique society went together with a quest for connections with the working of contemporary institutions. Jacques Pierre Brissot, one of the most important spokesmen of the Girondists, for instance, emulated Lucius Junius Brutus, according to the tradition one of the irst two consuls of Rome. François Noël Babeuf, a journalist and a ierce agitator for the revolution, decided to change his name into ‘Gaius Gracchus’, in homage to this famous Roman tribune of the plebs known for his ‘social measures’. Implicitly, it was suggested that the ancient Greeks and Romans were the irst to pursue a society based on the strongly appreciated principles of ‘liberty, equality, and fraternity’.3 To enforce such historical legitimizations, the French revolutionaries used all kinds of symbolism. In the new meeting hall of the Assembly in the Tuileries in Paris, ‘saints’ of the Roman Republic like Marcus Furius Camillus, Lucius Junius Brutus, Publius Valerius Publicola, and Lucius Quintius Cincinnatus received life-sized statues together with the Greek scholars Solon, Lycurgus, Plato, and Demosthenes in 1793. he hall itself was equipped ater the Roman model as well. he walls were painted to look like marble, and laurel crowns and fasces were drawn upon the gray blue colour to make the Assembly resemble the ancient senate. Moreover, the Roman past was honoured not only in the buildings of the new political order, but also in everyday life, where citizens had to become acquainted with the ancestors of the revolutionary and Republican ideals. Hence, busts of Roman heroes appeared on the street corners, new towns and roads were named ater these ‘great men’, and so on.4 ‘Rebuilding society, meant republicanising everything’, noted the ‘prêtre citoyen’ (citizen priest) Henri Grégoire.5 To this end, the symbolic imitation of the ancient republic served as a guide. Yet, the revolutionaries did not use the past only because of its legitimizing function. Lynn Hunt demonstrated that their (historical) symbols also served the purpose of political propaganda by ‘grabbing

3 David Larmour, ‘History recreated or malfunctioned desire? he Roman Republic re-membered in the French Revolution’. David Troyansky et al. (ed.), he French Revolution in Culture and Society (New York: Greenwood, 1991), 35–43, here 41–42. 4 Larmour 1991, 41. 5 Gildea 1994, 21.

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hold of the senses and penetrating the soul’.6 As a result these symbols were not merely representations of public authority, but instruments of education as well. By looking at them, the spectator was meant to identify himself with that which they expressed. Living among historical symbols meant becoming new men by interiorizing the thoughts of revolution. he words of the president of the Convention, Marie-Jean Hérault de Séchelles, at the erection of a statue of Hercules on the ‘Place des Invalides’ in Paris in the summer of 1793 show this very clearly. ‘French people’, he stated, ‘here you are looking at yourself in the form of an emblem which is rich in instructive lessons. he giant whose powerful hand reunites and reattaches in one bundle the departments which make up its grandeur and its strength, that giant is you’.7 Not only through symbols, but also in school education the past was used to train young Republicans. Convinced that the success of the revolution depended in the long term on the belief of the youth in the Republican ideals, a lot of revolutionaries had great interest in the organization of education. In 1795, ater many years of debates, a plan to set up a new educational system aimed at the training of good citizens was inally implemented on a national scale in France. Within this plan, which has already comprehensively been discussed,8 the teaching of history played an important part. Together with standard grammar, literature, and legislation, the history class was intended to form the ‘pinnacle’ in the education of young citizens. As instruction in history was meant to serve the teaching of citizenship, it can be questioned whether and how this inluenced the way the past was presented to the pupils. Were the teachers required to adjust the aims, content, narrative or didactics of the history class because of their duty to train young citizens? And did they in fact do so? Did the ambiguous attitude of the new authorities towards the past strike diferent notes in history teaching? Or was there a certain continuity between

6 Lynn Hunt, Politics, Culture and Class in the French Revolution (London: Methuen, 1984), 92. 7 Hunt 1984, 107. 8 See for instance: Mona Ozouf, L’école de la France: essais sur la Révolution, l’utopie et l’enseignement (Paris: Gallimard, 1984); Françoise Mayeur, ‘Les commencements révolutionnaires’. Louis-Henri Parias et al. (ed.), Histoire générale de l’enseignement et de l’éducation en France (4 vols.; Paris: Nouvelle librairie de France, 1981), 3:25–89; Henry Barnard, Education and the French Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969).

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the history education given during the ancien régime and that given during the Revolution? By means of these questions aiming to compare old and new education, this article wants to sketch a broader view on the revolutionary history teaching than Marcel Guy did in 1981.9 Instead of merely enumerating the major public directives at stake, it will try to explore the educational philosophy behind the history class, the degree to which this philosophy produced new narratives and didactics, and the way teachers dealt with the past in everyday school practice. To obtain this broader view, a grand variety of administrative sources has been consulted, going from the 1795 educational programme towards rarely remained programmes of examination sent to Paris as a check. But, rather than reading these sources as purely normative, they will be considered as the result of a ‘dialogue’ between government and teaching staf. As policymakers always had to consider concrete class loor activity, it will be proved their documents contained much more than only abstract expectations teachers had to meet to. A place for history teaching in humanist education? In traditional humanist education of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there was apparently no place for separate history teaching. Sunday schools as well as normal day schools (‘little schools’), both of which were meant for young children, concentrated on moral and religious education. To this end, the explanation of the catechism was highlighted. All other teaching activities such as reading and writing were of secondary importance. Mathematics and the principles of Latin and French were only treated by way of exception.10 Instruction at the Latin schools (‘collèges’), where the adolescents were subsequently trained, focused on the humanities. In the course of six years, the pupils there were trained to become good linguists and orators. Reading the classics was considered to be the most appropriate teaching method to achieve this aim. he principles of other subjects, such

9 Marcel Guy, ‘L’enseignement de l’histoire dans les écoles centrales (an IV–an XII)’. Annales historiques de la Révolution française 53.243 (1981), 89–122. 10 Eddy Put, De cleijne schoolen: het volksonderwijs in het hertogdom Brabant tussen Katholieke Reformatie en Verlichting (eind 16de eeuw–1795) (Leuven: Universitaire Pers Leuven, 1990), 192.

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as history, geography, botany, and so on were only taught to the extent that they appeared to be useful for comprehending and to imitating the texts that were read. Regarding history, this generally meant information was provided about the author of the text, the main events and characters were identiied and dated, and the terminology relating to rituals and institutions was explained.11 For a long time, this humanist school organization was hardly questioned. As both the governmental administration and the church demanded good linguists to hold their diplomatic oices or to do their preaching during periods of religious discord, there was deinitely no reason to adjust the educational programme. Only in the eighteenth century did this begin to change. he vernacular ousted Latin in diplomacy, and, stimulated by the indings of Francis Bacon, Galileio Galilei, Isaac Newton, and other seventeenth-century natural philosophers, new epistemological ideas were introduced in western Europe. Empirical observation became an important condition for the acquisition of knowledge and many traditional paradigms were contested. In scientiic circles, the idea ran that the physical world as well as the human mind operated according to orderly, discoverable laws.12 In the middle of the eighteenth century, many scholars were proposing to introduce these new epistemological principles in education. Especially in France, the intelligentsia were pushing for educational reform. In his article Collèges in the renowned Encyclopédie ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, Jean le Rond d’Alembert was one of the irst to lament the ‘unworldly’ character of the instruction in Latin and catechism. During the 1760s, ater the abolition of the Order of Jesuits, his opinion was echoed by notable politicians and scientists, such as the councillor of the Parliament of Paris, Barthélemy-Gabriel Rolland d’Erceville, the jurist René-Louis Caradeuc de la Chalotais, and the chemist Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau. To improve education, all of them wanted to introduce new subjects such as French, arithmetic, geometry, natural history, geography, and history in the curricula of Latin schools by prescribing a 11 Annie Bruter, ‘La pédagogie humaniste: un autre paradigme (l’enseignement de l’histoire sous l’Ancien Régime)’. Henri Moniot & Maciej Serwanski (eds.), L’histoire en partage. Le récit du vrai. Questions de didactique et d’historiographie (Baumeles-Dames: Nathan, 1994), 57–68, here 62–65. 12 Christopher Fox, ‘How to Prepare a Noble Savage: he Spectacle of Human Science’. Christopher Fox et al. (ed.), Inventing Human Science: Eighteenth-Century Domains (London: University of California Press, 1995), 1–30, here 13–19.

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national school curriculum. According to De La Chalotais, only by teaching these disciplines would ‘each coming generation be prepared to practice successfully the diferent professions of the state’.13 hus, aiming at a more modern and ‘socially relevant’ education, the intelligentsia in France wanted to introduce history together with classes in what they called ‘living languages’ and ‘sciences’. In the eyes of the eighteenth-century scholars, the idea to modernize education by teaching the pupils about the past was not at all contradictory. Actually, the Enlightenment made history hot. In the second half of the eighteenth century, almost every great Enlightened scholar, from Montesquieu to Voltaire, had been studying the past. In a certain sense, the intelligentsia in France considered history as a contemporary practice. Many scholars saw themselves as the irst real historians, and ridiculed their predecessors as ‘erudite fact gatherers’. In their eyes, history could not merely be a (quasi-)exhaustive enumeration of as many facts. Instead, they were convinced, a historian had to explore the past in a scientiic-philosophical way, by combining the spirit of observation with the analysis and synthesis of the reason. Only by using of this method, the scholars thought, could the historical truth the pupils had the right to know be discovered.14 Moreover, according to the French intelligentsia it was necessary to inform the pupils about what had happened in the past, because it could train them morally as well as intellectually. In this way, the Enlightened scholars found that instruction in history class could contribute to preparing the adolescents for the diferent professions of the state. Morally, they considered history as ‘ethics in action’. No other discipline, they were convinced, displayed the virtues and the outrages of human kind so clearly. By studying the past, the adolescents were meant to learn to imitate modest behaviour and acts of heroism, and to avoid licentious and sinful deeds. According to Voltaire, only by reading history could one prevent the repetition of disputes and mistakes of the past.15 Intellectually, eighteenth-century scholars found history instruction to be highly useful, because it could impart

13 René-Louis Caradeuc de la Chalotais, Essai d’éducation nationale, ou plan d’études pour la jeunesse (Genève: s.p., 1763), 2. 14 Chantal Grell, L’histoire entre érudition et philosophie. Étude sur la connaissance historique à l’âge des Lumières (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1993), 19–23. 15 Paul Gerbod, ‘L’histoire dans les projets éducatifs français au siècle des lumières’. Dix-huitième siècle 25 (1993), 305–318, here 310.

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to the pupils the critical mind of the Enlightenment. hanks to the new scientiic-philosophical approach, the history education would unmask all myths, superstition, and factual falsehood that was being handed down by the (oral) tradition.16 Especially De La Chalotais considered this instruction to be an excellent means to train adolescents in the Enlightened ideal of ‘sapere aude’ (dare to reason). He thought that in their history class the pupils should learn to take nothing for granted. According to De La Chalotais, the role of the teacher was not restricted to the training in the imitation of examples from the past. Autonomous and critical thinking was a valuable attitude that had to be taught as well.17 Nevertheless, much of the French scholars wanted to introduce history education on a national level in the Latin schools, their appeal seems not to have been very efective before the Revolution. As far as is known, only a few ‘collèges’ in France actually changed their school programmes on their own initiative by adding subjects as arithmetic, geometry or history.18 Interestingly enough, these schools did not modify the humanistic education structure. he training of excellent orators and linguists remained by far the most important goal of the instruction at the Latin school. All new subjects were merely subsidiary and were generally taught only for an hour or an hour and a half a week by the same teacher who instructed the classics. To what extent the introduction of these subjects was based on the ideas of the Enlightened scholars, is even unknown. It is striking that a few ‘collèges’ had already slightly adjusted their programmes even before the opinions of so-called inluential thinkers as De La Chalotais or D’Alembert were widespread.19 Also in the neighbouring countries, where the ideas of these scholars were much less known—including the Protestant ‘Länder’ of future Germany and the Southern Low Countries under the Austrian Regime—Latin schools were introducing comparable reforms in their curricula.20 Concerning the introduction

Gerbod 1993, 310–311. Patrick Garcia & Jean Leduc, L’histoire de l’enseignement de l’histoire en France de l’Ancien Régime à nos jours (Paris: Colin, 2003), 10–13. 18 In France the ‘collèges’ of Juilly, Saumur, Lyon, Marseille, and La Flèche deinitely changed their curriculum before the French Revolution. Garcia & Leduc 2003, 16. 19 Garcia & Leduc 2003, 16. 20 Joachim Rohlfes, ‘Geschichtsunterricht in Deutschland von der frühen Neuzeit bis zum Ende der Auklärung’. Klaus Bergmann & Gerhard Schneider (eds.), Gesellschat Staat Geschichtsunterricht. Beiträge zu einer Geschichte der Geschichtsdidaktik 16 17

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of history as an autonomous subject, it seems this renewal was implemented not only because of the advantages the Enlightened scholars attributed to this class. When history made its way into the curricula of several western European ‘collèges’ in the mid-eighteenth century, this subject was always closely connected to instruction in the classical languages. he glorious ancient times described in the texts the pupils read in the Latin class were highlighted during the history lessons. Only in the last years of ‘college’ was some time occasionally made for modern and/or national history.21 In the Southern Low Countries, where the educational renewals of the separate ‘collèges’ were implemented on a national level in 1777 by the Austrian authorities in Brussels, history was introduced explicitly because it could help the pupils understand the content of the classical texts they had to read.22 he instruction about the past had its use, because it supported indirectly the training of good linguists and orators. To ensure the teachers would not forget the importance of the classical languages, many renewed school programmes prescribed that the history class had to be taught in Latin. In the Southern Low Countries the authorities even ordered a reference book for national history should be written in the grand style of Cicero.23 und des Geschichtsunterricht von 1500–1980 (Düsseldorf: Schwann, 1982), 11–42, here 35; Eddy Put, ‘De hervorming van het Leuvense H. Drievuldigheidscollege in 1755’. Onderwijs en opvoeding in de achttiende-eeuw. Documentatieblad werkgroep achttiende eeuw. Supplement (1983), 85–92, here 89. 21 Garcia & Leduc 2003, 17; Guy 1981, 91–92. 22 Jean Baptiste Lesbroussart, a French teacher of rhetoric in Ghent who was involved in the 1777 educational reform, explained the necessity of the instruction of history at the Latin school as follows: ‘When the government required the “collèges” of the Low Countries to provide an explanation of the Latin historians who, by the nature of their diction and the importance of the subject matter, seem gradually to be suitable for each class, it considered that this was insuicient to give young people a proper knowledge of history, as this should be done in regular, well organised education. As the masters were obliged to point out in particular the purity and the elegance of the turns of phrase, the choice and propriety of the expressions, the accuracy and solidity of the thoughts, and as they could only give their pupils fragmented portions by these authors, to ill the void let by this dissection it was necessary to set a ixed portion of History for each class, bringing together all the facts that had occurred in the same period and relating to the same people’. Jean Baptiste Lesbroussart, De l’éducation belgique, ou rélexions sur le plan d’études adopté par sa Majesté pour les Collèges des Pays-Bas Autrichiens, suivies du développement du même Plan dont ces rélexions forment l’apologie (Brussel: Lemaire, 1783), 86–87. My translation. 23 Matthias Meirlaen, ‘ “Cicero’s taal en nauwkeurige feitenkennis”: de zoektocht naar geschikte handboeken voor het vroegste geschiedenisonderwijs aan de Zuid-Nederlandse

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Roman classics, chronological tables, and Christian philosophies of history: Teaching aids in the prerevolutionary history classes Since the prerevolutionary history classes were almost always closely connected to the instruction of Latin, many teachers used the works of the Roman historians as teaching aids. As a result, two authors proved to be ubiquitous in earliest history education: Titus Livius and Cornelius Nepos. From the former, the teachers applied his Ab urbe condita libri, a book in which Livius described the history of Rome from its mythological foundation until his own age (9 ce). From the latter, they used his De viris illustribus, a compilation of biographies of famous Roman and Greek men. During their history lessons, the teachers especially discussed those parts of both books that were not treated in the Latin class. Yet, working with these Roman classics caused one fundamental problem: that of chronology. Neither of the books used the religious-Christian dating that the humanist education wanted to teach, but rather counted from the mythological foundation of Rome. Moreover, as the Latin class especially focused on those fragments which seemed literarily important, the background information that the history instruction was meant to provide was not always treated chronologically. To meet this chronological problem, many teachers made use of ‘tablettes chronologiques’, little books consisting of tables which classiied the most important historical facts in order of time. Generally, the teaching of these ‘tablettes’ preceded the real history instruction, but at some Latin schools the history class was even just restricted to lessons in chronology. he idea that chronology formed the foundation of history was derived from antiquarian historical investigation. Already in the sixteenth century it was considered impossible to study the past without ranging all facts on a ‘time-scale’. During the subsequent ages, chronology increasingly became more popular. As a result of the (re)discovering of ancient manuscripts, the deciphering of old inscriptions, the study of oriental languages, and the revival of classical philology, many seventeenth- and eighteenth-century men of letters, theologians, and clerics were trying to ind out to what extent the new reports of the age of certain non-European peoples seemed

Latijnse scholen (1777–1794)’. Jaarboek voor de geschiedenis van opvoeding en onderwijs (2008), 44–48.

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contradictory with the traditional biblical dating.24 Among historians, the old topos that said chronology and geography were the eyes of history became generally accepted. Moreover, this strong conviction that chronology and history were inextricably connected had its impact on the way historiographers portrayed the past. A good history book, it was thought in the eighteenth century, described all the relevant facts as completely and correctly as possible in accordance with the course of chronology.25 Even though on the eve of the French Revolution many teachers endorsed the antiquarian idea that chronological classiication was fundamental to all historical study, their history classes were not (always) just restricted to dry enumerations of facts. Unconsciously, a lot of teachers placed these facts in the context of a narration, without necessarily touching their chronological order. Trying to explain the events from the past, they linked up diferent facts, looked for a historical starting and end point, identiied and distinguished main and minor igures, and searched for processes and lines that directed the course of history. hose teachers who looked for a more narrative approach to history oten found inspiration in the works of contemporary Christian philosophers of history such as Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet’s Discours sur l’histoire universelle (1681) and Charles Rollin’s Histoire Ancienne des Egyptiens, des Carthaginois, des Assyriens, des Babyloniens, des Medes et des Perses, des Macedoniens, des Grecs (1730–1738). Especially the latter was enormously successful. In France, a second edition was printed immediately ater the publication of the book, and a few years later Rollin’s work was translated into Italian (1733–1740), English (1738–1740), Greek (1750), Spanish (1755–1761), Portuguese (1773), and German (1778).26 In the Southern Low Countries, the national education programme from 1777 even explicitly recommended that the teachers had to use this book to prepare their classes.27

24 Tom Verschafel, De hoed en de hond. Geschiedschrijving in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden, 1715–1794 (Hilversum: Verloren, 1998) 176–177. 25 Tom Verschafel, ‘Om de leemten van de tijd te vullen. Genres in de Zuidnederlandse historiograie van de achttiende eeuw’. Feit & Fictie 1 (1993), 85–101, here 86–92. 26 Giovanna Ceserani, ‘Narrative, Interpretation, and Plagiarism in Mr. Robertson’s 1778 History of Ancient Greece’. Journal of the History of Ideas 66.3 (2005), 413–436, here 419. 27 Plan provisionnel d’études ou instructions pour les professeurs des classes respectives dans les pensionnats, collèges ou écoles publiques aux Pays-Bas (S.l.: s.p., 1777), 15.

