Imagining Communities: Historical Reflections on the Process of Community Formation 9789048529162

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Imagining Communities

Heritage and Memory Studies This ground-breaking series examines the dynamics of heritage and memory from a transnational, interdisciplinary and integrated approaches. Monographs or edited volumes critically interrogate the politics of heritage and dynamics of memory, as well as the theoretical implications of landscapes and mass violence, nationalism and ethnicity, heritage preservation and conservation, archaeology and (dark) tourism, diaspora and postcolonial memory, the power of aesthetics and the art of absence and forgetting, mourning and performative re-enactments in the present. Series Editors Rob van der Laarse and Ihab Saloul, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands Editorial Board Patrizia Violi, University of Bologna, Italy Britt Baillie, Cambridge University, United Kingdom Michael Rothberg, University of Illinois, USA Marianne Hirsch, Columbia University, USA Frank van Vree, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Imagining Communities Historical Reflections on the Process of Community Formation

Edited by Gemma Blok, Vincent Kuitenbrouwer and Claire Weeda

Amsterdam University Press

Cover illustration: Dutch participants in the 1952 Van Riebeeck celebrations, Upington (South Africa) Photographer: Frits Stolper, private collection Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Typesetting: Crius Group, Hulshout isbn 978 94 6298 003 7 e-isbn 978 90 4852 916 2 (pdf) doi 10.5117/9789462980037 nur 694 © Gemma Blok, Vincent Kuitenbrouwer & Claire Weeda / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2018 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is advised to contact the publisher.



Table of Contents

Introduction 7 Gemma Blok, Vincent Kuitenbrouwer and Claire Weeda

1 Meanwhile in Messianic Time

21

2 Diverse Origins and Shared Circumstances

41

3 Imagining Europe

59

4 Gypsy Music and the Fashioning of the National Community

77

5 ‘Tired, Worried and Overworked’

97

Imagining the Medieval Nation in Time and Space and English Drinking Rituals Claire Weeda

European Settler Identity Formation in the Seventeenth-Century Plantation Colony of Suriname Suze Zijlstra

The Peace of Ryswick (1697) and the Rise of European Consciousness Lotte Jensen

Krisztina Lajosi

An International Imagined Community of Nervous Sufferers in Medical Advertisements, 1900-1920 Gemma Blok

6 ‘From Heart to Heart’

113

7 Indonesian Nationalism in the Netherlands, 1920s-1930s

131

8 Time, Rhythm and Ritual

149

Colonial Radio and the Dutch Imagined Community in the 1920s Vincent Kuitenbrouwer

Long-Distance Internationalism of Elite Pilgrims in Homogeneous, Empty Time Klaas Stutje

Imagined Communities in L’espoir (1937) and Les sept couleurs (1939) Marleen Rensen

9 Stamverwantschapand the Imagination of a White, Transnational Community

173

10 ‘L’Oranie Cycliste, une grande famille’

197

11 Remembering and Imagining the National Past

215

The 1952 Celebrations of the Jan van Riebeeck Tercentenary in the Netherlands and South Africa Barbara Henkes

Recycling Identities and the Pieds-Noirs Communitas, 1976-2016  Niek Pas

Public Service Television Drama and the Construction of a Flemish Nation, 1953-1989 Alexander Dhoest

Index 231

List of Figures Figure 3.1 Negotiating peace at the House of Nieuburch in Ryswick (1697). 62 Figure 3.2 Fireworks to celebrate the Peace of Ryswick of 1697. 62 Figure 5.1 Advertisement for dr. Williams’ Pink Pills in the American newspaper The Caldwell Tribune, May 20 1899. 99 Figure 8.1 Reichsparteitag (Nazi Party rally) 1937 in Nürnberg. 168 Figure 9.1 ‘The Dutch arrive: Jan van Riebeeck arrives at the Cape in the Drommedaris, with his family, staff and military personnel’, caption at one of the pictures in The festival in Pictures/Die Fees in Beeld that documented the many floats in the parade with which the Van Riebeeck festival opened on the 3th of April 1952. 178 Figure 9.2 A group of newly arrived Dutch immigrants in Volendammer costume on their replica ship ‘De Toekomst’ (The Future), celebrating the landing of Jan van Riebeeck three centuries earlier in the city of Upington (Western Cape). 178 Figure 9.3 Replica of the Culemborg town square, built by Dutch immigrants, at the Van Riebeeck festival in Cape Town in april 1952. 189 Figure 10.1 Drinks (apéritif) at the last reunion (Rétrouvailles) in 2016.199 Figure 10.2 Last issue of the magazine L’Oranie Cycliste April 19th 1962. 208