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As a result, many instructors at the Latin schools founded their narration on the prophecies from the Bible. Like Bossuet and Rollin, they considered the only legitimate history to be that of God’s chosen people and their relations with other peoples, who merely came on the scene when actual contact took place. Hence, the Creation formed the starting point of history, followed by the history of ancient Israel as described in the Old Testament. Just as in the Holy Scripture, divine providence directed the continuation of the course of history. Many teachers were convinced that the hidden logic behind the past was that God rewarded pious and modest behaviour and punished moral corruption. Especially the rise, the lourishing, the decline and the fall of the ancient empires, as God himself had predicted in the book Daniel, bore this out.28 In a certain sense, the narration of the working of divine providence, as constructed by Bossuet and Rollin, was cyclic. hrough the past—and especially the ancient times—the same pattern was continually repeated: as primitive virtue led to progress, power and wealth, which subsequently engendered corruption, superstition, and moral decay, empires rose and fell. In their classes, teachers tried to combine this cyclic vision with the principles of systematic succession in chronology. As the examination programme of the ‘collège’ of Herve in Limburg (Southern Low Countries) proves [photo], the instructors generally started their lessons by situating each of the empires— which were successively treated in order of their age—on a map and explaining their (mythological) foundation. Once they had completed this introduction, the teachers divided the history of the each of the empires into diferent (artiicial) ‘epochs’ or eras. In every epoch, one stage of the cyclic course the empires went through was discussed. he irst eras usually described the rise of a new power, whereas the last ones traditionally argued its fall. Within the diferent epochs, information was always handled chronologically. For each ruler, the teachers listed their most important decisions, realizations, and failures. Only ater these events from the imperial history were systematically discussed, was the cyclic vision behind the epochs clariied in a separate paragraph. By combining this cyclic interpretation of the past with chronological surveys on the reign of the emperors, the teachers hoped that

28

Ceserani 2005, 417.

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Fig. 1. he examination questions on the Assyrian empire that the pupils of the ‘collège’ of Herve had to answer in 1779 (SAB, KCS, 28A–28B).

the teaching of history would be helpful for the pupils’ moral training—which they considered to be the second use of the history class, in addition to its utility as an auxiliary science to Latin. Like their great master Cicero, whose texts were ubiquitous in eighteenth-century education, teachers were convinced that ‘history was an instructor for life’ (‘historia magistra vitae’). Hence, many of them did not want to restrict their instruction to background information about the texts discussed. By means of the history class, they wanted to provide the religious and moral training that the humanistic education was meant to guarantee as well.29 In their eyes, the narration based on the biblical prophecies and the succession of biographies seemed extremely appropriate to this end. he story of the fall of all empires, from Persia to even Sparta, was meant to warn the pupils of the possible disastrous consequences of luxury, avarice, indolence, efeminacy, profusion, and all other kind of wealthy pleasures. Instead, the cyclic narration exhorted the adoles-

29 According to Annie Bruter, traditional humanistic education aimed at four converging goals, which all had to be obtained by means of textual instruction: the art of oratory, the transfer of encyclopaedic knowledge, the emulation of good moral behaviour, and the winning of souls for Christ. Of these four goals, the irst one dominated the other three. Bruter 1994, 63.

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cents to imitate the disciplined, austere, and modest behaviour of, for example, the Achaean Philopoemen or the Spartan Cleomenes, who dared to resist against exuberance.30 he latter was further reinforced by organizing the classes around chronologically ordered biographies. While the cyclic vision on history seemed especially appropriate to inspire awe, the biographies of the great rulers were considered useful to confront the pupils with concrete examples of both good and bad conduct. To quote the words of the French teacher, Jean-Baptiste Lesbroussart, ‘these life stories included an inexhaustible amount of moral prescriptions for the adolescents’.31 Empiricism and relection: A new hierarchy in the school programme for the Enlightened citizen he French Revolution brought about drastic changes in the organization of the Latin schools in France as well as in the conquered territories. During the irst three years of the revolution, the whole existing network of ‘collèges’ was gradually dismantled by the agency of the ‘Assemblée nationale constituante’ (the National Constitutional Assembly). his dismantlement was in fact not so much the result of an intentional act. It was rather a logical consequence of the revolutionaries’ desire to break with the structures of the ancien régime and their wish to rebuild a new civil society.32 In September 1789 all schools lost their autonomy, as the legislator placed them under the surveillance of the communal or departmental authorities. Only one month later, many ‘collèges’ had to close because with the coniscation of church

30 William Gribbin, ‘Rollin’s Histories and American Republicanism’. he William and Mary Quarterly 29.4 (1972), 611–622, here 615. 31 ‘For example, it is not only important for us to know that one Cyrus, one Alexander, one Parmenion has existed; one will conclude a mass of moral prescriptions out of the lives of all these persons as well, by praising the wisdom, the moderation, the piety of the one and by unmasking the vices, the ambition and the irreligion of the other’. Lesbroussart 1783, 183–184. 32 In September 1791 for instance, the ‘Assemblée nationale constituante’ still declared yet that ‘all the educational institutions that had existed under the monarchy, would continue to exist under the current regime and that this would be done by following the same laws under which they had originally been founded.’ Marie-Odile Mergnac et al., Les écoliers et leurs maîtres en France d’autrefois (Paris: Archives & Culture, 2005), 16.

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property, they ended up without buildings and (inancial) resources. Finally, due to the suppression of the congregations in February 1790 and the persecution of the clerics during the following months, almost all the Latin schools that had remained, then disappeared as well. In 1793 Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès, a conirmed revolutionary and member of the Assembly, noted that ‘the schools, “collèges”, universities had been suspended nearly everywhere, if not by law than at least in reality’.33 Sieyès, however, was not the irst to conclude that the educational situation was disastrous. Already in 1791 the ‘Assemblée législative’ (the Legislative Assembly) had established a ‘Comité d’instruction publique’ (Committee of public education) to improve the educational system. In the following years, diferent projects for reform were discussed within this ‘Comité’, which all of these were intended to introduce a school organization at the national level, in order to prepare the pupils for their future professional and civil duties. Due to inancial as well as ideological reasons, it took until 1795 before one of these projects was adopted for realization by the Convention and the Assembly. he author of the approved plan was Joseph Lakanal. He wanted to set up a network of state schools to replace the educational institutions that had closed their doors. his new network was meant to consist of three levels: the primary schools (‘écoles primaires’), the schools superior to the primary schools (‘écoles supérieures aux écoles primaires’) or central schools (‘écoles centrales’), and the National Institute (‘l’Institut national’). According to Lakanal’s plan, it was only at the central schools—of which one was to be established in every departmental capital—that history was to be taught.34 he proposal to organize education on a national level was not new. Ever since the Enlightened scholars had launched this idea in the mid-eighteenth century, it had continued to circulate among intellectuals together with the belief that instruction should be useful for contemporary society. But only ater the installation of the ‘Directoire’ in 1795 did the political climate seem to be ready to put these views into practice. From the organization of the new ‘écoles centrales’, it can be concluded that this even happened in a radical way. he tradi-

33 34

Mergnac et al. 2005, 16. Barnard 1969, 61–178.

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tional humanistic school organization of the ‘collèges’ was abolished and replaced by a system that much better relected the philosophy of the Enlightenment. Since education was primarily meant to be useful, the instruction at the ‘écoles centrales’ was no longer aimed at the formation of young orators. he new civil society did not require good Latinists, but it did need the support of Enlightened citizens who were themselves aware of the latest epistemological developments. To this end, Lakanal drew up a new curriculum based on the pedagogical philosophy of Etienne Bonnot de Condillac. Inspired by the empiricism of John Locke, the latter was convinced that all knowledge was deduced from two sources, which formed the basis of his pedagogical ideas: sensation and relection. Condillac thought education only proved its value when pupils were trained to deduce knowledge by the use of sensations, on the one hand, and by the use of (metaphysical) relection on the other. he training of these two ‘sources of knowledge’, he found, had to happen gradually and in accordance with the (natural) psychological and intellectual maturation of the child. In his new curriculum, Lakanal translated these ideas by organizing the education system into three hierarchic sections, consisting of clusters of related school subjects. In the lower sections, disciplines that could be learned ‘by the use of the senses’ had to be taught, while in the higher sections ‘the art of reasoning and relecting’ had to be discussed. Subscribing to the contemporary ideals of liberty, Lakanal found that none of the subjects of the ‘écoles centrales’ could be made compulsory. Yet, he decided that the pupils should always have reached a prescribed age before they could be permitted to follow lessons in one of the sections. By doing so, he wanted to ensure that the education was adjusted to the children’s maturation. he ‘subjects of the sensations’—drawing, natural history, and ancient languages—he considered appropriate for the instruction of young adolescents. Hence, these subjects of the irst section had to be learned to the pupils from the age of twelve. From the age of fourteen, when the adolescents had command of their ‘senses’, Lakanal found them mature enough to be introduced into mathematics, physics, and experimental chemistry. hese subjects, he thought, should be instructed in the second section, and had to teach the pupils the ‘art of logical reasoning’. Finally, in the third and last section, Lakanal wanted the adolescents to be trained to become ‘citoyens responsables’ (responsible citizens), that is politically and morally high-principled human beings. He considered

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the ‘subjects of relection’—standard grammar, literature, history, and legislation—most useful for this. To be permitted to take these lessons, the pupils had to be at least sixteen years old.35 hus, the instruction of Latin was no longer the crux of the new ‘revolutionary’ school curriculum. As they were considered no more than ‘sensory’ subjects, the classical languages only needed to be taught in the irst section. Hence, the study of these languages had no value ‘an sich’ in the ‘écoles centrales’. According to a circular letter from Nicolas Quinette, the Minister of the Interior qualiied for education in 1799, Latin and Greek were to be instructed as preparation for the subjects of the third section.36 Consequently, the teachers of these disciplines were not expected to train their pupils to become excellent Latinists. Sylvestre François Lacroix, one of the members of the committee that drew up Lakanal’s educational reform, pointed out that Latin and Greek had actually been introduced into the school curriculum to make the pupils understand what principles a language consisted of. Teachers had to compare the Latin and the French grammar, so the pupils would acquire more linguistic competences.37 he ultimate aim of the instruction of these linguistic rules was to improve the adolescents’ proiciency in the living languages, which was considered to be more important for Enlightened and politically conscious minds.38

35 Marie-Madeleine Compère, ‘La question des disciplines scolaires dans les écoles centrales. Le cas des langues anciennes’. Histoire de l’éducation 42 (1989), 139–181, here 143–144. 36 Marie-hérèse Isaac & Claude Sorgeloos, L’école centrale du département de Jemappes 1797–1802: enseignement, livres et lumières (Brussels: Archives et bibliothèques de Belgique, 2004), 237. 37 ‘To learn what a language consists of, and to note its forms, it is necessary to compare its progress with the development of another language, the principles of Latin, by providing this advantage, by evoking through the agency of those who can devote themselves to it, the taste of the ancient literature, which is still the mother and the model of our literature. From now on, this must be the main reason for the instruction of Latin in the educational system as a whole. To achieve this aim, the translation from Latin to French will be suicient’. Sylvestre François Lacroix, Essais sur l’enseignement en général et sur celui des mathématiques en particulier (Paris: Courcier, 1815), 68–69. My translation. 38 ‘If less Latinists are educated now than before, one knows his own language now better, and he is more able to learn the living languages, because by having better analysed this type of work, one can distinguish what convenes in all languages, from what is typical for an idiom, especially when he has taken the lessons in general grammar that took place in the third section, as a complement on the instruction of the ancient languages, and as an introduction to logic and metaphysics’. Lacroix 1815, 72.

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Moreover, the teaching of Latin and Greek was not merely a preparation to the formation of the ‘citoyen responsable’ in the third section, because the basic principles of all (modern) languages were learned during this course. According to Julien-Pierre Robert, a French teacher of Latin especially appointed at the ‘école centrale’ of Mons on recommendation of the Minister of the Interior, ‘the explanation of the classical authors would not justify the necessity of an autonomous chair, if these writings could only be used to instruct words, rules, and grammatical faultinding’.39 he texts of the ancient authors that dealt with ‘courage, patriotism, talents, and virtues of the most splendid Republics,’ were intended to, ‘enlighten the minds and hearts of the pupils’ as well.40 Hence, many teachers of Latin and Greek instructed also some ancient history, as for example Robert did. Jean-Baptiste Lesbroussart, who now taught the classical languages in the ‘école centrale’ in Brussels, emphasized for instance in his correspondence with the authorities that he not only had explained all the rules of prosody and poetry on the basis of old texts. He had also used the writings of the great Greek and Roman authors to inform the pupils about ancient history and geography. Ater all, these texts provided perfect models in terms of their graceful style, logical reasoning, and digniied politics and morality.41 Like the instruction in all other school subjects of the irst two sections, the lessons in the classical languages were intended to contribute to the training of Enlightened citizens in the third section. In this last section of the ‘écoles centrales’, a hierarchy was introduced between the diferent courses. he lessons in general grammar—in which pupils had to study ideology, universal grammar, French grammar, and logic—were placed at the base of this ranking. According to minister Quinette, these grammar lessons were meant to constitute an introduction to literature and history, two more highly valued courses. Especially the instruction of French grammar was considered necessary for adolescents who wanted to read the great European literature. he completion of the art of reasoning, which was to be taught in

39 Marie-hérèse Isaac, École centrale du département de Jemappes. Les programmes des exercices publics de l’an VI à l’an X (Mons: Société des Bibliophiles belges séant à Mons, 2004), 58. 40 Isaac 2004, 58. 41 Fassbender, Henri, ‘L’enseignement à l’École centrale du département de la Dyle’. Cahiers bruxellois 14 (1969–1970), 179–272, here 214–216.

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the lessons in general grammar as well, was meant to be useful for the history course. ‘he rules of logic’, as Quinette pointed out, ‘were regarded as a guideline to help young people appreciate mankind and afairs, facts and institutions during the history or legislation lessons, and during their own life’.42 ‘L’histoire philosophique’: relecting on the past he new pedagogical aim pursued at the ‘écoles centrales’ partly afected views on the use of the history lessons. As the teachers no longer had to train the pupils to become great orators, their history classes no longer needed to be subservient to the teaching of Latin. In accordance with the new educational goals, the instruction about the past had to contribute to the formation of young responsible and conident citizens. Hence, the moral, political, and intellectual value of history was highlighted in the ‘écoles centrales’. Since the Enlightened citizen was aware of the richness of his mother tongue, history was taught in French instead of in Latin. To provide this instruction, even a special subject teacher was appointed. Like the teachers at the Latin schools, their colleagues of the ‘écoles centrales’ oten quoted Cicero to deine the (moral) use of history. Louis Henri Joseph Lannée, a thirty-one-year-old history teacher from Bruges, cited for instance Cicero’s adage ‘Historia testis temporum, lux veritatis, vita memoriae, magistra vitae, nuntia vetustatis’ (History bears witness to the passing of the ages, sheds upon reality, gives life to recollection and guidance to human existence, and brings tidings of the ancient days) in a report on his instructional activities that he sent to the Minister of the Interior to outline the objectives of his lessons.43 According to Sylvestre Lacroix, even scholars who regarded the study of the past purely as an exercise of memory were surprised by the utility of this discipline in contemporary education. ‘Together with the teaching of legislation’, he noted, ‘the history class guaranteed the moral and political training of the pupils’.44 Yet, according to

ANP (Archives nationales de Paris), F/17/1338. ANP, F/17/1344/5. 44 ‘In the central schools, the moral and political sciences, which constitute the third branch of the system of knowledge, are represented in the history course, which includes the instruction in geography, and in the legislation course. hose who regard 42 43

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the revolutionary authorities this moral and political use was not so much to be situated in the enormous amount of exemplary virtues and abuses from the past, the knowledge of which was intended to urge the adolescents to act humbly and piously. As the Enlightened citizen was neither credulous nor submissive, these were not the attitudes to be learned in the history class. Instead, the authorities hoped the study of the past would have a moral, political, and intellectual use by teaching the pupils the highest ideal of citizenship: the ability to relect critically and autonomously. During history class, the pupils had to learn never ever to consider a statement true without reasoning. As a result, the history teachers had to present the duty of the historian as the quest for truth and the desire to unmask myths and superstition in historiography. In accordance with the empirical philosophy of Condillac, the revolutionary authorities wanted the teachers to teach that historical knowledge could only be acquired by means of relection on information that was (immediately) perceptible in the (original) source material. Many instructors tried to fulil these expectations by making a theoretical distinction in their introductory classes between ‘les temps incertains et fabuleux’ (the uncertain and mythical times) and ‘les temps historiques’ (the historical times). Yet, more fundamentally, the national authorities thought the idea that the past needed to be studied by use of empirical relection had to inluence the historical narrative that was taught as well. As a consequence of the endeavour to purge all untruthfulness from the history class, they found there could be no place for a sacred history or the concept of divine providence in the curricula. he teachers were responsible for making their pupils aware that such religious interpretations of the development of the past were not compatible with an empirical and critical philosophical analysis of source material. In actual practice, a lot of instructors seemed to have more diiculties observing these last guidelines. In July 1798, Minister of the Interior François Sébastien Letourneux concluded that too many teachers were still not critical enough of the idea of divine inluence on the past. Hence, he recommended them the lecture of Edme Mentelle’s Précis de l’histoire Hébreux. Once they had read this book, ‘which was intended to remove from the history of the Hebrews everything that was incompatible with the enlightenment of

history and geography purely as sciences of memory have been surprised by the rank they occupy here’. Lacroix 1815, 76.

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the reason’, he hoped they would understand that ‘the ancient times had nothing supernatural about them’.45 In place of the religious interpretation of the past, Letourneux and his colleagues recommended a more Enlightened reading, called ‘histoire philosophique’. When the ‘écoles centrales’ opened their doors in 1795, the authorities in Paris did not specify what this ‘histoire philosophique’ was supposed to look like, nor how it was to be taught. According to a 1799 circular letter issued by minister Quinette, this lack of particular orders was deliberately intended. ‘By giving no directions’, he noted, ‘the government wanted irst of all to reap the harvest of the experiment’.46 In accordance with contemporary revolutionary ideas the minister thought that if the teachers were given enough ‘liberty’, then their lessons would be much better organized. hough Quinette bragged much about the educational freedom history teachers had acquired, in reality the authorities in Paris did try to control the teaching of history. First of all they kept a strict watch on the appointment of (history) teachers by deciding that the departmental administrations had to examine all candidates on their philosophical convictions, their competence, and their instructional methods.47 By declaring this, the central authorities hoped that only citizens who were convinced of the ideals of the revolution and the new Enlightened society would go into (history) teaching at the ‘écoles centrales’. Secondly, by prohibiting religious interpretations and prescribing ‘histoire philosophique’ in the curriculum, the authorities nevertheless were also curtailing the instructors’ choice concerning the content. In his circular letter of 1799, minister Quinette clariied what the authorities meant by the term ‘histoire philosophique’. Above all, he stressed that instructing philosophically implied that history could not merely be a chronological enumeration of great events. Like many Enlightened historians, Quinette condemned the simplistic ‘fact-gathering’ of the erudites. As a result, he found chronology and geography—in Latin schools still praised as the eyes of the study of the past—did not even have a place in the introduction to the history course.48 Behind the evolution of history, a system had to be found.

45 46 47 48

ANP, F/17/1338. ANP, F/17/1338. Guy 1981, 95. ANP, F/17/1338.

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Yet, contrary to the thinking of many teachers at the Latin school, the French authorities no longer believed that divine providence regulated the course of history. In accordance with the new epistemological conceptions, reason had to become the basis of the new historical narration. Proceeding from the reason, all divine explications of the course of history should be called into question. ‘Establishing the fact that divine creatures have never intervened in the origin or in the afairs of nations is only admitting the truth’, stated minister Letourneux in his circular letter of 1798.49 Since it proved unreasonable to explain the evolution of history as the plan of supernatural powers, the revolutionaries found another system to explain it. For them, the human spirit (‘l’esprit humain’) as an impersonal force determined the evolution of history. Disasters and misery were no longer seen as a punishment of God, nor were prosperity and good viewed as a reward for faithful belief. he new authorities started reading history from the contemporary experience of the Enlightenment. As the revolutionaries were convinced that all happiness in their own time was the result of its Enlightened state of mind, they considered human ingenuity as the regulator of history. In his circular letter of 1799, Quinette declared that the study of history was simply a matter of observing the progression, the staggering, and the temporary degenerations of the ‘marche de l’esprit humain’ (the progress of the human spirit).50 To discover how the human spirit functioned during a certain period in the past, the teachers did not have to analyze the acts of the great rulers. Quite to the contrary, the central authorities disliked all the varied kinds of biographical historiography. In his circular letter of 1798, minister Letourneux had already stressed that ‘it was not at all a republican intention to teach the pupils adulation for kings or powerful men and disdain of the working classes, as described by most of the contemporary historians’.51 According to Letourneux’ successor Quinette, in order to reveal the evolution of the human spirit, the teachers had to study ‘sciences, arts, social organization, and the constant relation between the prosperity of the people and the number and especially the correctness of their ideas’.52

49 50 51 52

ANP, F/17/1338. ANP, F/17/1338. ANP, F/17/1338. ANP, F/17/1338.

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he revolutionaries drew their interpretation of history as the progress of the human spirit from Enlightened historians such as Voltaire and Condorcet. In a critical and satirical tone and convinced of the prosperity of the present, the latter described history as a long-term transition from ancient to modern times with the human spirit as its regulator.53 he revolutionary authorities themselves even recommended the history teachers to use works of Enlightened historians as sources of inspiration. hey especially considered Claude-FrançoisXavier Millot’s Élémens d’histoire générale (1772–1773) an excellent model of how the historical narrative should be composed in class. According to minister Quinette the plan of this book was very useful.54 In nine volumes it described the whole universal history, in which a distinction was made between the irst four volumes that discussed the ancient times and the last ive that treated the modern history. Contrary to many ‘classical’ historiographers, and like minister Quinette, Millot did not want to compose a chronological survey of the important political and military persons or events in this voluminous work. Instead he thought history was meant to reveal ‘the origin, the progress, and the decline of nations and empires, the extraordinary efects of the passions and the genius, and the surprising variety of laws, morals, customs, and opinions’.55 Yet, however much Millot wanted to write a philosophical relection on the extent of civilization through the past, his modern history still concentrated on the course of the important political events. Like many other Enlightened historians, he amused himself with discussing the acts of celebrated igures in modern history such as Charles XII or Louis XIV in satirical tone.56 Only in the irst part of his work, which deals with the ancient times, was Millot’s narrative really about customs, morals, social organization, religion, sciences, and the arts.

53 Michael Bentley, Modern Historiography: an Introduction (London: Routledge, 1999), 8–11. 54 ‘I think that the best work we have, as an elementary book, is the general history of Millot. It has been composed for a chair founded in a very enlightened era, in accordance with the views of men who were very skilled in education, and whose intentions were very close to those of the founders of our schools. To me, the plan seems very good. he table of contents ofers an ample overview, and is made with care; and the prefaces prove that the author had very clear ideas about the aims of history education’. ANP, F/17/1338. My translation. 55 François-Xavier Millot, Elémens d’histoire générale, (9 vols.; Neuchatel: De l’imprimerie de la société typographique, 1778) 1:18. 56 Bentley 1999, 9.

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Fig. 2. Title page of Xavier Millot’s Élémens d’Histoire Générale. Premiere Partie: Histoire Ancienne. 1778. Published by the Libraires associés, Switzerland.

Especially in the irst volume, which examined the history of the ancient Asian peoples, all these aspects were discussed in a systematic way. he discussion of the eastern cultures always started with describing the mythological tales of each civilization. Once these mendacious fables were unmasked, subsequently the governmental organization, the state of morality and religion, and the sciences and the arts were examined. Concerning the Asian cultures, Millot’s Enlightened judgement was absolutely negative. heir rulers acted tyrannously and the people themselves had no opportunity to participate in politics. ‘Ignorance’ and ‘superstition’ were the two most frequently used nouns to describe the religion of the ancient Asians. Except for the Jews, Millot thought all of them worshipped a whole range of divine creatures in a very supericial way. Hence, it was no surprise their morals were depraved by vices and corruption. Only on one point—the eastern sciences and arts—did Millot have a positive judgment, and even those, he argued, were not the result of the autonomous functioning of the human spirit. He was convinced, for instance, that in ancient Egypt the plough and the iron forge had been invented ‘instinctively, out of

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(economic) necessity’, whereas the building of pyramids, obelisks, and labyrinths was an outcome of the absolute and superstitious government of the pharaoh.57 Like many revolutionaries, Millot had more admiration for ancient Greece and Rome. According to him, the human spirit only really started developing under these civilizations.58 Yet, he did not compose the three tomes that described the history of Greece and Rome in the same way as the irst volume about the Asian cultures. While Millot did not ind it useful to draw up a chronological survey of the important political events during the Egyptian, Assyrian, Phoenician or even Chinese times, he made a diferent choice concerning the Greek and Roman past, the narrative of which he structured as an overview of the important military and political facts. As for the Greek civilization, he presented this chronological survey ater he had unmasked the ‘mythical’ origins of the culture, discussed the ‘barbarism’ of its irst inhabitants and compared the politics of Sparta and Athens. Within this survey, he subsequently treated the Persian and the Peloponnesian wars, the decline of Sparta and Athens, the rising military power of hebes, the accession to the throne of Philip of Macedon, the conquests of Alexander the Great, and the decay of the Macedonian empire due to moral corruption. Only ater this chronological survey did Millot examine Greek art, literature, and sciences from an Enlightened point of view. If the structure of Millot’s history of Greece was still comparable to that of the Asian peoples, this was no longer the case in his account of the Roman past. Contrary to his discussions of the foregoing civilizations, Millot did not divide his history of Rome into diferent chapters about religion and superstition, morals and customs, polity and laws, or arts and sciences. From Rome’s foundation on, he used only the chronology of the great military and political events to structure his narrative. herefore, the notion of epochs now came to structure his book. Every change of regime in the past marked a new era. In the Roman history, Millot distinguished twelve epochs, and in his modern history he discerned fourteen. Yet, this switch of attention towards the course of the great political afairs did not mean that the undercurrent Millot 1778, 1:76–92. ‘In our opinion, all the resilience of the human spirit came to expression in Greece; the Roman grandeur futher extended the sphere of our ideas, of our views & of our sentiments’. Millot 1788, 1:185. 57 58

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of Millot’s narrative had changed. he state of autonomy of the human spirit still determined the evolution of history. To make this clear, Millot ended his survey of each epoch by stating some ‘general relections’. He considered Roman history prosperous as long as the institutions of the republic functioned well, and was convinced that Rome’s progress had reached its turning point when Caesar founded the empire and the people lost their liberty. As most of Augustus’ successors acted tyrannically, immorally, and superstitiously, Millot described the whole period from the irst century bce until the ith century ce as a gradual degeneration. According to him, the ‘barbarian tribes’ that invaded the Roman Empire did only worsen the climate of decay. He pictured them as corrupt, ignorant, and superstitious, and blamed them for having introduced aristocratic regimes into Europe.59 Since the church—whose power increased ater the fall of the Roman Empire—made no efort at all to stop all the barbaric abuses, Millot thought that the human spirit did not really develop until the end of the tenth century.60 Yet, the irst signs of advancement were only to be found at the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth century. During that age, in Switzerland and Holland the irst ‘tyrannical regimes’ were replaced by republics, the power of the pontiical court in Rome was decreasing, and Shakespeare, Milton, Galilei, Torricelli, Bacon, and Descartes were bringing about a regeneration of literature, the sciences, and philosophy. But the real Enlightenment, Millot knew, was still far away. France for instance was governed by an absolute monarch, and almost everywhere in Europe morals were perverse and the superstition and ignorance ruled the day.61 How the society had progressed further on through history was not speciied by Millot. His report on the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was restricted to a factual survey on politics. Only in the conclusion of his book did he state that ‘it was a pity that even in his own age the shock of the passions, the errors, and the abuses of mankind was still hindering the efects of a beneicent enlightenment’.62 Nevertheless, it seems unlikely that all history teachers were teaching their subject in such a philosophical way. Much depended on their revolutionary convictions or their readiness to adapt their teaching 59 60 61 62

Millot 1778, 5:11–59. Millot 1778, 5:287–313. Millot 1778, 8:195–296. Millot 1778, 9:388.

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on pragmatic or opportunistic grounds. On the questionnaire that the Minister of the Interior François de Neufchâteau sent to the ‘écoles centrales’ in May 1799 to investigate the quality of education, about half of the teachers replied that they used Millot’s book or other philosophical works to compose their lessons.63 To convince the national authorities that they really were instructing in a ‘philosophical’ way, a lot of them also posted a general plan of their lessons to Paris. For the main part, these schemes were quite similar to the order of Millot’s Élémens d’histoire générale. But deinitely not all teachers sent their plans to the capital and described Enlightened historians as Millot, Condillac, Mably or Voltaire as their models. Many of them responded very honestly to the questionnaire by saying that they did not use ‘any book at all’ to prepare their classes.64 To a great extent, this happened because they were (still) viewing the teaching of history as the teaching of chronology. When the Ministry of the Interior drew up a state of afairs of the educational system half a year later, it recognized this ‘problem’. ‘he history class’, it stated, ‘is one of the classes that has embarrassed the teachers the most. Since they had to determine the extent and the plan of it themselves, some of them considered it as a course in historical geography, and others as a simple course in chronology’.65 In fact, a lot of history teachers had diiculties with instructing in a philosophical way because they had never been schooled in it themselves. All of them were trained in the humanities at the Latin school. It is quite striking that upon the appointment of the teaching staf of a new ‘école centrale’, the number of applicants for teaching history was always low. Moreover, many of these candidates applied irst for

63 Out of the 45 teachers—on a total amount of 103 history teachers—who answered the inquiry of De Neufchâteau, twenty mentioned they had used Millot’s Élémens d’histoire générale to prepare their classes with. Other books many instructors used as sources of inspiration were: Mably’s Observations sur l’histoire de France, Condillac’s Cours d’études pour l’instruction du prince de Parme (1775), and Voltaire’s Essai sur les mœurs et l’esprit des nations (1756). Also these works were especially commended by the authorities in Paris because of their philosophical spirit. he circular letter De Neufchteau’s successor Quinette sent to the central schools a few months later for instance, stated Condillac’s work contained ‘excellent parts about the progress of enlightenment and its condition during the diferent ages and in the diferent countries’ and praised Voltaire’s book ‘because it was the irst work that interpreted history in a philosophical way’. Cf. ANP, F/17/1344/5; ANP, F/17/1338. 64 ANP, F/17/1344/5. 65 ANP, F/17/1339.

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a position in the classical languages. Only aterwards, if they did not obtain that post, they were satisied with a position as a history teacher. When the ‘école centrale’ of Bruges, for instance, lost its teacher of Latin and Greek in 1798, his colleague in history was very pleased to replace him.66 At once it becomes clear that the instructors themselves did not ind the history class as important as the new authorities did, and in view of the general popularity of this class at the time, it seems the pupils and their parents agreed with the teachers. Catherine Mérot igured out that per school only an average of ten adolescents took history lessons every year, which was very little in comparison with other classes such as drawing or classical languages.67 Both the teaching staf as well as the school public did not seem to lose their sleep over the instruction of the past. However, the insuicient training of the teachers and the lack of general interest were not the only reasons why the teaching of philosophical history did not always go smoothly. Many instructors complained that they did not have the appropriate teaching aids at their disposal. Especially the deiciency of a ‘livre élémentaire’ (elementary book), a reference book the pupils could use themselves, was considered to be a big problem. he proposal of the Ministry of the Interior to apply Millot’s Élémens d’histoire general as a ‘livre élémentaire’ was hardly observed at all. With its nine volumes, this book was too elaborate to be used in class. As a result, teachers had to dictate their subject matter to the pupils, who had to write it down in their notebooks or ‘cahiers’. Still a lot of instructors did not ind this the right way of working. According to Pierre-Joseph Guise, the history teacher of the ‘école centrale’ in Brussels, in the course of two years—the prescribed duration of the history course—only some ‘supericial knowledge’ could be taught without a good reference book.68

66 Cyriel De Keyser & Fernand Slabinck, ‘De école centrale van het Leiedepartement te Brugge. Bijdrage tot een historisch-comparatieve studie’. Tijdschrit voor Opvoedkunde 20.4 (1974–1975), 199–230, here 220. 67 Catherine Mérot, ‘Les écoles centrales: recrutement et fréquentation’. Revue du Nord 78.317 (1996), 797–807, here 801. 68 ANP, F/17/1344/5.

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matthias meirlaen Conclusion: nothing but an experiment?

Even if the teachers had asked for a good ‘livre élémentaire’ and even if the authorities in Paris had promised several times to compose one, a solid reference book to instruct the ‘histoire philosophique’ was never written. Although the revolutionary rulers transferred many ‘cahiers’ of pupils to the capital for this aim, their expectations once again turned out to be too high and especially the available time to compose a textbook proved to be too short. Already in 1802, the ‘écoles centrales’ were abolished. When Napoleon came to power in France, his administration was no longer convinced of the potential success of the ‘écoles centrales’. According to an inquiry into the existing state of afairs in education made by the new Minister of the Interior Jean-Antoine Chaptal on 9 November 1800, the ‘écoles centrales’ were ‘deserted’ practically everywhere.69 he minister found an explanation in the many defects of the organization of these schools, which he considered much worse than at the Latin schools. Chaptal especially praised the (old) idea of giving instruction over a period of six successive years of study. Hence, he proposed to re-introduce the annual system into the ‘écoles centrales’ and to incorporate the new subjects such as French, natural history, geography, mathematics, physics, and drawing within it. Moreover, he was of the opinion that independent schools with the same organization should be allowed.70 Even if Chaptal’s proposal was never accepted, the political climate became gradually more favourable to similar ideas. Particularly ater Napoleon had signed the Concordat with the pope in July 1801, it became conceivable to accommodate the education system of the ‘écoles centrales’ to that of the Latin schools. Finally Antoine-François Fourcroy, who was a member of the Conseil d’État, would draw up a project where this accommodation was realized. According to his plan, which was approved by the legislature in December 1802, the ‘écoles centrales’ had to be replaced by a smaller number of ‘lycées’. Furthermore Fourcroy was convinced that the communes and the private initiative should be allowed to set up ‘collèges’, now called ‘écoles secondaires’, as well. Concerning content, his ideas were almost identical to those of Chaptal. Like the Minister of the Interior, Fourcroy

69 70

Barnard 1969, 200. Barnard 1969, 199–202.

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thought the ‘lycées’ and the ‘écoles secondaires’ should organize their instruction into ive years of study. Within these years, he recommended the teaching of Latin, mathematics, French, geography, and history.71 he degree to which the new education programme was a rapprochement between old and modern, reactionary and revolutionary thinking, appears from Fourcroy’s regulation that Latin and mathematics had to be the two most important subjects at the ‘lycées’ and the ‘écoles secondaires’.72 he fact that geography and history were together adopted into the curriculum as a single autonomous course also proves that Fourcroy did not go back to the annual school system of the ancien régime, without taking the renewals of the ‘écoles centrales’ into account. More than ever before, the secondary education system had to serve diferent aims. It had to train both good linguists and virtuous citizens. Moreover, from the particular position of mathematics in the new curriculum it can be concluded that the technical and scientiic formation of the pupils was also considered to be important. Like at the ‘écoles centrales’, the history class guaranteed the training of good citizens. Hence, at the ‘lycées’ and at the ‘écoles secondaires’ this subject was also taught in French. Nevertheless, the instruction of history had lost a lot of weight compared to the way it was taught at the ‘écoles centrales’. Whereas during the revolutionary period history had been the second most important school subject according to Lakanal’s hierarchy, under Napoleon it was degraded towards the fourth and last place. As a result, the subject matter that was required to be taught in this course looked much less ambitious than before. According to the new educational programme, history was to be given only in the third, fourth, and ith years of study. Within these three years, ancient, modern, and French history had to be covered. he main diference was that these three types of history no longer needed to be studied from a philosophical point of view. Henceforth, it suiced (once again) to teach (a survey of ) the important events from the past structured by the rules of the chronology, and sometimes explained by divine providence. When the revolutionary era came to an end, the (political) interest in instructing history in a philosophical way seemed to have disappeared. Instead of

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Barnard 1969, 203–205; Garcia & Leduc 2003, 36–37. Garcia & Leduc 2003, 36.