Introduction Gemma Blok, Vincent Kuitenbrouwer and Claire Weeda ‘IC is not my book anymore.’ 1 With these words, taken from the epilogue of the 2006 revised edition of Imagined Communities, Benedict Anderson closed his keynote lecture delivered at the symposium celebrating his book’s 30th anniversary, at the University of Amsterdam on 12 September 2013. We, the organizers of that symposium and the editors of this volume, took Anderson’s words as a cue to explore his conceptual framework for identity formation in the context of the historical academic discipline. Over the decades Imagined Communities has been a source of inspiration for scholars across the globe. Indeed, the ideas presented in Anderson’s book have been applied to a bewildering variety of communities: in past, present and future, and on a local, national and transnational level. On the one hand, this scholarship is an impressive testimony to the intellectual vitality of the conceptual framework of imagined communities. On the other, however, it might somewhat obfuscate the concept’s analytical power. The book’s cogency is further complicated by the fact that both regimes and insurgents have used the conceptual framework underlying the imagined community to mobilize support for their political goals. Anderson himself was keenly aware of this problem, as is illustrated by a joke he shared with us in our email correspondence about feeling part of a global community of Benedicti: ‘Idly I checked out the tenure of the Papal Benedicts, quite amusing: Benedict I – 4 years; Ben II – l year; Ben III, less than one year; Ben IV – 3 years; Ben V – l year; Ben VI – l year; Ben VII – 9 years; Ben VIII – less than one year; Ben IX – 13 years; Ben X – l year; Ben XI – 2 years; Ben XII – 8 years; Ben XIII – 10 years (antipope?); Ben XIII True Pope – 6 years; Ben XIV – 18 years; Ben XV – 8 years, and Ben XVI – 8 years. 95 years in all, average tenure 6 years poor wretches. Ciao, Ben.’ 2 1 B. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, 3rd rev. ed. (London/New York, 2006), 235. 2 Email B. Anderson to C. Weeda, 3 December 2013.

Blok, Gemma, Kuitenbrouwer, Vincent and Weeda, Claire (eds): Imagining Communities. Historical Reflections on the Process of Community Formation. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018 doi: 10.5117/9789462980037_intro

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Debating Imagined Communities In his memoir A Life Beyond Boundaries (which appeared posthumously in 2016), Anderson reflected on the vicissitudes of Imagined Communities within the wider academic debate, including both its conception and dissemination. Initially, the main purpose of the book was to contribute to the emerging polemics between British Marxist and left-liberal scholars about modern nationalism in response to Tom Nairn’s Break-up of Britain (1977), which argued for Scottish independence from the United Kingdom, the latter in Nairn’s view being a fossilized political construction. According to Anderson, several scholars, including the historian Eric Hobsbawn, had unjustly taken aim against Nairn by positing that nationalism was incompatible with Marxism. Anderson, conversely, argued that nationalism was a different kind of phenomenon to Marxism and that it could in fact co-exist with other nineteenth-century -isms. For, whereas the main political ideologies might be based ‘purely’ on rational ideas, nationalism had enormous ‘emotional power’ with an ‘ability to make people die for its sake’.3 After it was published, Imagined Communities was initially only known to a small audience, especially in the US, where a reviewer deemed it ‘worthless apart from its catchy title’. But the end of the Cold War and the subsequent breakup of the Soviet Union dramatically changed the book’s trajectory, when nationalism became a much-debated topic on political and scholarly agendas of a plethora of emerging countries in the former Soviet bloc. By that time, Imagined Communities had made its way by word of mouth to various departments in the humanities and social sciences, where it was used as a graduate-level textbook. 4 These two factors led to the book’s breakthrough, after which it became a seminal work used in nationalism readers5 and new scholarly analysis. Judging from an n-gram diagram based on the Google Books databank, by the early 1990s, Anderson had surpassed his main ‘adversaries’ in the British nationalism debate (including Ernest Gellner and Eric Hobsbawn) in terms of references.6 These statistics underpin the general perception that the concept ‘imagined communities’ is part of 3 B. Anderson, A Life Beyond Boundaries (London, 2016), 126. 4 Anderson, Life Beyond Boundaries, 150-151. 5 See for instance: P. Spencer and H. Wollman, Nations and Nationalism: A Reader (New Brunswick, 2005); S. Woolf (ed.), Nationalism in Europe, 1815 to the Present: A Reader (London/New York, 1996). 6 Accessed at: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Benedict+Anderson%2C+E ric+Hobsbawn%2C+Ernest+Gellner&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing =3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CBenedict%20Anderson%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CEric%20 Hobsbawn%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CErnest%20Gellner%3B%2Cc0 on 30-04-2017.