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making judgments on the state of Enlightenment of certain periods from the past, a simple, chronological and factual survey was taught at school. Concerning content, not that much remained of the revolutionary experiment to examine the evolution of the human spirit through the past. Since the educational aims had been re-adjusted, the teaching of history changed as well.

PART FOUR

PAST AND PRESENT

THE PAST AS A PLACE: CHALLENGING PRIVATE OWNERSHIP OF HISTORY IN THE UNITED STATES Sharon Ann Holt he question of a public versus a private past opens up some new vistas in considering history in the United States, as the public/private polarity is not one American historians conventionally apply to our national past. Founded largely as a chain of speculative economic ventures, and then established by the overthrow of royal authority on behalf of popular government, the United States neither inherited nor created the cultural structures associated with European royalty and nobility. he constitutional ban on established churches, moreover, nulliied any role for monastic or clerical power in amassing collections or controlling historical narratives. While the development and the erosion of royal, noble, and monastic authority in Europe profoundly shaped American experience, by 1800 those authorities had been mostly pushed out of the United States. here could be therefore no nationalist, anti-clerical, or class payof involved in redistributing authority, artifacts, or archives that had never been efectively hoarded in the irst place. What could easily be dismissed as structurally irrelevant, however, should not be. History in the United States has actually been fraught with questions of public and private authority, despite the absence of centralized aristocratic or religious wealth and power. he stakes have been just as high though the contestants are diferent. Manipulations of the past in American life have arisen principally as assertions of regional and factional power. Among the most striking of these assertions are New England’s long-standing conviction that Puritans provided the dominant strain of American culture, the South’s armed defense of its pro-slavery reading of the Constitution, and the claims of contemporary Christian fundamentalists for a Christian myth of US national origins. Americans, like Europeans, have used understandings of history incessantly to deine themselves as a people, to justify the inclusion and exclusion of newcomers, to dispute public policies, and to measure each other’s patriotism. A variety of such narrowly ‘private’ visions of the past have competed for public credibility and

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assent, mobilizing politics, education, religion, media, and law in their struggles. While Americans may have little to fear from ixed institutions closing of the past or rewriting it without public consent, there is much to fear from the ascendancy of self-interested versions of the past. hose revisions can install themselves switly throughout key institutions of public life and from there have direct consequences for behavior and rights. For this reason, challenges to the ‘private ownership’ of the past in the United States are fundamentally political, rather than archival or educational. With historical materials widely available, public schooling a legal requirement, and literacy exceptionally high from the very earliest years of national life, free access to the past in the United States has meant sustaining oicial tolerance of inquiry, criticism, and divergent opinion.1 hat is to say, the past remains public in the United States when the private rights of individuals to form their own opinions are substantially protected. Whenever a faction ascendant in the public sphere sanctions those who challenge its version of ‘America’, that public power constrains or denies citizen access to the past. he Power of Mythologies of Place Americans have very wide access to historical source materials in part because quests for local identity and importance have long driven collecting and interpretation by historical organizations.2 Americans use history actively to animate the landscape, oten elaborating Romantic narratives that make particular communities seem more signiicant or unique than they actually are. hese mythologies of place provide limited access to the rewards of geographic rootedness, like a facade of neighborhood, of belonging, and of personal signiicance drawn from 1 Because public school curricula in the United States are determined at the statelevel, elementary and secondary school children generally hear far more distinctively regional understandings of the past than they would encounter at collegiate institutions. hroughout the educational system, though, the size of populations in California and Texas, and therefore of their markets for textbooks, makes those states disproportionately inluential with textbook writers and publishers. See for example, Alexander Stille, ‘Textbook Publishers Learn: Avoid Messing with Texas’. New York Times June 29, 2002. 2 Sally F. Griith, Serving history in a changing world: he Historical Society of Pennsylvania in the twentieth century (Philadelphia: he Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 2001), 10–12.

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connection to important historical events. But they transparently also relieve Americans for the most part of the challenges of actually maintaining practical, familial, economic, or cultural roots in one place. According to census bureau studies, each year 20% of Americans move to new addresses.3 More than that, they honor geographic mobility as a mark of ambition and success. Going far away to college, moving to another state to accept a promotion, or re-settling on the opposite coast from one’s family are all considered evidence of independence and adulthood. By ascribing character to real estate, Americans make each new place pre-emptively familiar, and assert an individual personality just by selecting among destinations. ‘he West’, ‘New York’, ‘the heartland’, or ‘he South’ all carry rich cultural meanings, implying that even strangers can know what is expected, where to go to meet new friends, what kind of goods may be for sale at what price, what sort of housing one might reasonably seek. Ardent championship of a Romantic past associated with each new place can disguise what is actually a remarkably shallow engagement with a succession of addresses. his animation of place makes it possible for places to ofer what seem to be fully-realized identities, which individuals can put on like a new outit when moving in, and shuck again just as readily when moving on. Jokes abound in American life featuring characters deined by place—the fuming New Yorker trying to hail a cab in rural Texas, or the hayseed Iowa farm kid exploited on the streets of Chicago. he jokes take all their humor from the assumption that character derives from place, and the corollary assumption that people can and will draw their personal character from their place. Supported by these mythologies of place, at any given moment one can claim a community and a sense of self, camoulaging actual habits of rejecting real spatial and social roots. In recent decades, economically-distressed American municipalities have even embraced ‘heritage tourism’, an efort to entice outsiders to spend their vacation dollars immersing themselves in successive local romances. Driven by the need for mythologies that attract tourism dollars, contemporary communities expect public historians to identify, register, and promote anything—churches, neighborhoods, public

3 Jason Schachter, Current Population Reports, March 1999 to March 2000 (Washington, DC: United States Bureau of the Census, 2001), 1.

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buildings, ‘Main Streets’, farms, forts—that links the community to popular historical narratives. Building on ‘the power of place’, heritage tourism depends upon exaggerating the widespread identiication of character with real estate. he prize of new investment presumably will go to the towns that establish the most efective, unique ‘place brand’. his utilitarian approach to the past highlights questions of urgent importance to public historians. Visible principally in museums, historic sites, and archival collections, public historians occupy the ground between scholarship and the general public. he profession’s charge in that middle ground is to preserve and interpret complex historical knowledge in ways that engage and empower citizens. To do that work well in the twenty-irst century, public historians need to understand why Americans choose to defend even their own fabrications as truth. hey need to know why a falsely simpliied but favorable history is easier to sell than the juicy and complicated narratives of simultaneous human greatness and failure. Why does a signiicant portion of the audience deine its disdain for historical complexity as proof of its patriotism. How can a democracy thrive when even public investments in heritage are designed to hoodwink visitors rather than to serve residents. In a national culture that politicizes the past and embeds historical narrative in a collective quest for identity and economic prosperity, the past can become almost ‘too’ public. Working on the front lines of public understanding but accountable to historical scholarship, public historians regularly confront market-based manipulations of the past utterly devoid of historical warrant. Since Americans move their private lives from place to place, they particularly demand a national historical narrative—a public reality—that is ixed—as inite and changeless as a piece of real estate. Because mythic histories link Americans to identity, community, and patriotism, when public historians present a portion of the historical record that challenges a cherished myth, they might as well be scheming to burn down the house. Interestingly, what Americans mean by a ‘national historical narrative’ is oten itself a very private and personal vision elaborated to serve narrow, local purposes. he classic demonstration of how this works emerges around the history of the Civil War (1860–1865). While the four years of armed hostilities took place a century and a half ago, conlict over what to call the war relects a continuing struggle among regions and factions for control of the war’s historical meaning. Presi-

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dent Abraham Lincoln himself declined even to call it a war, preferring ‘rebellion’, as that constitutional category permitted him more latitude in achieving the preservation of the Union. While professional historians and most northerners generally refer to the conlict as ‘he Civil War’, southerners frequently prefer ‘he War Between the States’, which privileges the role of state’s rights over slavery as a cause of the conlict. he most unreconstructed contemporary devotees of the Confederate cause refer to the war as ‘the War of Northern Aggression’. Some of these folks cherish emblems asserting ‘Lee Surrendered, I Didn’t’, claiming for themselves a personal power to sustain hostilities that ended before their grandparents were even born. Contemporary Americans still choose to name this formative conlict in ways that relect and justify the varying personal identities and purposes they claim for themselves. Recent conlicts in public history testify to the ways these competing ‘private’ pasts intersect with the national historical narrative. In the 1990s, the state of South Carolina, where war fever was hottest in the 1860s, insisted on its right to ly the old Confederate battle lag over its state house in honor of the state’s ‘heritage’. Opponents wanted the lag removed, pointing out that ater the war the battle lag had become the favorite symbol of organized white supremacists like the Ku Klux Klan, lying at lynchings of African Americans well into the twentieth century. he ight over ‘hate’ versus ‘heritage’ engaged all the predictable arguments over identity, ownership, and individual rights, marking it as another skirmish over whether American history is collective or customized, public or private. Examinations of the US decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan in 1945 exposed a similar division in ‘the national historical narrative’, with analogous struggles over naming and identity. he National Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian precipitated itself into this struggle in 1995 by attempting, perhaps naively, to mount a itieth anniversary exhibit on the atom bomb that would feature the fuselage of the Enola Gay, the plane that bombed Hiroshima. he Smithsonian took for granted wide public awareness of and comfort with ambivalence about the bomb, supported by academic scholars for whom the horriic realities ‘beneath the mushroom cloud’ had long clouded the righteous narrative of victory spun from ‘above’.4 hough both the

4 Edward Linenthal & Tom Engelhardt (eds.), History Wars: he Enola Gay and other battles for the American past (New York: Holt, 1996), 88.

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victory against fascism and its soul-withering price had occupied the public mind in 1945, the Smithsonian found to its shock and dismay that half a century and the shaky state of American military conidence had transformed opinions. What had been in its own time a hotly debated act with political and historical consequences had become ity years later the ‘private’ property of American veterans, a symbol of identity and virtue for the armed forces and their political allies. In the donnybrook that erupted, veterans asserted that the United States had had an unquestionable right to make war on Japanese civilians in order to save American soldiers and to revenge the attack on Pearl Harbor. Narratives of the event that included attention to civilian sufering in Hiroshima or pointed out that considerations about the post-war balance of power demonstrably shaped President Harry Truman’s decision were branded as ‘pro-Japanese’, ‘unpatriotic’, even ‘treasonous’. In the end, the Smithsonian could ind no way to couch the exhibit successfully as history, and abandoned the efort. In short, despite the absence in the United States of hegemonic royal and religious organizations, Americans nevertheless struggle with public versus private meanings in history. History gets treated as though the past were a piece of real estate, subject to one owner only, whose private control over the property is beyond contest. For many people, losing control of the ‘the past’ creates a sense almost of homelessness, fueling an angry resentment of having been evicted from a home they themselves built. Creating ‘private owners’ of the past with the authority to shut out dissenting voices operates against both the inherently revisable nature of historical narrative and the purpose of public history, which is to inform and foster citizenship. Political struggles over the past therefore relect in critical ways the health of American democracy, and challenge public historians trying to work within starkly incompatible visions. Recently, public history organizations have been trying to build new audiences for museums and historic sites by creating customized ‘niche’ histories. hese narratives, while not false to historical records, nevertheless git-wrap particular narratives with an eye toward pleasing a specialized group of visitors. Even when they succeed in building audiences, therefore, niche-histories do so at the expense of the very ‘public’ function of history that anchors the profession.

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History that ‘Re-Grows’ the Public Sphere Since 2002, I have been involved in two projects that shed some light on an alternative way out of the impasse of privatizing history in order to secure public attention to it. Both are on-going, so the ultimate results remain unclear, but they are giving rise to a way of reclaiming the mission to serve citizenship that long animated the American public history profession. he irst project has brought about a remarkable re-interpretation of the President’s House, the nation’s irst executive mansion on Independence Mall in Philadelphia. he second involves the preservation and interpretation of the now-defunct Bethlehem Steel works in eastern central Pennsylvania. Both projects turn on the transformation of one generation’s ‘junk’ into a later generation’s treasure. he President’s House, the inest private home in eighteenth-century Philadelphia, was last used by the national government in 1800 and by 1833 had been remodeled to death. In 1951, when its last remaining outer walls were torn down, no one involved remotely suspected these were the same walls that had sheltered the working and domestic lives of George Washington and John Adams. he National Park Service built a public restroom on the cleared site. hen, in 1974, Park Service historians documented internally that the Washingtons had kept nine people in slavery at the house during their tenure, but Independence National Historical Park decided to bury that story to avoid controversy. When the story surfaced independently in the 1990s, Independence Park fought iercely to discredit the research, silence its advocates, and retain the former site of the President’s House simply as a landscaped entrance to, of all things, the Liberty Bell. In Bethlehem, the abandoned steelworks narrowly escaped demolition in the late 1990s, as political leaders sought any available method of restoring economic energy to the small, struggling, post-industrial city. he remaining Bethlehem Steel buildings represent the only fullyintegrated steelmaking plant still standing in the United States. he site’s history has global resonance, encompassing breakthroughs in technology and engineering, beams made for skyscrapers and bridges known throughout the world, and the workers and machinery that armed the U.S. Navy through two world wars. Its connections to mines, railroads, and ports linked the small city to other major industries, global immigration routes, maritime trade, and cross-continental construction. But only a few hundred local people felt strongly enough

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to try to save the steelworks, and while the site’s fate hung in the balance, its advocates quarreled bitterly among themselves about what stories mattered most and who got to tell them. Both the President’s House site and the Bethlehem Steel plant held stories that seemed to force a choice between competing pasts, competing identities, competing patriotisms. hough in reality, white liberty and black slavery grew up blood kin in the new American republic, the two histories could not, it seemed, occupy the same small site at the President’s House. Independence National Historical Park long resisted interpreting George Washington as a slave owner, explicitly fearing that white visitors would object to the ‘tarnishing’ of Washington’s reputation, creating political fall-out for the Park. Since the story broke in 2002, the Park has struggled with the complementary problem—addressing the demands of some African-American citizens for exclusive attention to the nine enslaved residents of the House and the silencing of the presidential stories altogether. In fact, each constituency behaved as though the site, only eight hundred feet2 (seventy-ive meters2), had to be won in toto for its own story. Once won, the git-wrapped history admitted to the site would support a mythology of evil and virtue which many Americans cling to in facing the fact of American slavery. Many whites prefer a myth about virtuous white leadership and African racial inferiority; for some blacks, the cherished myth is about African heroism and total white hypocrisy. Both are distortions; both serve to maintain racial divisions in contemporary society, and neither is worthy of serious historians or a serious public. here is, in truth, some justice in African-American demands for primacy at the site, since whites have been telling their own story of the founding generation there for generations. his irst national memorial to the immense contribution of enslaved people to American wealth, culture, and politics seems like a good place to begin to redress centuries of neglecting and destroying African-American historical resources. However, telling only the histories of African-Americans at the President’s House actually diminishes the signiicance of their presence there by removing it from the presidential context. Slavery’s presence in Washington’s household and absence from Adams’ is what forces all visitors to recognize the new nation’s choice to build its liberty on a foundation in slavery. Confronting that historical choice, knowing its continually unfolding meanings and costs, will animate citizenship. For either whites or blacks to present a private story as a

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public one only maintains existing channels of public discourse within the boundaries of each group. In the summer of 2007, archaeological excavations demanded by citizens determined to see slavery properly interpreted on the site uncovered the remains of the President’s House foundations. he wholly unexpected inds dramatized the public value of full interpretation of the site. he foundations of a bow window added by George Washington to create an honorable but not too ostentatious stage for his presidential appearances sits in the ground side by side with the foundation of the House kitchen, where enslaved chef Hercules worked and plotted a successful escape to freedom. Just east of the kitchen stand the foundation remains of a corridor used by slaves and servants moving to and from the very State Dining Room presided over by the great bow window. Side by side, in other words, lie the stories of Republican leadership, chattel slavery, and the eforts to hide that ambiguity from the public eye. Five years of public demonstrations, scholarly writing, political maneuvering, petitioning and debates, fund-raising, changes of leadership, and now archaeology, have established the accuracy of the disputed research on the House and produced a near resolution on the use of the site. At this moment, a design for interpreting the archaeological remains and the complex stories of the site is in place, and eforts are underway to raise the last $ 2.5 million needed to build it. In Bethlehem too the conlict was about virtue, though of a diferent sort. Business historians have argued that Bethlehem Steel Corporation failed largely by cherishing too long the business model that originally made it great. But the stories of greatness and failure could not, it seemed, be told on the same site, anymore than could the stories of liberty and slavery. he site had to privilege either the corporation’s history of innovation and global leadership or the pride and bitterness of a generation of steelworkers devastated by the Steel’s bankruptcy. Neither story, absent the other, could even be considered true, let alone acceptable to the local community, and the failure to create a legitimate narrative that addresses the whole picture threatens the future of the site. Fearful that an ambiguous historical narrative could undermine the value of planned commercial, residential, and casino/convention center developments, the current property owners (and their allies in the local cultural community) prefer to treat the industrial history of the place as a decorative motif, investing nearly nothing in actually interpreting

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either history. hey also seek to contain the past in the past—isolating even their sanitized vision of life at the Steel in order to keep whatever might be learned from corporate history safely denuded of any import for the present and future. By pursuing this course, though, they are gradually forfeiting credibility with the local population, municipal government, and regional cultural institutions. Whether the outcome of the conlict is a positive change of interpretive direction or a deeply damaging local disillusionment still hangs in the balance. As advocates for public history, my organization, the Mid-Atlantic Regional Center for the Humanities, has worked hard at both sites to strengthen a community-based interpretive strategy that bridges niche narratives by linking the past with the present and future. Both Bethlehem Steel and the President’s House faced obliteration because contending parties demanded exclusivity—demanded public endorsement of a private identity and the historical narrative that validates it. he community-based strategy takes as its interpretive heart the public impact of events at each site: the simultaneous development of liberty and slavery in one case, and the local, national, and ultimately global footprint of American industry in the other. By putting the impact of historical events at the interpretive center, this approach makes it possible to address both impressive and appalling aspects of the past, and especially to show the public that the upsides and downsides weave together to create each era’s historical legacy. At both sites, the work of public historians has been to advocate for interpretation built around human agency and choice. Such tales make room for greatness and error, for idealism and hypocrisy, for pride and rage. For instance, at Bethlehem Steel, we have proposed building interpretation around a core story of how the gargantuan, seemingly super-human, Steel plant was actually built, sustained, and destroyed by human brains and hands. hat story makes room for histories of corporate innovation and workman’s pride as well as for union greed and management cupidity. his is not a git-wrapped narrative designed to comfort one set of players but a public past geared to vitalizing civic life today. his is not history that stays in the past, but historical knowledge active in the present. A history of decision making with perilous consequences for the economy will both educate residents and engage visitors well into the future, as the fruits of past decisions continue to unfold in contemporary life. Likewise, at the President’s House, public historians have supported a narrative focused on the choices made by the two presidential cou-

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ples and by enslaved people like Hercules, who worked as Washington’s chef, and Oney Judge, lady’s maid to Martha Washington. Both Hercules and Oney Judge plotted successful escapes from the President’s House, building on networks we know existed in the city’s free black community and along the busy eighteenth century waterfront. As with an industrial narrative about decision making, a President’s House narrative about choices fraught with risk helps unite the biographies of everyone involved, engaging site visitors and city residents in an examination of the impact of their own choices about race, justice, community, complicity, and resistance. Placing human agency and choice at the center of historical interpretation resolves the duality of public and private in a fertile and empowering way. Exploring history as the public outcome of many private human decisions invites people to bring their private visions forward without promising to privilege any particular one. Narrative pluralism makes room for many voices, thereby returning historymaking to the public sphere, where history can enliven citizenship, even especially by sparking controversy and enabling debate. As Robert Putnam has argued, Americans have retreated over the last half century into the privatization of almost everything,5 a state of afairs that increases the importance of airming the public nature of history. Historic sites that galvanize the American sense of place are the perfect settings for challenging the pernicious notion of private ownership of the past.