Introduction

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the scholarly canon of ‘nationalism studies’ that emerged at the end of the twentieth century. In the course of over three decades, the framework of Imagined Communities has been employed and debated in various contexts. One matter of contestation is the question whether the imagined community is a modern phenomenon. According to Anderson, in Western Europe, the eighteenth century marked the ‘dawn of the age of nationalism’, when the preliminary convergence of capitalism and print technology first enabled the conceptualization of an imagined community in people’s minds.7 Thus the framework held little relevance, he suggested, for the medieval or early modern world, in an era before print media that was dominated by religious thinking. According to Anderson, before Enlightenment eroded the powers of Christendom, the ‘fundamental conceptions about “social groups” were centripetal and hierarchical, rather than boundary-oriented and horizontal’.8 Only after the decline of religious thought and dynastic power and its supplanting by rationalist secularism did the New World spurn an ideology of nationalism, which was subsequently transplanted to the rest of the world. Only then did the rise of print-capitalism and calendrical timekeeping allow anonymous co-nationals to imagine one another’s daily routines, thus fostering a sense of connectedness and shared experiences. Maps now defined the new boundaries; museums encapsulated the communities’ heritage. Nonetheless, one of the questions raised by scholars is how to account for the multifarious testimonies to an ethnic consciousness in the hierarchically organized societies of premodernity, before the introduction of print media, clear territorial boundaries and modern timekeeping. Does the imagined community indeed only exist in horizontal, boundary-oriented societies, or did premodern hierarchic, centripetal societies – headed by dynastic rulers – perhaps create their own conditions for imagining the community? For instance, the late medieval metaphor of the body politic – where the community was imagined holistically as a bounded physical organism – offered a concept of the national community that was limited yet hierarchically structured. The metaphor, based on medicine, presented the ruler as the head of the community’s body, whose various subordinate limbs and organs worked together in harmonious cooperation.9 The impact of this metaphor and, for example, notions of ‘communal 7 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 11. 8 Ibid., 15. 9 For the metaphor of the body politic and community formation in the late Middle Ages, see for instance J. Kaye, A History of Balance, 1250-1375: The Emergence of a New Model of Equilibrium and Its Impact on Thought (Cambridge, 2014).

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sin’ remained relatively unexplored in Anderson’s work. Accordingly, although it cannot be denied that the framework of the imagined community is pivotal to understanding the rise of nationalism and modern nation-building, several historians argued that the modern nation-state was certainly not the only biotope in which ethnic or national communities are imagined.10 Another point of debate concerns the ‘transnational’ nature of the concept ‘imagined communities’. From the start Anderson argued that nationalism was not a uniquely European phenomenon, referring, for instance, to the importance of nation-building projects in Latin America in the early nineteenth century. Accordingly, over the years, scholars have used the framework of the imagined community in their studies on nation-building across the globe.11 On the one hand, this demonstrates the intellectual vigour of Anderson’s ideas, and has enabled comparative research of different nation-states that suggest a ‘modular’ form of identity formation existed. On the other hand, it has also generated controversy. In a critique, the Indian scholar Partha Chatterjee, for example, argued that nation-building processes in Asia and Africa fundamentally differed from those in the modern West.12 Anderson himself sought to address this problem in later publications, such as Under Three Flags (2005) and earlier in The Spectre of Comparisons (1998), a collection of essays in which he explored common elements that shaped nation-building processes in Southeast Asia in the twentieth century.13 Nonetheless, the question as to how community-formation processes across the globe relate to each other remains a difficult scholarly problem.14 As is clear from several contributions in this volume, a main issue is the fact that these connections were forged in the context of colonialism and as such can be approached from a range of perspectives, which makes it difficult to create an all-encompassing framework. 10 For instance, for the German territories, England and France respectively, see C. Hirschi, The Origins of Nationalism: An Alternative History from Ancient Rome to Early Modern Germany (Cambridge, 2012); M. Clanchy, England and Its Rulers 1066-1272: Foreign Lordship and National Identity (Totowa, 1983), 241-262; B. Guenée, States and Rulers in Later Medieval Europe (Oxford, 1985). 11 It is impossible to include a full bibliography here, but the following examples discuss the wide dissemination: P.M. Kitromilides, ‘“Imagined Communities” and the Origins of the National Question in the Balkans’, Eastern European History Quarterly 19 (1989), 149-194; M. Kingsley, ‘Art and Identity: the Creation of an “Imagined Community” in India,’ Global Tides 1 (2007), 1-10. 12 P. Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories (Princeton, 1993), 5. 13 B. Anderson, Under Three Flags: Anarchism and the Anti-Colonial Imagination (London, 2005); B. Anderson, The Spectre of Comparisons: Nationalism, Southeast Asia and the World (London/ New York, 1998). 14 Valuable discussions can be found in: J. Cullen and Pheng Cheah (eds), Grounds of Comparison: Around the Work of Benedict Anderson (New York, 2003); W. Glass (ed.), Beyond Imagined Uniqueness: Nationalisms in Contemporary Perspective (Newcastle upon Tyne, 2010).

Introduction

11

A final matter of debate, directly linked to the problems of both periodization and transnationalism, is the prime importance Anderson attributes to ‘print-capitalism’, arguing that books and newspapers created a sense of national identity. Scholars have subsequently identified a range of additional media contributing to community formation, throughout time and straddling the borders of nation-states. In premodernity, the sermons of mendicant friars – of whom about 40,000 were active in cities in the early fourteenth century and who according to d’Avray represented ‘mass communication before print’ – served as an important medium for the dissemination of knowledge across large sections of the population at fixed moments on the liturgical calendar.15 Moreover, in the early 1990s, Howard Rheingold famously expanded Anderson’s framework to include ‘virtual communities’ on the Internet.16 The World Wide Web has enabled people around the world to share ideas and emotional support, and to ‘do just about everything people do in real life, but […] leave our bodies behind’, in Rheingold’s words. This new revolution in transnational communication, with its own rituals involving email contact, computer conferences and chats on Internet forums, is said to have turned ‘modern man’ into a ‘citizen of cyberspace’. The web enabled people to engage in new forms of ‘social solidarity that transcended and encompassed all previous kinds of human association’. Scholars have likewise argued that Anderson’s concept of the imagined community is relevant outside the realm of nationalism studies as well, and can be applied, for instance, to transnational networks of scientists, or school communities.17 This dovetails with Anderson’s own statement that ‘in fact, all communities larger than primordial villages of face-to-face contact (and perhaps even these) are imagined’.18

The act of imagining: The intent and content of this volume One underexplored aspect in Anderson’s work, in our view, is the question how the imagining of communities works. Although Anderson’s work discusses the perceived vital building blocks of an imagined community, such as a 15 D.L. d’Avray, Medieval Marriage: Symbolism and Society (Oxford, 2005), 19-73. 16 H. Rheingold, The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electric Frontier, rev. ed. (Cambridge, MA. 2000). 17 M. Broersma and J.W. Koopmans, Identiteitspolitiek: Media en de constructie van gemeenschapsgevoel (Hilversum, 2010); S. Dorn et al., School as Imagined Communities: The Creation of Identity, Meaning, and Conflict in U.S. History (New York, 2006). 18 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 6.

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shared notion of time, the availability of print media and rituals that entice ‘horizontal comradeship’, he offers little understanding of how these factors relate to one another in the alchemy of community formation. His work thus provides few concrete insights on where and by whom the nation is imagined. This volume of historical case studies aims to explore the possibilities for investigating the crucial processes by which individual citizens imagined their communities, based upon historical source materials. Offering eleven empirical case studies on community formation in a variety of periods and settings, we wish to contribute to understanding how processes of community formation unfolded. Throughout history, communities have been formed under divergent circumstances, in societies headed by dynasties or shaped by democracies, and taking on different guises in relation to ‘the nation’, something that may too easily be overlooked when using Anderson’s framework as a given rather than as an analytical instrument. This volume thereby aims to furnish the conceptual bones of ‘imagined communities’ with empirical flesh, to begin to unravel the complex dynamics of the act of ‘imagining communities’. To expand on the historical meaning of ‘imagining communities’, the authors were asked to analyse a specific case study on community formation, ranging from premodernity to the modern age. The results of these exercises have been presented here in chronological order. Claire Weeda, Suze Zijlstra and Lotte Jensen engaged with the relevance of Anderson’s framework for premodernity. Weeda argues that liturgical or messianic time – in which past and future concatenated in the present, imbuing it with meaning – infused the notion of ethnic identity with a layer of religious meaning that, although perhaps not experienced as routinely as in modernity, yet fostered feelings of ethnicity. Thus, for instance, the English in the early thirteenth century could imagine their anonymous co-members’ actions when ‘wassailing’, a toasting ritual that was performed at set moments on the Church calendar, addressed in Church sermons, and which was replete with meaning about the fate of the English nation in the past, present and future. Suze Zijlstra has explored the early years of the Dutch colony of Suriname, in the 1660s and 1670s. The new Dutch settlers who arrived at that time remained in touch with the towns they had left behind, mainly situated in the provinces of Zeeland and Holland. Their letters, until recently remaining untapped in the archives, reveal how in the early years they related to the idea of an overarching patria of the Republic, although at the same time often alluding to local identities. As time passed, however, the Dutch settlers sought closer ties to other European groups in the Caribbean and in this way a new local identity emerged that rivalled the older notions of ‘fatherland’.