5 Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: he Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000), chapter 15.

IMPRESSED IMAGES/EXPRESSED EXPERIENCES: THE HISTORICAL IMAGINATION OF POLITICS Susan Legêne

During the inal debate at the conference ‘Free Access to the Past’ a comparison question arose about national historiography. Could parallels be drawn between the nineteenth-century debate on national culture and history in the then new nations of Europe, on the one hand, and the twentieth century discussions on this same topic in the new post-colonial states of the South, on the other? While introducing the forum discussion on the subject I argued that maybe we should not even wish to make such comparisons. Looking for parallels between nineteenth century debates on the history of the national states in the ‘old’ Europe and current discussions on that topic in the ‘young’ nation states of the South, implies an equation of developments ‘in the past, in Europe’ with ‘now, elsewhere’. Parallels such as these have a colonial connotation; in the past they were oten drawn against a colonial backdrop. Besides, we cannot ask for such a comparison in the present-day context, if only because of the deep penetration of colonial processes of citizenship and nation building into the relations that exist in the young post-colonial nation states relative to their national past. Colonial history is present in many respects, and it has a major impact on the historical understanding of national communities. V.S. Naipaul, descendent of indentured labourers recruited in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in the British-Indian colonial era, described his own feelings about this in the national context of Trinidad as ‘. . . the feeling of having entered the cinema long ater the ilm had started’.1 Of course making international comparisons is indeed important, but then the ‘time frames’ within which the comparison is being made should match. his is why I will be making a dual comparison here, aimed at topical discussions on present-day citizenship and the signiicance of colonial history, and at the impact on these contemporary discussions, of early twentieth century conceptualisation processes

V.S. Naipaul, Reading and Writing. A Personal Account (New York: New York Review of Books, 2000), 37. 1

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concerning the nation as an imagined community.2 My two examples have to do with the Netherlands/Indonesia and with France/WestAfrica. he irst example (the ‘Impressed Images’ from the title of this piece) is about the literal impression of the colonial drive as a national drive with which people could identify from the standpoint of the Netherlands coloniser; the second (the ‘Expressed Experiences’ from the title) is about the symbolic expression of the actual participation of African colonial subjects in current French historical discourse. Just like England, for instance, the Netherlands and France were European nations whose imperialistic political practices overseas were part of the process of shaping the state and building the nation, even though they would sooner or later lose these colonies.3 As a result, in the development of these European nations ‘Empire’ was not just about ‘the West and the Rest’, about relations and conceptualisation processes between the West and societies elsewhere in the world. It was, perhaps irst and foremost, about the relations that the Europeans developed with their ‘own’ imagined communities overseas. If we were to project Peter Fritzsche’s concept of time-zones (elsewhere in this publication) somewhat wider on the map of the world, we would then see—in the context of the imperialistic nation building of the nineteenth and early twentieth century—the emergence of imagined communities of transnational citizens with a variety of ties between the West and its ‘own Westerners, elsewhere’. Consider the relationships of people from within Europe with ‘their’ settlers in the settler colonies where indigenous people became marginalized; the increasing reciprocity and gradually changing balance of power in the relationships between Europe and the United States; or the completely diferent relationships with those colonial societies where the colonising Europeans were a minority who based their rule on coercion and

2 his contribution is a thoroughly revised version of my inaugural lecture on 30 January 2009 as Professor of Political History at the VU University, Amsterdam. (Legêne 2009) I thank Ninette de Zylva for translation and editing. 3 Frederick Cooper, Colonialism in Question. heory, Knowledge, History (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005), 171; Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Relections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (New York/London: Verso, 1991); John M. MacKenzie (ed.), he Victorian Vision. Inventing New Britain (London: V&A Publications, 2001); Catherine Hall & Sonya Rose (eds.), At Home with the Empire. Metropolitan Culture and the Imperial World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).

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control.4 How did these divergent ‘transnational’ bonds of the citizens of the nineteenth century European nations take shape, both inside Europe and in relation to the societies overseas? What happened to them ater decolonisation and what is the efect of these historical bonds now? hese questions are relevant for a better understanding of processes of community building in relation to national historiography both of post-colonial nations ‘in Europe’ as well as ‘elsewhere’. hey will be approached here with reference to two cases of historical signiication processes that express the development of transnational citizenship in Netherlands and French colonial history. Both cases relate to early twentieth century discourses on the nation as an imagined community that included its colonial citizens, as well as to today’s discussions on community development in the Netherlands and France and the more or less instrumental appeal from politicians for (an imagined) national history in which these former colonial bonds do not easily it. As far as participation of individual citizens within the national community is concerned, politicians in European countries nowadays oten refer to history as a (potential or coerced) unifying force. In this context, post-colonial immigrants may be addressed as citizens with transnational cultural ties resonant with European colonial history. In the Netherlands, such an inclusive approach can been found for some years now in certain initiatives concerning the Dutch slavery past. For instance, a plaque was unveiled in 2006 outside the oicial residence of the mayor of Amsterdam, a historic building where back in the seventeenth century a slave trader had lived. Etched into the stone, passersby can read: ‘Slave trade and slavery are crimes against humanity’ and: ‘Today our city of Amsterdam knows many citizens whose ancestors these Africans once were’.5 A museum example to illustrate this inclusive approach, is the establishment in Paris of the Cité nationale de l’histoire de l’immigration. his new museum is housed in the Palais de la Porte Doré, built in 1931 for the world’s fair and designed as a fully 4 Cooper 2005; N. homas, Colonialism’s Culture, Anthropology, Travel and Government (Oxford: Polity Press, 1994). 5 he heading of the text reads: ‘As long as the memory lingers on, the sufering will not have been in vain’. he last part of the sentence refers to 23 August, which in 2004 Unesco designated as an international remembrance day of the slave trade. he plaque at the oicial residence of the mayor of Amsterdam on the Herengracht, was unveiled by Mayor Job Cohen on 23 May 2006.

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programmed building for the presentation of colonialism, including a tropical aquarium.6 Until a few years ago, besides an aquarium, it was also home to an ethnographical museum, the Musée des Arts d’Afrique et d’Océanie. Today, the aquarium is still there but the ethnographics have been moved to the Musée du quai Branly. Instead, since 2008 the Palais de la Porte Doré presents an inclusive story about the many migrants who, during the course of history, have let or entered France, and thus have contributed to the history of the nation. Yet, more oten than not politicians show little regard for the former colonial citizenship that as a matter of fact in some way already included post-colonial immigrants for generations, and in the irst place appeal to them to take more pride in the history of the country whose citizen they are. hus, national history is narrowed down to a history of the nation in Europe. For instance, Mark Rutte (VVD), leader of the liberal party in the Netherlands, stated that wellintegrated immigrants in the Netherlands should not only be familiar with the Dutch language and follow the constitution of the Netherlands, but should also dare to say: ‘this nation’s history: this is ours!’ And not long ater this VVD statement, came another from the Netherlands labour party (PvdA) with only a slightly less imposing view on history: ‘We all speak Dutch, we are acquainted with the elementary conventions and we respect, know, and understand the history of our democratic constitutional state. his applies to all citizens of the Netherlands’.7 In current political discourse, active knowledge of and identiication with national history has thus become an expression of good citizenship. When we consider the issue of ‘Free Access to the Past’ it is important that we carefully think through the relation between national historiography, public debate on history, and the political appeal for identi6 I visited the museum shortly ater it was opened in 2007. See also: Le Palais des colonies. Histoire du Musée des Arts d’Afrique et d’Océanie (Paris: Edition de la Réunion des musées nationaux, 2002). 7 Interview in the Netherlands newspaper NRC-Handelsblad 28–8–2008, ater the publication of the VVD’s new political programme. his programme states: ‘Good citizenship, also of immigrants, implies that by their actions individuals give credence to the culture and accompanying norms of our society. he Netherlands society has its origins in Jewish-Christian traditions, Humanism and Enlightenment. hese fundamentals of civilisation, together with the Dutch language, the country’s history and the constitution, form the cornerstone of our national identity’. PvdA-quotation from the drat Resolution ‘Divided Past, Shared Future’, PvdA’s standpoint on integration policy, published on 23–12–2008, 4. he inal resolution text will be subject to vote in spring 2009.

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ication with national history as a form of good citizenship, both as a matter of content and method. In this respect I will apply the concept of imagined community8 not only to the present (trans) national communities of nation states, but also to informal communities like, for instance, scientiic collaboratives, or Internet communities. Internet, ICT in general is important in this respect, because, to better understand the dynamics of debates on national history we also need to better understand the technological and scientiic instruments through which people communicate and create communities. Today history is more accessible that ever before, thanks to the digitalisation of sources and the interactive opportunity for community building around collective histories on the worldwide web. he cases that will be discussed here indicate this as well. But ‘technology has advanced much more quickly than has our understanding of its present and potential uses’.9 and this phase diference also occurs in our understanding of how and why people search the web for Free Access to the Past via museums, libraries, and stories. So three themes come together when we discuss here the historical imagination of politics: imagery processes concerning transnational citizenship in a colonial context; the appeal from politicians nowadays for history as a domain of citizenship creation; and the impact of ICT on historical research. Impressed images I call on the famous Netherlands historian, Johan Huizinga, to help me elaborate the irst case, concerning the Netherlands. Johan Huizinga (1872–1945), who gained international fame for his cultural-historical work Herfsttij der Middeleeuwen (he waning of the Middle Ages, 1919), began his academic career as linguist and Sanskritist, but from 1905 onwards shited his focus to history. His historical works express a strong relationship with his own times and the signiicance of culture in processes of nation building. As a result Huizinga’s oeuvre is most relevant to our present understanding of the intellectual and artistic framework of the European cultural history of the twentieth century, against the backdrop of the rise of fascism, the Second World War, and

Anderson 1991. Christine L. Borgman, Scholarship in the Digital Age. Information, Infrastructure and the Internet (Cambridge, MA/London: he MIT Press, 2007), 3. 8 9

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the dramatic changes within the European nation states ater 1945. In this respect, the Netherlands cultural-historian Léon Hanssen, regards Huizinga as ‘an exponent of a crisis of meaning in European culture’.10 I agree with this analysis, however, what I miss in it is a relection on the meaning of the colonial expansion as one of the moulding constituents of this European development.11 How did Huizinga’s work—his historical and cultural views—relate to this? At the beginning of the twentieth century, Huizinga had just graduated as Sanskritist. hose were also the early years of the Ethische Politiek (Ethical policy), or the self-assured Netherlands colonial approach aimed at the simultaneous enlightening and strengthening of control on the population of the Netherlands East Indies.12 Within this framework of a civilising mission, more support was sought in the Netherlands for colonial eforts, and thus the Colonial Museum in Haarlem had a medal issued in 1902 in commemoration of the German natural scientist Georg Everhard Rumphius (1627–1702), who had written signiicant work about the nature and culture of the Moluccas.13 he commemoration was linked to a Rumphius foundation for the promotion of (natural) scientiic research in the Netherlands East Indies, initiated by the Director of the Colonial Museum, Maurits Greshof (1862–1909). he medal was commissioned to boost the fund. Johan

10 he biography, a thesis with the title Huizinga and the solace of history: reason and imagination, has only been published in Dutch: Léon Hanssen, Huizinga en de troost van de geschiedenis: verbeelding en rede (Amsterdam: Balans, 1996). Quotation from the English Summary (p. 355). 11 H.L. Wesseling, Europa’s koloniale eeuw. De koloniale rijken in de negentiende eeuw, 1815–1919 (Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 2003); Hall & Rose 2006; Edward W. Said, Culture and imperialism (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993); Christopher Bayly, ‘In de 19de eeuw bracht het liberalisme ook buiten het Westen vrijheden’. NRC-Handelsblad 20–12–2008 (Opinie en Debat pp. 4–5 Huizingalecture 19–12–2008). 12 Marieke Bloembergen & Remco Raben (eds.), Het koloniale beschavingsofensief. Wegen naar het nieuwe Indië, 1890–1950 (Leiden: KITLV Uitgeverij, 2009). 13 Although he became blind in 1670 and also had to face much personal and scientiic misfortunes, Rumphius successfully compiled two early standard works: D’Amboïnsche rariteitkamer (he Ambonese curiosity cabinet) (posthumous publication in 1705) en Het Amboïnsche kruidboek (he Ambonese book of herbs) (published in six volumes between 1741 and 1750). See also E.M. Beekman, Georgius Everhardus Rumphius—he Ambonese Curiosity Cabinet. Translated, Edited, Annotated and with an Introduction. (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 1999).

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Fig. 1. Various commemoration medals about Dutch colonialism. Rumphius commemoration medals, design by Johan Huizinga. 1902. Collection Tropenmuseum Amsterdam, nr. 3401–1563.

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Huizinga, whose background as Sanskritist and literary scholar it in with the cultural theme of the Colonial Museum, designed it.14 In those early years of Ethical Policy, the Netherlands had grand colonial ambitions that could only be realised by concerted efort. With this in mind dozens more medals were minted. And four decades ater the Rumphuis-medal had been issued, Johan Huizinga in a jubilee speech for the Royal Netherlands Academy of Science could declare that a major part of the scientiic research in the Netherlands had taken place in the tropics. He stated: ‘We do not lapse into national overestimation when we claim that the Netherlands has got a irm foothold in the scientiic world and continues to do so, as is worthy of the signiicance of our empire here and overseas, covering an area of over two million Km2 with a total population of almost seventy million’. In the irst place this concerned exact sciences but also humanities: ‘he growth to full stature of our ethnology, archaeology, geography, descriptive law, and linguistics is, for a not negligible part, due to our close ties with the Netherlands East Indies’. Ater which he pointed out internationally renowned scientists such as the scholar of Islam Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje (1857–1936) and the legal scholar Cornelis van Vollenhoven (1873–1933).15 hese scientiic developments in a colonial context are imprinted in the collection of the Colonial Museum by means of medals depicting, for example, malaria research, aerial surveying of New Guinea or the geographical expeditions. All the big names from maritime and colonial political history were honoured with a medal as well.16

14 Rumphius’ drawing by Huizinga: Tropenmuseum collection no. 3401–1563. For this medal Huizinga used the only known portrait of Rumphius, around 1695, by his son Paulus Augustus, and engraved by J. De Later. See also: Beekman 1999; Het leven van den grooten Nederl.-Indischen natuuronderzoeker G.E. Rumphius, 1628–1702. Vlugblad van het Koloniaal Museum Haarlem. (S.l.: s.p., 1902); M. Greshof, & J.E. Heeres, Rumphius gedenkboek 1702–1902 (Haarlem: Koloniaal Museum, 1902), III. 15 J. Huizinga, ‘De wetenschappen in het algemeen en die der afdeeling letterkunde’. J. Huizinga & J. van der Hoeve, Vijf maal vijfentwintig jaar wetenschap in Nederland: redevoeringen gehouden in de vergadering der Nederlandsche akademie van wetenschappen op 7 April 1941, door de beide voorzitters, ter herdenking van hare oprichting op 6 April 1816 (S.l.: s.p., [KNAW 1941]), 14, 16–17. 16 Most of the medals can be found in the Tropenmuseum collection series 1810*. hink of Piet Hein (West Indian Company), Jan Pieterszoon Coen (East Indian Company), Jan van Riebeeck (Cape of Good Hope, South Africa), and Pieter Stuyvesant (New Amsterdam), through to Johannes van den Bosch (Cultivation System Java, mid-nineteenth century), Jacob heodoor Cremer (Tobacco cultivation Sumatra, and Minister of Colonies), General S.H. Spoor (Indonesian-Netherlands wars of indepen-

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Each time a new medal was issued there had been something to celebrate or commemorate. he numerous ‘Impressed Images’ portraying breakthroughs in transport and the communication between the Netherlands, the Indonesian archipelago and the Caribbean region are striking. Just think of medals celebrating mail boats, submarines, railway connections, radio communication, and aviation. here were also medals depicting reminders of war, hardship, and historical watersheds. Examples are the commemorative medals of the Great Trek of the Africaner Boer in South Africa; the military conquest of the island Lombok in 1894, the Java Sea battle in 1942 when the Netherlands leet were defeated by Japan; and the medal commemorating the courage of the European women imprisoned during the Japanese occupation of the Netherlands East Indies; or the liberation of a sugar factory during the war in 1947. (Fig. 1) Most of the medals were minted at the famous Netherlands silver manufacturing company ‘Royal Begeer’ that in 1942 came up with the plan for a new series of tokens relating to Dutch colonial history.17 he plan never came to fruition. Because, when Begeer came up with that design the Netherlands was occupied by Nazi Germany, and ater 1945 everything in the relationship between the Netherlands and its colony changed. he armed conlict and the diplomatic struggle between Indonesia and the Netherlands led to a radical change of the framework within which the Netherlands saw its former colonial relations. Many citizens of the colonial empire had to choose between becoming Netherlands or Indonesian nationals; which to many was not always a free choice. he end of the colonial empire of the Netherlands in the East also brought an end to the (semi-transnational) imagined community of scientists, politicians, entrepreneurs, and military, for whom the medals had played a igurative role as a tangible, unifying factor. he idea of the geographic expanse of the empire of two million square kilometres with which Huizinga in his 1942 speech had countered the German occupation, shrank to just the Netherlands and its overseas regions in the Caribbean: Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles. What it then came to was to shape a Netherlands nation that, in the dence 1945–1949) and Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, who between 1898 and 1948 reigned supreme over the Netherlands Dutch colonial empire. 17 Letter dated 23 July 1942; Royal Tropical Institute Amsterdam, archive inventory No. 1387.

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words of Cooper, was chiely organised around ‘a singular citizenry in a singular territory’.18 It was within these limited Netherlands’ conines that in 2002 the Netherlands were back again at a colonial history standstill. he founding of the VOC in 1602, was celebrated by activities throughout the country: from the Binnenhof in he Hague, the seat of the Netherlands parliament, and the city where in 1602 Johan van Oldenbarnevelt had founded the VOC, to Culemborg where Jan van Riebeeck was born in 1619; from the naval port Den Helder from where once the East Indian en West Indian ships set sail for the oceans, to Delt, whose mayor in 1705 had published Rumphius’ irst book.19 However, the celebration, with Rumphius in a historical role, which was devoid of the 1902 connotation of progress and change, was controversial. he Indonesian authorities could not accept the Netherlands-oriented framework of the VOC celebrations and refused to take part. Discussions also arose within the Netherlands society, be it for the greater part outside of the oicial channels and institutions, about the nature of the historical relations between the Netherlands and Indonesia. Among those active in that debate were descendants of the former Moluccan military of the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army (KNIL). heir parents and grandparents had come to the Netherlands ater the transfer of sovereignty, but thus far, and at this commemoration too, their colonial history did not seem to be part of a Netherlands’ national history. his VOC celebration thus laid bare various problems with regard to the Indonesian and Netherlands’ colonial past, linked to post-colonial society. Expressed experiences And this links to the second case we will discuss here, on French colonial history, which again starts with medals and coins in a igurative role. In October 1988 I happened to meet a retired veteran from the French army, the Force noire, in Koutiala in Mali. He had fought in the Second World War as well as in the Algerian war and was proud Cooper 2005, 22. he municipal museum in Delt organised an exhibition about Rumphius in Museum Nusantara, running parallel with an exhibition about the involvement of the city of Delt with the VOC. 18 19

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of it. To cherish those memories, he had kept some newspapers, the oldest a French paper from November 1940, as well as bank notes and coins from all the countries where he had served as a soldier in the French colonial army, including a little Kauri shell. He had French colonial bank notes from 1920 and later, Malinese Francs from before and during the time of General Moussa Traoré, coins and bank notes from Guinea, the Ivory Coast, Senegal, Mauretania, and Algeria, as well as French Francs CFA. Each bank note depicted a story and with every note he had a tale to tell: sometimes about himself, then again about major geopolitical or national events.20 As to the collection of medals in the former Colonial Museum, a glimpse of the history of colonialism and post-colonial nation building was clinging to the collection of coins of this former soldier of the French colonial army. hese referred to his experiences with diferent regimes and forms of citizenship within changing national structures that both in the legal sense as well as with regards to cultural citizenship, had resulted into various forms of participation in and identiication with the state.21 In the Malinese capital Bamako I recognised his colonial military history in the large statue Aux héros de l’Armée noire. he statue commemorates the year 1857 when the Tirailleurs sénégalais was founded, as well as 1914–1918 and the major battleields of the First World War and consists of four black soldiers, grouped around the French lag borne by a white oicer. It was erected in 1924 at the same time as an identical statue in Reims in France.22 Conscription had been brought into force in the French African colonies during the First World War and in the end the French colonial army had counted over 275,000 African soldiers. Among them were some 180,000 Tirailleurs sénégalais, soldiers of West African origin. More than 30,000 of them perished on the battlegrounds of Europe; their courage was commemorated in 1924 by the erection of the two 20 Field notes Mali 16–30 October 1988. On Traoré: In 1968 the army had staged a coup against the government of Modibo Keita. In 1991 Traoré was ousted and, led by Alpha Oumar Konaré, democracy was restored. 21 Cooper 2005, 80. 22 Sculptors: Paul Moreau-Vauttier and Auguste Bluysen. he informaton about the monument in Reims and the texts of the speeches of the dignitaries were derived from two internet dossiers: http://www.defense.gouv.fr/defense/webtv/memoire_et_ patrimoine/90eme_anniversaire_de_l_armistice_de_1918_hommage_aux_heros_de_ l_armee_noire, about the oicial commemoration of the Armistice, en http://crdp. ac-reims.fr/memoire/lieux/1GM_CA/monuments/01armeenoire.htm; accessed on 22–23 December 2008.

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statues, in Bamako as the capital of French Sudan, and in Reims, the city they had defended and protected in 1918.23 However, in 1940 the German occupiers removed the statue in Reims. When in 1952 veterans wanted to erect a new statue, it was considered too costly, the authorities feared for arguments about who had actually protected Reims in 1918, French or African soldiers, and besides people felt that the original group statue was too colonial anyhow. A more abstract monument came to be (designed by Claude Ducher), existing of two obelisks; one for the African soldiers and one for the French soldiers. Meanwhile, the descendents of the soldiers of the colonial army had become citizens of at least seventeen diferent African countries where French colonial conscription was once in force. And similar to what happened in the case of the KNIL soldiers, who ater Indonesian independence became citizens of the Netherlands, many of them now live in France.24 Recently French Government decided to support the initiative to bring back the original monument of Reims. When this was announced, Mrs. Rama Yade, the French Minister of Foreign Afairs and Human Rights reminded of the fact that initially 80% of the free French army of General De Gaulle had been African soldiers. Ater the war they had been treated diferently than the French veterans, qua inancial support, respect, and esteem. Furthermore, during their term of military service in the Second World War serious violation of their civil rights and human rights had taken place.25 he minister called it a shameful episode in history; a history that had also known much honour and dignity. It was the dignity of the soldiers themselves, who had

23 he monument in Bamako was unveiled on 3 January 1924; in Reims on 14 July 1924. he inauguration in Reims was carried out by Édouard Daladier, Minister of Colonies. hrough Echenberg 1991 I was made aware of how this military history is inscribed into the Malinese landscape, and thus is part of the collective memory. For instance, in the nineteen twenties conscripts who were not needed as soldiers were set to work on the construction of the infrastructure for the irrigation systems of the Oice du Niger. he same happened in the ports of Dakar and the Dakar-Niger railway. Myron Echenberg, Colonial Conscripts. he Tirailleurs Sénégalais in French West Africa, 1857–1960 (Portsmouth/London: Heinemann and James Currey, 1991), 61. 24 his concerned: Benin, Burkina Faso, Central Africa, Congo Brazzaville, Djibouti, Gabon, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Chad, Togo, and the Comores. 25 One of the incidents that the French minister referred to concerned the executions in hiaroye, on 1 December 1944. See also Echenberg 1991 Chapter six: ‘Morts pour la France’: he Tirailleurs Sénégalais and the Second World War; and Echenberg 1991, 87–104 and 169–170.

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remained proud of their actions. heir grandchildren, however, had every right to be angry. Why should they love France, a country that ignored their grandparents who had fought for that same nation, she asked. Historical errors Ater these explicit remarks by Minister Rama Yade about a relationship between colonial military history and current discussions on citizenship and community spirit, the mayor of Reims, Adeline Hazan declared that France had made historical errors, ‘des erreurs historiques’. Whereas to the African soldiers membership of the colonial army at the time had meant a step towards outright French citizenship, relationships ater the war had been relegated to mere colonial ones. Beyond its borders, ‘par-delà ses frontières’, the republic thus had disregarded its fundamental principles of freedom, equality, and brotherhood.26 She concluded that the time had come to turn this history into a shared French history. hese references to fundamental principles and ‘historical errors’ in the two speeches in Reims refer to a historical discourse on universal values that also can be read on the plaque at the oicial residence of the mayor of Amsterdam stating that slavery is a crime against humanity. Another parallel is the statement from the Netherlands Minister of Foreign Afairs, Ben Bot, during the celebrations in Indonesia in 2005 of its sixty years of independence. At that occasion Bot declared that the Netherlands in 1945 by its armed resistance against Indonesian independence had stood ‘so to speak, on the wrong side of history’.27 hese statements make clear that the coins, medals, certiicates, and monuments of recognition or appreciation—at home, in museums, on the street—are signiicant as historical inheritance in discussions about citizenship of the heirs, wherever they may live today. However, it also

26 ‘Il lui est arrivé de négliger, par-delà ses frontières, les principes fondamentaux de liberté, d’égalité, de fraternité, qui sont sa force et sa ierté’. See also: Echenberg 1991, 44. 27 he words of the Netherlands Minister of Foreign Afairs Ben Bot were reassessed both in Indonesia and among Netherlands’ politicians when the Netherlands Ambassador in Indonesia, Koos van Dam, referred to them on 9–12–2008 in a speech at the ceremony for commemoration of the 1947 massacre in Rawagede, Western Java.

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raises the question of what role historians have when politicians speak of historical mistakes. he framework of the nation state he politicians involved really cannot escape speaking out about colonial history. History is being heralded by themselves as the uniting factor whereby immigrants are invited, or urged to join the ‘imagined community’ of the nation state. Above, I drew on the political views on this of the Netherlands liberal and labour parties, and referred to the new immigration museum in Paris, France. But in their more or less compelling interpretation of the relationship between national history and good citizenship, they have to acknowledge that past colonial citizenship policies still have an impact on post-colonial society.28 he imperialist nation building of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries went hand-in-hand with processes of inclusion and exclusion, and enforced or voluntary transfer and migration.29 Various ‘grammars of diference and hierarchies of inequality’ emerged, linked to divergent classiication systems along lines of class, race, gender, and ethnicity.30 he mother country dictated these policies in the overseas colonies, with an efect to its own society as well. In the mother country in Europe colonial imagination became an integral part of the development of cultural nationalism. Just how this made itself felt can be illustrated in miniature by the medal collection of the Colonial Museum that in 1950 had changed its name into Tropenmuseum. If instead of looking at each individual token we look at the collection as a whole, then we will see impressed in their composite picture a characterisation of the relation between the Netherlands and the colonies. he history of the Netherlands as depicted on the medals is a history of events, of persons known by

28 Paul Gilroy, Ater Empire. Melancholia or convivial culture? (Oxfordshire: Routledge, 2004); Etienne Balibar, We, the People of Europe? Relections on Transnational Citizenship (Princeton/Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2004). 29 A recent inventory project by KITLV shows the extent and diversity of the colonial migration organised by the Netherlands, whether or not connected with enforced labour—slavery, contract labour, transmigration—and with military service. Gert Oostindie (ed.), Dutch colonialism, migration and cultural heritage (Leiden: KITLV press, 2008). About migration and the military see also: Echenberg 1991, 70–86. 30 Hall & Rose 2006, 18–20.

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their names, age, position, and special merit. Conversely, colonial society has a passive connotation, the colonial subject depicted as a mere symbol: woman, tree, rice plant, bufalo, the Buddha . . . he medals were made for the members of an imagined Netherlands community for whom the symbols and abstractions chosen by their artists were distinguishable as cultural rhetoric. In this way they created a dimension of experiencing images of otherness from a distance. Far from the colony, in the mother country, overseas inequality might have been known, but it was not necessary to experience it; ‘otherness’ could be idealised. And in the scientiic, political, and art world these ideal images slotted in as concepts of a broader cultural nationalistic way of thinking. Meanwhile, the overseas members of the own imagined communities of empire builders were involved in multiple relationships within their society. To them, the diference in citizens’ entitlements, jobs, and social situations, such as dealing with multilingualism or developing a pluralist judicial system, was the order of the day. Diference did make a diference. his interpretation of the colonial imagination in the mother country as an integral part of the development of European cultural nationalism, broadens the approach by the European research project of Joep Leerssen and others. Starting point in this project is that nationalism begins as a ‘cultivation of culture’ through inventory, interpretation, and mobilisation.31 In the context of the nineteenth century this cultivation of culture deals with the past: identifying ancient handwritings, texts, objects, intangible traditions of music, dance, and folklore, and sorting out how they it in a scheme of ‘own’ and ‘other’. ‘Own’ is connected to the territory of the own nation inside Europe, to ethnicity and to language. ‘Other’ is neighbouring; located outside the borders of the young new nation state, and fundamentally diferent as a result of its origin. However geographical boundaries do not deine cultural movements. ‘Whereas nationalism as a social and political movement takes place in a geographical space, cultural processes take shape in a mental ambience which is not tethered to any speciic location.’32 his analysis also makes sense outside of Europe, and I wpould argue that the cross-border ‘mental ambience’ within which nineteenth-century Joep Leerssen, he Cultivation of Culture. Towards a Deinition of Romantic Nationalism in Europe (Amsterdam: Working Papers European Studies Amsterdam 2, 2005), 48. 32 Leerssen 2005, 16. 31

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cultural nationalistic processes took place, had equal bearing on the thoughts about Western and non-Western culture. he same scholars researching historical literature on the ‘nationality’ of the mediaeval Reinaert de Vos, or the same artists whose work had been inspired by mediaeval traditions such as stained glass windows, were simultaneously moved and inluenced by contemporary cultural expressions from the colonies, whose historical signiicance to the colonial societies concerned were still unclear. Sanskrit is a prime linguistic example of this, the tradition of batik making was the crat most familiar, at least in the Netherlands.33 Huizinga as Sanskritist put into words these coexisting European cultural welfare in an ‘own’ past and in foreign cultures. In 1903 he expressed his particular interest in the boundaries of the world of Buddhism, where it nudged ‘the universal study of civilization’, as was the case with China, Japan, Hellinism, and ancient Christian culture.34 In his view the Netherlands’ interest in Eastern culture stemmed from German Romanticism. he Dutch linguist and Orientalist Hendrik Kern (1833–1917), for instance, had been strongly inluenced by Jacob Grimm.35 At the same time, Huizinga was quite critical about the nature of the interest, within the Netherlands, in the ‘ancient culture of India’ and how Buddhism was mainly seen as a ‘fantastic-artistic’ source of inspiration. In his public address on Buddhism in 1903, he declared: ‘it is characteristic of our time, that at each and every literary admiration for strange or past cultures, aesthetic emotion plays a much stronger role than all other factors either intellectual or moral, which could result into such admiration’.36 Moreover, he contrasted the ‘Indian mindset’—implying the present-day, awe-inspiring visual arts and architecture, the theatre, and the richness of stories originating from ancient India—with the European heritage of sixteenth century humanism, linking up the power of attraction of the irst mentioned with ‘the sphere of German Romanticism, sensitive par excellence’. In 1906 he explained in a letter to the archaeologist and Sanskritist Jean 33 Susan Legêne & Berteke Waaldijk, ‘Reverse images—patterns of absence. Batik and the representation of colonialism in the Netherlands’. Itie van Hout (ed.), Drawn in wax. 200 Years of batik art from Indonesia (Amsterdam: KIT Publishers, 2001), 34–65. 34 J. Huizinga, Over studie en waardeering van het Buddhisme. Openbare les, gehouden op den 7den october 1903 (Haarlem: H.D. Tjeenk Willink & Zoon, 1903), 35. 35 J. Huizinga, Hendrik Kern (Haarlem: H.D. Tjeenk Willink & Zoon, 1899), 5. 36 Huizinga 1903, 15–16.

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Philip Vogel (1872–1958), who at that moment was in India, that he had accepted an appointment as Professor of Cultural History, which henceforth would mean saying goodbye to his Sanskrit, however: ‘I would certainly defend the proposition that being acquainted with one of the Oriental civilizations is an exceptional factor to help foster the understanding of Western civilization. And my interest in this will remain, just like in good old friends who have gone to far-lung places’.37 When Huizinga subsequently published his famous he Waning of the Middle Ages (1919), the researcher into Javanese adat law Cornelis van Vollenhoven observed that this book gave him more insight into the royal households of Soerakarta and Jogyakarta as well.38 It was a casual remark from a scientist whose own academic investigations had a direct inluence on how the judicial order in the colonial state was developed and how citizenship rights were assigned. Just like the medal collection, his comment makes us aware that while studying cultural nationalism, we must not only focus on signiication processes but also on the actual organisation of classiication processes attached to state formation overseas. And that brings us back to the context within which today’s politicians made their remarks about the colonial past and the issue of the role of historians in this political discourse on national histories. We? he relation between national historiography and the colonial past was and remains complicated, and the history of the transitional period of individual countries in particular is still not well researched.39 Most of international research on the history and impact of colonial relations, furthermore, is steered chiely along quasi-national historical axes of, say, the French, British, and Netherlands colonial empires. In 37 Anton van der Lem, Johan Huizinga: leven en werk in beelden & documenten (Amsterdam: Wereldbibliotheek, 1993), 119. 38 Lem 1993, 140; also: Frances Gouda, Dutch Culture Overseas. Colonial Practice in the Netherlands Indies, 1900–1942 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1995) 126, 145. 39 he Netherlands-Indonesian project ‘From East Indies to Indonesia’ that ended in 2008 serves as a good example of common historical research on the transitional period. See also Cooper on the meaning of the transition period. Cooper 2005, 25.

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this respect, the question mark in the title of the French philosopher Etienne Balibar’s book of 2004, We, the people of Europe? in itself points at an important research agenda for historians.40 Research on historical citizenship practices ‘par-delà’, or rather beyond the boundaries of the individual European nations of today should be an integral part of that research. A crucial subject in this respect concerns the issue of periodisation of national histories. For instance, the above mentioned new Cité de l’histoire nationale de l’immigration in Paris places the various diferent immigration movements of French history in a historical framework in which the notion of ‘colonialism’ only appears in connection with the preix ‘post’, post-colonialism. he irst period dealt with in the museum is situated around 1891. It is characterised by ‘industrialisation’ and referred to as ‘le temps des voisins’, that is to say: most of the immigrants were neighbours and came from Europe. he second period focuses on 1931, characterised by ‘reconstruction’, for which the immigrants were consciously recruited from ‘le réservoir européen’. Again the majority of the immigrants came from Europe. However, on the chart the French colonial world of that period comes into focus as well, mapped out in a speciic colour. What the meaning of colonialism was for French (colonial) citizenship, however, remains unclear, because in the museum the issue of citizenship is exclusively of relevance to those who came to settle in France. he third period pivots around 1975 and is distinguished by ‘modernisation’, the corresponding immigrants belonging to the ‘élargissement post-colonial’, the post-colonial increase of the inlux of immigrants that France itself had no control over. And the last period, pinpointing 1999 and called ‘urbanisation’, covers the period when the migration movements went global, moving every which way, to and from France included. he museum of immigration shows how migrants (sometimes smoothly, other times with great diiculties) merged into the French national sphere and how they became citizens of a republic that embraces the basic principles—all clearly put under the spotlights—of freedom, equality, brotherhood, the separation of Church and State, and the contrat social. he histories of the countries of origin are, in the grand narrative of French immigration history, not on view. On a personal level of the individual immigrant, though, they are present,

40

Balibar 2004.