Introduction

13

Lotte Jensen, in her chapter on how Dutch authors reflected on the Peace of Ryswick in 1697, discusses how in the seventeenth century the Dutch imagined community and Europeanness were defined in particular by in- and exclusion of other religious denominations, showing that there was a strong interplay between the national and European identities in which diversity of religion was a dominant factor. Concepts of the Dutch Protestant nation as a ‘chosen people’ continued to hold sway, revealing that religious ideas of ethnicity still retained cogency in a period marked as ‘homogenous, empty time’. She thus highlights the strong mark that Christendom left on community formation, as a religion under whose umbrella various nations often competed as well as cooperated, sharpening rather than blurring boundaries of ethnicity. Exploring nineteenth-century sources, Krisztina Lajosi looks at the potency of symbolic artefacts and culture in community formation, arguing that Gypsy music was essential in shaping Hungarian nationalism. The Gypsy ‘Turkish pipe’ (an eastern style oboe, known as tárogató in Hungarian) became an emblematic instrument in the imagination of the nation, partly because of its associations with anti-Habsburg uprisings and sentiments. As she concludes, the materiality of the tárogató, together with the famous Rákóczi March written by Hector Berlioz, held a prominent position in the canon of the nineteenth-century Hungarian national community. On the other hand, Gemma Blok argues that in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, advertisements for patent medicines for neurasthenia helped create an international imagined community of ‘nervous sufferers’. Print media thus not only helped shape nations, but could foster multifarious imagined communities, for instance through its emphasis on the shared experience of sickness, whose patients were subjected to the shared ritual of swallowing pills at f ixed moments during the day. Widely advertised in newspapers and extremely popular, Pink Pills and the extensive advertisements portraying their consumers, thus connected the ritual of daily pill taking to new psychiatric notions of ‘nervous fatigue’ as a legitimate modern condition. All over the world, newspaper readers were offered the opportunity to identify with other ‘neurasthenics’: people they had never met, but who, like them, apparently struggled with the tensions and quick pace of modern life. Vincent Kuitenbrouwer, Klaas Stutje and Marleen Rensen have analysed various transnational and ideological communities in the interwar years. Kuitenbrouwer discusses the impact of radio technology on the transnational imagined community between the Netherlands and the Dutch East Indies in the 1920s. At the time, the Indonesian archipelago was the prized colony

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of the Netherlands, rendering it both a source of pride and anxiety for the colonial elites, who identified many internal and external threats. To counter these, the Dutch in the wake of the First World War started experimenting with wireless radio technology, forging direct connections between the two parts of the empire through broadcasting (in 1927) and telephony (1929). In this way radio created a sense of unity and pride amongst pro-colonial groups in the Netherlands and the Indies, who embraced these feelings to counter the uncertainties that haunted them at the time. Examining the same period (the interwar years), Klaas Stutje analyses the network of anti-colonial Indonesian students in the Netherlands who were members of the Perhimpoenan Indonesia organization (PI). With their newspaper Indonesia Merdeka, they tried to feed nationalistic feelings in the Dutch East Indies in order to reach their ultimate goal: independence. His case study allows Stutje to reflect extensively on long-term developments in Anderson’s work, who wrote extensively on Indonesian nationalism but relatively little on the PI. Stutje argues that the history of the organization does not fit dominant theoretical models of nationalism, as its members operated from a country at the other side of the world in an effort to mobilize their compatriots back home – a phenomenon that Anderson diminutively called ‘long-distance nationalism’. This concept, however, does not reveal the full complexities of the PI, who were active in and inspired by networks of anti-colonial activists from different countries and whom they mentioned extensively in Indonesia Merdeka. His source material shows, according to Stutje, that the PI thus engaged in ‘long-distance internationalism’ in order to shape its own identity, suggesting that nationalism is an inherently transnational phenomenon – a view that Anderson put forward in his book Under Three Flags (2005). Marleen Rensen in her chapter ‘Time, Rhythm and Ritual: Imagined Communities in L’espoir (1937) and Les sept couleurs (1939)’ focuses on national imagining in fascist and anti-fascist communist discourses of modernity. Through her detailed analysis of two novels by André Malraux (1901-1976) and Robert Brasillach (1909-1945), she demonstrates the significance of the concept of the imagined community for the study of interwar ‘political religions’ like fascism and communism, arguing that rather than superseding a messianic concept of time, in ‘secular’ modernity the nation could still be imagined as a regenerative, cyclical rhythmic body in a semi-religious discourse. Moving into the post-war era, Barbara Henkes analyses the community formation of Dutch migrants who moved to South Africa in the 1950s, focusing on the tercentenary celebrations of the landing of Jan van Riebeeck,

Introduction

15

which was the start of white settlement in the region by the Dutch East India Company (VOC). Using key insights from Anderson’s work Henkes unravels the concept of stamverwantschap, a notion of kinship ties between the Dutch and the white Afrikaner population of South Africa, who were considered descendants of the VOC colonists. Henkes shows how, by actively participating in the Van Riebeeck celebrations, Dutch migrants who migrated to South Africa in the 1950s at the same time might display their Dutch-ness and a white ‘civilized’ South African-ness, a notion that was central to the discourse of the nascent Apartheid regime. In the Netherlands, journalists who underscored the close ties between the two countries, reviewed these activities favourably. In this way Dutch agency in the South African Van Riebeeck festivities opened a ‘singular world’ (to use Anderson’s words) in which a sense of transnational whiteness was celebrated. Niek Pas focuses on the role of sports in colonial and post-colonial community formation. In his chapter on the history and memory of the ‘Tour d’Algerie’, Pas stresses the importance of cycling for the identity of French colonists in North Africa. During the period of colonialism, this type of sports connected Algeria to France. When the colonial period had ended, for nostalgic former French colonists the (racing) bicycle became ‘more than a relic’, and in fact functioned as a totem: a ‘tangible artefact and also a symbol, a direct connection to the colonial era that brought with it a universe of memories, thoughts, feelings and emotions’. Finally, Alexander Dhoest, in his chapter ‘Remembering and Imagining the National Past: Public Service Television Drama and the Construction of a Flemish Nation, 1950-1980’, explores the role of the past in Flemish television. He demonstrates how romanticized images of the past entered the homes of the Flemish from the 1950s at fixed times in their daily routines, creating a national community within a transnational state. As Dhoest argues, drama productions played an important role as vivid and popular narratives about the ‘Flemish’ region, its people – often portrayed as ‘simple peasants’ – and history.

Emotions and community building Thus, the boundaries between the world before and after 1800 are not so strict as Anderson suggested. Also, as several articles in this volume suggest, imagined communities were formed across national boundaries, not just within them. In particular, the case studies presented in this book encourage us to recognize the impact individuals had on the creation of

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these various types of imagined communities. Whereas Anderson overwhelmingly focuses on larger structures rather than personal agency, in this volume, various individuals take centre stage who shaped imagined communities in the past: from early-twentieth-century Indonesian students, to seventeenth-century Dutch planters in Suriname, and from nineteenthcentury Hungarian patriotic antiquarians and composers to medieval archbishops. To an extent it are specif ic historical actors who actively created imagined communities, such as the writers of post-war Flemish family shows, or the Dutch migrants in South Africa who participated in the 1952 Jan van Riebeeck celebrations. And in examining the acts of individuals, it does not suffice to look solely at the underlying changing economic, political or social interests. Sentiments and emotions always form part of the story as well, as well as attachment to culture and the employment of social and cultural metaphors. Anderson wrote most of his work at a time when the ‘history of emotions’ had not yet developed into the productive and intellectually stimulating area of historical research it is today.19 Yet his work is full of emotions. The nation as an imagined community, he wrote, was supported by feelings of comradeship. He also wrote about the universal human struggle with suffering and hardship caused by ‘disease, mutilation, grief, age, and death’. The imagined community could offer its participants solace and support. Dying for the community was the ultimate sacrifice that the anonymous, individual soldier could make for the entire nation. In the contributions to this volume, which is meant to explore the process through which individual citizens in various times and places imagined their communities, a range of expressed emotions that apparently unite people thus also comes to the fore. A key emotion in the process of building imaginary communities appears to be nostalgia. Dhoest talks about postwar Flemish television shows playing upon their audience’s yearning for a lost, communal past at a time when modernization was rapidly changing Flanders. In fact, as Dhoest states, ‘one may argue that nostalgia forms the very core of national identities, which commonly display a strong orientation towards an idealized shared history’.20