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as is the case, for instance, in the story of the immigrant honn Ouk, who in the spring of 1975 came to France because of his work. In the display case is his passport with an entry stamp dated 1975. It euphemistically points to the deep inroads of geopolitical events in a (recent) past: ‘Mais Phnom Penh est tombée à ce moment-là et nous sommes devenus des exilés. De notre vie d’avant, il n’est pratiquement rien resté’. When Phnom Penh fell, honn Ouk and his wife became exiles leaving them virtually devoid of their former life. his raises the question, whether the history of Cambodia is not just as important to this French immigrant as the history of France. And consequently, is that not so, in theory, for all French people? he same question applies to the other regions of ‘la plus grande France’ that in the Cité national de l’histoire de l’immigration have been coloured in as colony on the museum map of 1931. he uneasy relationship, in this respect, between current historiography, museum policies, and government politics, resonated in the strange speech of France’s President Sarkozy at the Cheick Anta Diop University in Dakar (26–7–2007). During his irst visit to the West-African region, he stated that the drama of Africa was that ‘the African’ had not wholly and entirely stepped into history. he answer to that lecture came in the form of a collection of historical essays compiled by Adame Ba Konaré, historian and former irst lady of Mali. In her introductory chapter she suggested a periodisation of African history viewed not exclusively from within the framework of European nation building.41 41 A large part of Sarkozy’s speech is about concepts of and/or reproaches concerning historical errors, guilt, and debt. It is not possible to discuss the entire speech here. Just one quotation: ‘Le drame de l’Afrique, c’est que l’homme africain n’est pas assez entré dans l’histoire. Le paysan africain, qui depuis des millénaires, vit avec les saisons, dont l’idéal de vie est d’être en harmonie avec la nature, ne connaît que l’éternel recommencement du temps rythmé par la répétition sans in des mêmes gestes et des mêmes paroles. Dans cet imaginaire où tout recommence toujours, il n’y a de place ni pour l’aventure humaine, ni pour l’idée de progrès. Dans cet univers où la nature commande tout, l’homme échappe à l’angoisse de l’histoire qui tenaille l’homme moderne mais l’homme reste immobile au milieu d’un ordre immuable où tout semble être écrit d’avance. Jamais l’homme ne s’élance vers l’avenir. Jamais il ne lui vient à l’idée de sortir de la répétition pour s’inventer un destin. Le problème de l’Afrique et permettez à un ami de l’Afrique de le dire, il est là. Le déi de l’Afrique, c’est d’entrer davantage dans l’histoire. C’est de puiser en elle l’énergie, la force, l’envie, la volonté d’écouter et d’épouser sa propre histoire’. See: http://www.elysee.fr/elysee/elysee. fr/francais/interventions/2007/juillet/allocution_a_l_universite_de_dakar.79184.html Madame Ba Konaré discusses the speech in the collection mentioned. Adame Ba Konaré (ed.), Petit précis de remise à niveau sur l’histoire africaine à l’usage du président Sarkozy (Paris: La Découverte, 2008), 21–38.

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To such a historiography, the periodisation of the museum of immigration would be most arbitrary. Sites Essential for a re-evaluation of existing historiographic periodisations, is a critical approach to the colonial sources, and here historians could take the lead as well. his is why I will close with the problem of Free Access to and contact with the sources of the Past. Filtering through the cases dealt with here is the notion of lieux de mémoire, of ‘places of memory’. Reims is literally an urban place on the map recognised as lieu de mémoire, because of Clovis, the crowning of the French kings, and because of the signing of Germany’s capitulation in 1945. Furthermore, the monument for the heroes of the Armée noire symbolically links French history to West Africa. he Palais de la Porte Doré in Paris, as a decorated building rooted in the colonial past, is such a place of reminiscence as well, and so is the house of the mayor of Amsterdam. Yet lieu is more than a place in a literal sense. While discussing the medal collection I have approached the collection stores of the former Colonial Institute for just such a place of remembrance for imagined communities. I regard these places irst and foremost as meeting places, literally and symbolically; as places to meet and linger and as discussion platforms where, and as a result of which, people may relect on the past. ‘Public history’ has a bearing on this active interpretation process related to places of memory. In this context, the French word lieu could also be translated into the English notion of ‘site’ or website, which to historians is an unmistakable place for history. he French and Netherlands cases discussed here illustrate this as well. For instance, in 2002 there was the most heated discussion about the Netherlands’ VOC-celebration on the Internet; information about the recent reinstatement of the monument of Reims in France was placed on the oicial website of the regional lieux de mémoire. When Pierre Nora began his project ‘Les lieux de mémoire’ early in the nineteen eighties, to humanities scholars the word ‘site’ probably did not have a direct ICT connotation; most of us could not even have imagined—other than for quantitative historical research—that soon one would be invited to think in terms of so-called rich historical data sets and clever algorithmic methods for the purpose of opening up digitalised textual sources, images, and objects for historical research

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by historians and others alike. We hardly imagined that future historical resources would be digitally born, and thus as archival sources would also only continue to exist digitally; or that, while historical discourse focused on ‘decoding’ of the usual sources, historians would at the same time be called for their contribution to a massive re-encoding of these same sources.42 As regards this ‘re-encoding’ (which happens when museums, libraries or archives digitise their collections) the above-mentioned ‘grammars of diference and hierarchies of inequality’ of Hall and Rose (2006) become relevant once again, as can be explained with another look at Rumphius. Anyone suring the web for the website of the Tropenmuseum (http://collectie.tropenmuseum.nl/nbasicsearch.asp) will easily ind the medal. Entering ‘Rumphius’ will produce a nice visual story: from his books to the double-screw steamship Rumphius of the KPM that was launched in 1908. A second search with the keyword ‘medals’ would come up with at least the 217 hits, which at the end of 2008 together made up the set of medals discussed here. Over the years they have been collected, documented, and displayed in museums in diverse ways. Briely, this initially occurred in the context of colonial scientiic practice, which followed the development of scientiic classiication methods according to scientists like Rumphius, via Linnaeus to Darwin. In the context of colonial ethnography this resulted in a more and more reined system of cultural distinctions.43 In the Tropenmuseum, ater 1950 documentation had a more cultural anthropological perspective linked to modernisation and development cooperation, whereas today mainly a historicising interaction and network perspective is chosen for the renewed coding and interpretation of the collections in digitised documentation systems.44

Cf. Borgman 2007, 147; Sally Wyatt, Challenging the digital imperative (Maastricht: Maastricht University, 2008); Frits Gierstberg, ‘he Big History Quiz’. Frank van der Stok, Frits Gierstberg, Flip Bool (eds.), Relect #07—Questioning History. Imagining the Past in Contemporary Art (Rotterdam: NAi Publishers, 2008, 44–57), here 50; Ross Parry, Recoding the Museum. Digital Heritage and the Technologies of Change (London/New York: Routledge, 2007). 43 Pieter ter Keurs (ed.), Colonial Collections Revisited (Leiden: CNWS Publications, 2007); M. Bouquet (ed.), ‘Academic Anthropology and the Museum: Back to the Future’. Focaal, Tijdschrit voor antropologie 34 (1999), 195–204. 44 Koos van Brakel & Susan Legêne, Collecting at cultural crossroads. Collection policies and approaches (2008–2012) of the Tropenmuseum (Amsterdam: KIT Publishers, 2008). 42

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hese successive frameworks related to changing mandates for museum policies, conirm that the accepted mechanisms for the organisation of historical information such as thesauruses, ontologies, and classiication systems, although aimed at providing ‘content neutral’ continuity in how the sources can be accessed, at the same time are inevitably inluenced by changes in the socio-political context of the institutions concerned. he documentation with regard to the medal collection at the Tropenmuseum thus presents in itself a solid institutionalised canon of how diference creates otherness in times of colonial expansion. And this institutionalised canon works alongside more analytical historical interpretations of the collection, because it is embedded in the very compilation of the collection together with its documentation. Anyone searching through keywords will ind colonial classiications formulated as a canon of otherness. Sarkozy referred, as it were, to this canon, when in Dakar he presented his essentialising views of ‘the African’.45 Of course we know this; we know that the mechanisms to access whatever collection, cannot ofer an objective, value free representation of the past, and that the keys to the sources do inluence what happens with the information they reveal.46 In this respect, the new Information and Communication Technology does pose a major challenge for the approach and interpretation of (digitised) sources, whereas the fact that these sources are accessible in so many ways also implies that most work of historians more and more directly will relate to a public debate on history that is digitally mediated. It was via Internet that Adame Ba Konaré mobilised the historians who wrote a response to President Sarkozy.47 Intuition Perhaps my relections as a historian about the changing place of historians in historical discourse and the impact of ICT on Free Access 45 Susan Legêne, Nu of nooit. Over de actualiteit van museale collecties (Amsterdam: Vossiuspers, 2005); ibid., ‘Flatirons and the Folds of History/On Archives, Cultural Heritage and Colonial Legacies’. Saskia E. Wieringa, Traveling Heritages. New Perspectives on Collecting, Preserving and Sharing Women’s History (Amsterdam: Aksant, 2008), 47–63. 46 Borgman 2007, 42. 47 Konaré 2008.

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to the Past will soon seem all too simple. To me, however, it would appear that in our digital age the ‘Huizinga-tradition’ of historiography—with the authoritative presentation of the knowledge and vision of individual authors in a single authored book as principal form—is changing radically. Free Access to the Past also refers, nowadays, to the abundance of information and rapid communication. he individual voice of the historian drawing on critical use of sources and scientiic questioning remains important. But more than ever before, both the public and politics will access and follow the same sources, interrupt the historical narrative, juxtapose or oppose with their own stories or questions. In this context, the very meaning of intuition will change as well. In his cultural biography of Johan Huizinga mentioned before, Hanssen explains that in Huizinga’s approach to history there was room for ‘the irrational, because of intuitive participation in historical practice—for the part of imagination, as long as it were clothed in the shining armour of reason’.48 his notion of intuitive knowledge has a speciic meaning in an ICT context. Intuition, in the digital world, is not merely connected to associative imaginative capabilities, but also to navigation, to a movement of the hands combined with the unconscious understanding of visual directives in the digital sphere. I would like to endorse this notion of intuition based on (unconscious) experiences, and reconnect it to theories of historical practice, in particular to the notion of ‘historical experience’. With historical experience in this context I do not mean ‘historical sensation’, but the physical ‘knowledge’ that people have of society—in their hands and in their heads—and which has been passed down from generation to generation. Next to command of language and knowledge of (national) histories, such a physical kind of personal knowledge plays a role, when politicians refer to history as a (potential or coeced) unifying force in national communities. A renewed appreciation of intuition as an ICT-related design aspect goes alongside the current appreciation of tangible and intangible heritage as the Lieux de mémoire of imagined communities, and airms old relations between historical practice and visual art. Again the two cases discussed above may present a case in point. In 2004, starting from the initiative to reinstall the war monument in Reims, the French

48

Hanssen 1996, 45.

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sculptor Patrice Alexandre (b. 1951) explored the perception of French colonial citizenship of Tirailleurs sénégalais in a series of statues that reinterpreted the original monument.49 His irst ‘transformation’ of the original statue started from naturalism, in order to imagine and express the impact of racial inequality in the naturalistic image of the French lag-bearer and his African comrades. In the second sculpture he explored cubism and the disappearance of the notion of self and another in the cubist artistic ‘language’ that at the time existed alongside naturalism. And in the third ‘transformation’, in a contemporary semi-‘African’ expressive style, Alexandre has tried to reverse the perspective of the soldiers involved. he series of statues emerged from a process of what Huizinga called aestheticising: visualising past-relationships on the basis of ‘empathy’. As such the works are part of a historical discourse that transcends the art historical discipline. In a diferent manner, the most recent visualisation of Rumphius, executed in the VOC-year 2002 for the permanent collection of Netherlands colonialism in the Tropenmuseum, appeals to this notion of intuition concerning past-relationships. It concerns the three-dimensional interpretation of the same portrait of Rumphius from ca. 1695 that Huizinga in 1902 used for the museums’ commemoration medal. he intention with this new life size polyester sculpture of Rumphius was to present an historical image, while simultaneously displaying a representation history of colonialism, building on a colonial tradition of body casts, moulded from a real person. his body cast technique was repeated with the purpose of somehow also transferring the emotional relations that were inherent in colonial representation strategies.50 Just like the ‘real’ Lieux de mémoire and the virtual Internet sites, works of art, and exhibitions such as these give shape and form to the mental ambience of the imagined communities of our time, that do not halt at the borders of the nation state. hrough ICT intervisuality, or for that matter inter-exhibitionality plays a growing role in histori49 See also web dossier mentioned earlier in footnote 22 that leads to the work of Alexandre. 50 he statue of Rumphius from 2002 is one of a series of nine historical archetypes, on display in the Tropenmuseum. Together these convey the museological story about the interplay between colonialism, collecting, classifying, and control. An impressive presentation of the societal impact of body casts was the exhibition Miscast: Negotiating the Presence of the Bushmen, compiled by the South African artist and archaeologist Pippa Skotnes, South African National Gallery in Cape Town (1996).

impressed images/expressed experiences

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cal discourse on (trans)national communities. As scenes that express bonds between imagined communities, art, and museum displays get meaning, either implicit, or explicit, in relationship to such representations elsewhere. his happened in the past, as when, for instance, the Colonial Museum impressed its views in medals, and the Susuhunan Paku Buwono X, Sultan of Surakarta (1893 to 1939), commissioned his own medal and added it to the collection of the Colonial Museum. A recent example with a large impact on both political and historical discourse, is the case of the diorama in Rawamerta (Karawang Jarak), with life size soldiers and victims depicting the bloodshed that took place in 1947 during a Netherlands military action in Rawagede, or the initiative to re-install the war monument in Reims. hese are representations of historical events, that happened at a speciic place, but that as visualisations of the past contribute to a historical understanding that reaches beyond the boundaries of the current nation states. In conclusion It is not coincidental that so many medals portraying the colonial community at the beginning of the twentieth century had to do with breakthroughs in transportation and communication. Precisely in that sector the metropolis was leading; and these innovations made the world smaller and the nation bigger. he medals thus once symbolised the emergence of a notion of transnational citizenship in a colonial context which, however, would soon cease to exist. It is exciting to be witness to the role the new media will play in the shaping of new relations between national history and transnational imagination, and to the interaction that this will arouse between citizens and politics. By deinition, and regardless of what politicians want, present-day ‘Free Access to the Past’ follows a route where national borders have no boundaries, where neither historians nor politicians are gatekeepers; not only because of cyberspace, or because of the cross-border mental ambience of cultural nationalism, but chiely because of history itself, with its past where national histories continually are dovetailing.

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INDEX

Adams, John, 285, 286 Adrian (Pope), 173 Afanas’ev, Alexander Nikolaevich, 69 Afzelius, Arvid August, 113, 113n, 114n, 115, 117n Agnew, homas, 160 Alexander the Great (King of Macedon), 30, 270 Alexandre, P., 314, 314n Alma-Tadema, Lawrence, 150 Amédée, hierry, 50 Anderson, Benedict, xviii, 230n, 292n, 295n Apostool, Cornelis, 184n, 185, 186, 186n, 187, 187n, 189, 189n Arany, János, 241 Aretin, Johann Christoph von, 59, 65 Arkel, Folpert van, 135 Arminius, 50, 51 Arndt, Ernst Moritz, 6n, 58, 59 Arnim, Achim von, 58, 61, 62, 63, 64 Arnim, Gisela von, 62 Arwidsson, Adolf Iwar, 111, 114, 114n, 118n Asselijn, Jan, 179, 180 Atterbom, P.D.A., 105 Auber, Daniel-François-Esprit, 228 Ba Konaré, A., 309, 309n, 312, 312n Balibar, E., 304n, 308, 308n Bann, Stephen, 13, 13n, 30, 31n, 33, 33n, 35n Barante, Amable, 38 Barante, Prosper de, 66 Bandel, Ernst von, 51 Bartholdi, Frederic Auguste, 51 Baudelaire, Charles, 151 Beauharnais, Josephine de (Empress), 47, 94, 94n, 234 Beethoven, Ludwig van, 58 Beets, Nicolaas, 128, 140, 141 Belasco, David, 215 Bellman, Carl Michael, 109n, 111, 112, 112n Benczur, Gyala, 241 Beneke, Regina, 3 Bertan, Henri, 215 Berwald, Franz, 213, 214, 215, 216

Bessarion, Basilius (Cardinal), xv Beylinc, Albrecht, 135, 145 Bilderdijk, Willem, 128, 135 Bismarck, Otto von (Count), xx Bluysen, A., 301n Boekman, Emanuel, 177, 177n Boerhaave, Herman, 173, 175n Bohlman, Philip, 236, 236n Boieldieu, François, 215 Boisserée, Sulpiz, 5, 11 Bonaparte, see Jérôme or Louis or Napoleon Bonaparte, Jérôme (King), 57, 62, 65 Bonaparte, Louis (King), 56, 141, 146, 172n, 176, 177, 183–186, 187n, 194n Bonaparte, Napoleon (Emperor Napoleon I), xix, xx, 4, 5, 7, 11, 16, 25, 28, 30, 37, 40, 47, 48, 51, 55, 56, 57, 58, 58n, 59, 60, 63, 65, 75, 77, 81, 83, 92, 93, 94, 94n, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 141, 142, 207, 208, 209, 210, 233, 234, 274, 275 Bonnier, Adolf, 122 Bonnot de Condillac, Étienne, 261, 265, 272, 272n Borodin, Alexander, 230 Bosboom-Toussaint, A.L.G., 144, 168, 168n Bossuet, Jacques-Bénigne, 256, 257 Bot, B., 303, 303n Boulers, Stanilas de, 215 Bové, Jose, 54 Braquemond, Felix, 164 Bremmer, Hendrik, 165, 165n, 166, 166n, 169, 169n Brennan, Timothy, 10, 10n Brentano, Bettina, 61, 62, 63, 64 Brentano, Clemens, 61 Brentano, Kunigunde, 61, 62 Brooke, Henry, xvii Brouwer, Adriaan, 181 Buch, Leopold von, 37 Buck-Morss, Susann, 16n, 18, 18n Burke, Edmund, xix, 3, 3n, 4, 4n, 58, 60 Burty, P., 167, 168n Byron, George Gordon, 38, 128, 137, 137n, 139, 140, 140n, 141