19 See for instance: U. Fevert, Emotions in History: Lost and Found (Budapest/New York, 2011); S.J. Matt and P.N. Stearns, Doing Emotions History (Champaign, 2013); J. Plamper, The History of Emotions: An Introduction (Oxford, 2015). 20 See chapter 11 in this volume: Alexander Dhoest, ‘Remembering and Imaging the National Past. Public Service Television Drama and the Construction of a Flemish Nation’, 228.

Introduction

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This is certainly the case with the former French Algerians (pieds-noirs) portrayed by Niek Pas. In general, the memory cult of the pieds-noirs is highly developed, Pas notes – there is even a term for it: nostalgérie, a contraction of the words ‘nostalgie’ and ‘Algérie’ – and the bicycle is central to it for a specific subgroup of pied noirs called the Amicales. As such, nostalgia – rooted in vertical time – emphasizes the perception of a shared past shaping community identities in the present, as both Weeda and Rensen also argue in their contributions. Expressions of fear can also serve as the glue holding imagined communities together. Suze Zijlstra describes how in sixteenth-century Suriname, the Dutch colonial settlers suffered anxieties on various fronts: there were fears of conflicts with the indigenous population, who from the moment Europeans came to the Suriname area, had turned against the migrants. Also, the settlers worried the English would try to retrieve their former colony. Sharing these fears strengthened the colonists’ communal identity as inhabitants of Suriname. Belonging to an ethnic group could also in itself foster fear, which thus further sharpened ethnic identities and a sense of unity. As Weeda argues in her chapter about English identity formation, remarks made by Church prelates about how the ‘inherited’ communal vice of English drinking rituals supposedly shaped the nation’s fate – leading to the Church interdict placed on the English community – assuredly nurtured feelings of connectedness across the English populace shaped by fear, as the community members together purportedly faced eternal damnation. Conversely, as Blok argues, Anderson’s concept of the imagined community might also be applied to fraternal groups who offered mental and material solace, support and comradeship to suffering people. For historians of psychiatry, the concept can thus help to explain how individuals came to adopt psychiatric labels and explanations for their experiences, feelings and behaviours. An extensive discourse on ‘listlessness’, feeling ‘unhappy’ and ‘nervous exhaustion’ was employed to sell Pink Pills in the early twentieth century. Possibly, as Blok speculates, reading the ads stimulated readers to self-identify and experience themselves as ‘neurasthenics’, supported in the process by the transnational imagined community of fellow nervous sufferers presented to them in the newspapers.

Emotional practices Most notably, the empirical case studies in this volume suggest the importance of ‘emotional practices’ in community formation. Emotional practices,

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in the words of historical anthropologist Monique Scheer, are ‘habits, rituals, and everyday pastimes that aid us in achieving a certain emotional state’.21 As several contributions in this volume demonstrate, emotional practices involving objects (pills, bicycles, radios, television sets, musical instruments), commemorations and other rituals, as well as expected or real bodily sensations (a relief of bodily or mental suffering, sportsmanship, or the sensory experience of music, and marching) can stimulate, through the imagination, feelings of brotherhood and kinship with people one has never met. Media use, for instance, is a very potent emotional practice. This is shown very clearly by Alexander Dhoest, in his article on Flemish television in the post-war period. For the generation who grew up with Flemish television in this decade, drama ‘created shared memories which contributed to the sense of a collective, national past’, Dhoest argues. This sense of a shared past demonstrates the power television has to create imagined communities of viewers. Viewers watched the same programmes at the same time, which created a horizontal dimension of simultaneity. On the other hand, the programmes they watched linked them to a shared past, creating a vertical dimension of collective history in which the emotional experience of nostalgia held sway. Several decades earlier, during the 1920s, the development of modern radio technology strengthened the transnational, colonial Dutch imagined community, as Vincent Kuitenbrouwer shows. Radio connected people in different parts of the world, and celebrating this achievement as a feat bolstered the international prestige of the Netherlands. Listeners expressed awe and pride at being able to hear the voice of their young, royal Dutch princess Juliana, and great joy at being able to talk to their family members at such a great distance. The emotive language they use to describe these long-distance conversations emphasizes the personal connections ‘from heart to heart’. Looking at ego documents and media reports it seems these feelings trickled down to a wider audience of Dutch people living in the colony and in the Netherlands, forging a colonial imagined community. During the first half of the twentieth century, in the history of Hungarian nationalism, the radio also played an important role in popularizing and spreading Gypsy music, as Kristina Lajosi describes. The public in restaurants and cafés, and wealthier families in their homes, enjoyed broadcasts of concerts by famous Gypsy bands. The radio played an important role in the export of a romantic brand of nationalism that was closely linked to Gypsy music. The emotional practice of listening to the familiar tunes played by Gypsies 21 M. Scheer, ‘Are Emotions a Kind of Practice (And Is That What Makes Them Have a History)? A Bourdieuian Approach to Understanding Emotion’, History and Theory 51 (2012), 193-220, here at 209.