338

index

Caesar, Julius, 48, 50, 51, 58n, 271 Camoes, Luis de, 212 Campen, Jacob van, 186 Camus, Armand-Gaston, 28, 36 Carlyle, homas, 4, 4n, 7 Casas, Bartolomé de las, 222 Cats, Jacob, 173 Cervantes, Miguel de, 116 Chamard, Henri, 53, 53n Champollion, Jean-François, 38, 39 Chandler, James, 14, 14n Chaptal, Jean-Antoine, 274 Charlemagne (Emperor), 57, 58n, 59 Charles V. (Emperor), 191 Chateaubriand, François-René de, 7, 7n, 17, 17n, 49 Chénier, André, 28 Chirac, Jacques, 54 Cicero, Marcus Tullius, 124, 254, 258, 264 Cigna-Santi, Antonio, 204, 210 Civilis, Claudius, 131 Cohen, J., 293n Columbus, Christopher, 203, 207, 221, 221n, 222, 223, 225 Condorcet, Marie Jean, 28, 268 Conino, Alon, 104, 104n Cortez, Hernan, 203, 204, 205, 209, 210, 211, 222 Croker, homas Croton, 69 Cuypers, Petrus Josephus Hubertus, 171, 178, 187, 192, 195 Czakó, Zsigmond, 239 Czilley, Ulrich, 242, 243, 244, 246 Dalin, Olof von, 109, 122 Dam, K. van, 303n Dante, 116 Darwin, Charles, 311 David, Jacques-Louis, 40, 152n De la Motte Fouqué, Friedrich, see Motte Fouqué, Friedrich de la De la Villemarqué, héodore Hersart, see Villemarqué, héodore Hersart de la De las Casas, Bartolomé, see Casas, Bartolomé de las Delacroix, Eugène, 38 Delaroche, Paul, 162, 165 Delibes, Léo, 213, 215, 217 Desmoulins, Camille, 33, 34n D’Haen, heo, 140, 140n Diederik V (Count of Holland), 140 Diez, Friedrich Christian, 69

Dobrovský, Josef, 69 Domenichino, 172, 181 Donizetti, Gaetano, 213, 214, 230 Dormindontovic, Mihail Lihutin, 240 Droste-Hülshof, Annette von, 61, 62 Dryden, John, 204 Ducher, C., 302 Dyck, Anthonie van, 181 Egmont, Count of, 133 Egressy, Béni, 239 Erasmus, Desiderius, 173 Erkel, Ferenc, 228, 229, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 244, 245 Ermarth, Elizabeth Deeds, 8 Esmenard, Joseph, 207, 208, 210, 224 Favières, Edmond de, 215 Ferdinand V (Emperor), 3, 244 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, xix, 59 Floris IV (Count of Holland), 135 Floris V (Count of Holland), 139 Foucault, Michel, 8, 8n Fourcroy, Antoine-François, 274, 275 Fox, Charles James, 3, 83, 85, 85n, 89 Franchetti, Alberto, 207, 221, 223, 224, 225 Frederic Henry (Prince of Orange), 178 Frederic the Great, 205, 210 Frederik Hendrik see Frederic Henry Frese, Jacob, 111, 123n Fritzsche, Peter, xviiin, 32, 32n, 33, 292 Galle, Cornelius, 159 Gama, Vasco da, 212, 220, 221 Gaulle, Charles de, 53, 53n, 302 Gay, Peter, 154, 154n, 155n Gehe, Eduard Heinrich, 213, 218, 219, 220 Geijer, Erik Gustaf, 111, 113, 113n, 114, 114n, 115, 116, 117n Gelre, Eduard van, 135 George III (King George III of Britain), 82, 84, 85, 88, 90, 90n, 98 George, Prince of Wales (later King George IV of Britain), 84, 85, 90, 98 Géricault, héodore, 39, 152 Giordano, Guiseppe, 224 Girodet, Anne-Louis, 47 Giusti, Alvise Girolamo, 204, 210 Glinka, Mikhail Ivanovich, 229, 236 Görres, Johann Joseph, 58, 59 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 157, 157n, 159, 168

index Gogel, Alexander, 32 Gogh, Vincent van, 157, 157n, 159, 159n, 164, 165n, 168 Gombrich, Ernst, 156n, 157, 157n, 159n Gram, Johan, 149, 149n, 151, 151n Graun, Carl-Heinrich, 205 Grégoire, Henri, 23, 23n, 25n, 248 Grehe, Eduard, 213 Greshof, M., 296, 298n Grimm, Jacob, 30n, 55–70, 116, 306 Grimm, Wilhelm, 58, 59, 59n, 62, 64n, 65, 66, 116 Groot, Hugo de, 133 Guha, Ranajit, 13, 13n Guizot, François, 49, 49n Habermas, Jürgen, xviii, 31, 74, 87, 102 Haemstede, Witte van, 139 Händel, Georg Friedrich, 229 Hagen, Friedrich Heinrich von der, 59, 65, 66, 67, 68, 68n Hals, Frans, 181 Hammarsköld, Lorenzo, 105, 107, 110, 116, 117, 117n, 118n, 119, 119n, 120 Hanselli, Pehr, 122 Hanssen, Léon, 296, 296n, 313, 313n Hasselaar, Kenau Simonsdochter, 135, 173, 182 Haxthausen, August-Werner von, 61, 62 Haydn, Joseph, 204 Hazan, A., 303 Hazlitt, William, 155, 156n Hebbel, Friedrich, 68, 68n Hegel, 16, 18, 19, 35n, 57 Heidegger, Martin, 15, 15n Hein, Piet, 142, 143, 173, 298n Helmers, Jan Fredrik, 127, 127n, 128, 129, 133, 145 Helst, Bartholomeus van der, 176, 181, 184, 185, 185n, 190, 194 Henry VIII (King), xv, 91n Herder, Johann Gottfried von, 62, 63 Hofmann von Fallersleben, August Heinrich, 66 Holman Hunt, William, 153 Hondecoeter, Melchior d’, 181 Honour, Hugh, 12, 13n Hoop jr., Adriaan van der, 139, 140, 140n, 181n Hoorne, Count of, 133 Hugo, Victor, 39, 230 Huizinga, J., 295, 296, 297, 298, 298n, 299, 306, 306n, 307, 313, 314 Hulthem, Karel van, 37

339

Humboldt, Wilhelm von, 66 Hunt, Lynn, 3, 3n, 248, 249n Hunyadi, László, 238–246 Hurd, Richard, 134 Hutton, James, 37 Hunyadi, Mattias Corvinus, 239, 241 Ilica, Luigi, 215, 222, 223, 224, 225 Imnelius, Johan, 116, 118n Iwanow, Peter, 236 Jacoba (Duchess of Bavaria), 173, 181, 182, 187 Jensen, Lotte, 127n, 130n, 132n, 134n, 137n, 141n, 144n, 145n, 192n, 227 Judge, Oney, 289 Jouy, Victor Etienne de, 207, 208, 210, 211, 216, 224 Karadžić, Vuk, 69 Károlyi (Count), 244 Kate van Loo, D.H. ten, 142 Kaulbach, Wilhelm von, 167n, 206 Keita, M., 301 Kellgren, Johan Henric, 109, 109n, 110, 110n Kern, H., 306 Klopstock, Friedrich Gottlieb, 50 Kölcsey, Terenc, 241 Konaré, A.O., 301n Kopitar, Jernej (Bartholomäus), 69 Koselleck, Reinhart, 6, 6n, 107, 124n Lacurne de Ste-Palaye, Jean Baptiste, xvi Lairesse, Gerard de, 181 Lakanal, Joseph, 260, 261, 262, 275 Landseer, Edwin, 161, 161n Lang, Jack, 43 Lang, John L., 215 Lannes, Jean (Duke of Montebello), 75, 77, 81, 93–102 Lásló V (King), 239, 241, 242, 243, 244, 246 Lavisse, Ernest, 46, 46n Lawrence, homas, 162 Le Roy Ladurie, Emmanuel, see Roy Ladurie, Emmanuel le Leerssen, Joep, xvin, 25n, 26, 26n, 30n, 36n, 55, 66n, 77n, 106n, 128, 128n, 130n, 228n, 305, 305n Leland, John, xv Lemierre, Antoine, 213, 214 Lennep, David Jacob van, 137, 146

340

index

Lennep, Jacob van, 41, 128, 137, 138, 139, 139n, 144n, 145 Lenoir, Alexandre, xvii, 30 Lesbroussart, Jean-Baptiste, 254n, 259, 259n, 263 Letourneux, François Sébastien, 265, 266, 267 Lincoln, Abraham, 87, 283 Linnaeus, Carolus, 311 Livius, Titus, 255 Lodewijk Napoleon, see Bonaparte, Louis Lönnrot, Elias, 69 Loosjes, Adriaan, 133, 135, 142, 143n Loots, Cornelis, 133, 133n Lorrain, Claude, 172 Lortzing, Albert, 236 Loti, Pierre, 215, 217 Louis XIV (King), xx, 55, 268 Louis XV (King), 22, 29, 80 Louis XVI (King), 22, 29, 247 Louis-Philippe (King), xx L’Overture, Toussaint, 18 Lukács, Georg, 227n, 233, 233n, 235, 235n Lukács, Sándor, 239 Macaulay, homas, 34 Madarász, Viktor, 241 Magnusson, Arni, xvi Marat, Jean-Paul, 29, 80 Marlowe, Christopher, 227 Martin, Henry, 51 Maurits van Oranje, see Orange, Maurice of Mazarin (Cardinal), 66 Meijer, Hendrik Arnold, 140, 141 Metastasio, Pietro, 203 Meyerbeer, Giacomo, 206, 207, 211, 212, 217, 220, 224 Michelet, Jules, xvii, 26, 34, 66 Millet, Jean-Francois, 157, 168 Millot, Claude-François-Xavier, 268, 268n, 269, 270, 270n, 271, 271n, 272, 272n, 273 Mirabeau, Comte de, 29, 80, 81 Mitterand, François, 53 Moncrif, F.A. de, 134 Monsigny, Pierre, 215 Montebourg, Arnaud, 53 Monteverdi, Claudio, 229 Môquet, Guy, 43 Moreau-Vauttier, P., 301 Motte Fouqué, Friedrich de la, 68

Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 198, 201, 214, 229, 230 Müller, Johannes von, 6, 6n Muller-Westerman, Anna Petronella, 143n Murillo, Bartolomé Esteban, 181, 193 Naipaul, V.S., 291, 291n Napoleon, see Bonaparte Nelson, Horatio, 75, 77, 81–93, 94, 95, 97, 98, 102 Nepos, Cornelius, 255 Nes, Aert van, 181 Neufchâteau, François de, 272, 272n Neufville, Margaretha Jacoba de, 143, 144 Nora, Pierre, xixn, 47n, 81n, 310 Nyerup, Rasmus, 113, 116 Oldenbarnevelt, Johan van, 133, 300 Orange, Maurice of (stadtholder), 127 Orange, William of (stadtholder), 127, 131, 134, 142 Ostade, Adriaan van, 181 Ouk, honn, 309 Paku Buwono X, 315 Palmblad, Vilhelm Fredrik, 111 Parker, Peter, 85 Pavlovna, Anna, 4 Paz, Octavio, 9 Pepys, Samuel, 204 Percy, homas, 135 Petain, Philippe, 53 Petöi, Sándor, 240, 241 Piles, Roger de, 157 Pitt, William, 75, 77, 82, 83, 84, 88–93, 94, 97, 98, 102 Pius IX (Pope), xx Ponchielli, Amilcare, 223 Pont, Wichard van, 135 Ponte, Lorenzo da, 201 Poot, Huibert Cornelisz., 173 Potgieter, Everhardus Johannes, 168n, 171, 171n, 178, 188, 189–192, 195 Poussin, Nicolas, 172, 181 Powell Frith, William, 152, 152n, 162 Puccini, Giacomo, 201, 213, 215, 217 Purcell, Henry, 204 Putnam, Robert, 289, 289n Quinette, Nicolas, 262, 263, 264, 266, 267, 268, 272n

index Raimondi, Marcantonio, 157, 157n, 158 Rákóczy, Ferenc, 239, 240, 243, 244, 245 Ranke, Leopold von, 39 Raphael, 29, 157, 158, 166n, 172, 181, 188, 193n Rawlinson, W.G., 154, 154n, 155n Rembrandt, see Rijn, Rembrandt van Renan, Ernest, 45, 45n Reni, Guido, 172, 181, 193 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 185n Riebeeck, Jan van, 298n, 300 Rigney, Ann, xxi, xxin, 34, 34n, 103, 103n, 130n Rijn, Rembrandt van, 131, 134, 172, 172n, 173, 173n, 176, 181, 181n, 183, 184, 185, 185n, 188, 190, 193, 193n Riqueti, Honoré Gabriel de, 29 Robespierre, Maximilien de, 23 Rollin, Charles, 256, 257 Romani, Felice, 221, 222 Romme, Charles-Gilbert, 21, 22, 22n Rossini, Gioacchino, 206, 237 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, xix, 74n, 81, 236 Roy Ladurie, Emmanuel le, 38 Rubens, Peter Paul, 159, 172, 172n, 173, 173n, 181, 181n, 188 Ruda, Elias Vilhelm, 111 Ruiter, Herman de, 135, 145 Rumphius, Georg Everhard, 296, 296n, 297, 298n, 300, 300n, 311, 314, 314n Rutte, Mark, 294 Ruyter, Michiel de, 127, 133, 134, 173, 181, 182, 187, 191 Said, Edward, 206, 212, 296n Sarkozy, Nicolas, 43, 309, 309n, 312 Savigny, Friedrich Carl von, xix, 30n, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65 Schafelaar, Jan van, 145 Schalcken, Godfried, 181 Schefer, Ary, 168 Schiller, Friedrich von, xvii, 40, 227, 230, 235 Schinkel, Karl Friedrich, 17, 233 Schlegel, August Wilhelm, 63 Schlegel, Dorothea, 5, 5n, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 15 Schlegel, Friedrich, 5, 58 Schück, Henrik, 106, 106n, 121n Schulz, Johann, 215 Schuurman, Anna Maria, 173 Scott, Walter, xx, 39, 40, 41, 50, 128, 137, 137n, 139, 140, 143, 144, 146, 230

341

Scribe, Eugène, 212, 213, 214, 217, 220, 224 Sebastio, Dom, 214 Semper, Gottfried, 233 Shakespeare, William, 116, 227, 230, 271 Shelley, Percy Byssche, 232, 233n Simrock, Karl, 68, 68n Sieyès, Emmanuel Joseph (Abbé), 47, 260 Sjöberg, Erik, 111 Skotnes, Pippa, 314n Slechte, Henk, 131, 131n Smetana, Bedrich, 229 Smith, William, 37 Snouck Hurgronje, Christiaan, 298 Solis, Antonio de, 204 Sondén, P.A., 111, 117, 117n, 123, 123n, 124 Speyk, J.C.J. van, 131, 189, 189n Spohr, Louis, 213, 214, 218 Spontini, Gaspare, 207, 211, 216 Stagnelius, Erik Johan, 111, 119, 119n Staring, Anthony Christiaan Winand, 135 Steen, Jan, 173 Stein, Karl Freiherr von, 50 Steiner, George, 232, 232n Stiernhielm, Georg, 111, 117, 117n, 118, 120, 122 Stijl, Simon, 182, 182n Sue, Eugène, 49, 51, 53 Szigligeti, Ede, 239 Tacitus, 50 Tasso, Torquato, 116 hierry, Augustin 26, 38, 39, 49, 49n, 50 hiesse, Anne Marie, xvi, 39, 39n, 46 horild, homas, 111 Tieck, Ludwig, 59 Tillinac, Denis, 54, 54n Tollebeek, Jo, 32, 33n, 34n, 38n, 39n Tollens, Hendrik, 128, 133, 133n, 135, 136, 136n Tolstoy, Leo, 4 Toqueville, Alexis de, 7 Traoré, M., 301, 301n Tromp, Cornelis, 191 Tromp, Maarten, 143 Truman, Harry, 284 Turner, J.M.W., 163, 163n Uhland, Ludwig, 59, 68, 68n Unger, William, 164 Ussher, James, xv

342

index

Varnhagen, Rahel, 6, 6n, 7, 7n Vasari, Giorgio, 157 Vercingétorix, 50, 51, 53 Verdi, Guiseppe, 201, 206, 221, 230 Vermeer, Johannes, 193, 193n Vial, Jean-Baptiste, 215 Victoria (Queen), 51 Vigny, Alfred de, 39 Villemarqué, héodore Hersart de la, 69 Vinci, Leonardo da, 193n Vivaldi, Antonio, 204 Vízkelety, Béla, 241 Vogel, J.P., 306–307 Vollenhoven, C. van, 298, 307 Voltaire (François Marie Arouet), xxi, 29, 30, 74n, 80, 80n, 81, 252, 268, 272, 272n Vondel, Joost van den, 127, 132 Vörösmarty, Mihály, 241 Voyer de Paulmy, Antoine-René de (Marquis), xvi, xvii, 65 Wachmann, Andreas, 229 Wagemans, Karin M., 146, 146n Wagenaar, Jan, 35n, 182, 182n Wagner, Richard, 68, 68n, 201, 223, 229, 235

Waldorp, Jan Gerard, 178, 179n?, 181n?, 182?, 185? Wallmark, Per Adam, 112, 112n, 113, 118, 119n Walré, Jan van, 142 Washington, George, 285, 286, 287 Washington, Martha, 289 Weber, Max, xviii Werf, Adriaen van der, 181 Werf, Pieter Adriaensz. van der (mayor), 131, 139?, 140? Westerman, Marten, 142 Whitman, Alfred, 153, 153n, 154, 154n Wilde, Oscar, 159, 159n Willem, see William Willem van Oranje, see Orange, William of Willems, Jan Frans, 66 William I (King of the Netherlands), 39n, 142, 146, 176, 177, 186, 193, 193n, 194 William II (King of the Netherlands), 194n William III (King of Great Britain), 181, 191 Witt, Johan de, 179, 179n Yade, R., 302, 303