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wearing Hungarian Hussar costumes became a distinct marker of Hungarian identity, not only because of the particularity of the tunes, but also because of the spectacle Gypsy musicians provided for audiences at home and abroad. Finally, Marleen Rensen, when analysing the novels of the French communist writer André Malraux, and his colleague Robert Brasillach, who promoted fascism, emphasizes the great power of marching as an emotional practice, strengthening the bonds between communists and fascists alike. Malraux and Brasillach both depict ‘rhythmic movements in marching and singing that engender a strong affective bond’, to quote Rensen. She argues that in their literary work, ‘the sensation of being one and moving harmoniously together further expresses a yearning for a rhythmic experience of time that is directly related to a communal group held together by a shared past and a common destiny’. Examining the expressed emotions and emotional practices tied to the experience of group membership, the concomitant nostalgia for the group member’s past, the metaphors by which the community is imagined and the artefacts embodying it, together enriches the still potent framework of the imagined community, both in premodernity and modern times, in religious and secular societies, in transnational and national contexts. Thus, the analysis of specific case studies in this volume hopefully will contribute to opening up new fields of enquiry into the imagined community in Anderson’s work, whose relevance continues to live on to this day, both in scholarship and in current socio-cultural and political developments.

About the authors Gemma Blok is professor in Modern History at the Open University of the Netherlands. Her research concerns itself with the history of mental health care, addiction treatment, and the social and cultural history of alcohol and drug use. Her publications include Ziek of zwak. Geschiedenis van de verslavingszorg in Nederland (Uitgeverij Nieuwezijds, 2011); Achter de voordeur. Sociale geschiedenis vanuit de GGD Amsterdam in de twintigste eeuw (Amsterdam University Press, 2014); and ‘We the Avant-garde: A History from Below of Dutch Heroin Use in the 1970s’, BMGN – Low Countries Historical Review 132:1 (2017), 104-125. Vincent Kuitenbrouwer is Assistant Professor in the History of International Relations at the University of Amsterdam. He specialized in nineteenth- and twentieth-century imperial history and has a special interest in colonial media. He is currently working on the history of Dutch international radio

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broadcasting. His publications include: ‘“A Newspaper War”? The Dutch Press and the South African War’, BMGN – Low Countries Historical Review 128:1 (2013), 127-150; ‘The First World War and the Birth of Dutch Colonial Radio’, World History Bulletin 31:1 (2015) 28-31; ‘Radio as a tool of empire. Colonial broadcasting from the Netherlands to the Dutch East Indies in the 1920s and 1930s’, Itinerario. International Journal on the History of European Expansion and Global Interaction, 40:1 (2016) 83-103. Claire Weeda is a cultural historian whose main fields of interest include ethnic stereotyping, the history of the body, medicine, and social and religious ethics in later medieval Europe. She has published in various international journals and volumes on ethnic stereotyping, humoral theory, religion, violence and politics. In 2015, her dissertation Images of Ethnicity in Later Medieval Europe was awarded the Keetje Hodshon Prijs by the Koninklijke Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen. She is currently assistant professor of medieval history at Leiden University and is conducting research on the body politic, urban policies and public health in the late Middle Ages.

1

Meanwhile in Messianic Time Imagining the Medieval Nation in Time and Space and English Drinking Rituals Claire Weeda Abstract In Imagined Communities, Benedict Anderson contended that a pivotal factor in national community formation was the new experience, in modern times, of sharing daily routines with one’s anonymous co-nationals in ‘calendrical’ or ‘horizontal-simultaneous’ time. This new imagining was sparked, among other things, by the rise of print-capitalism and the invention of the clock. However, in European pre-modern societies, community members already frequently employed ethnic images that bespeak a conceptual imagining of ‘ethnotypes’. In this chapter, I therefore argue that in pre-modern times a different concept of time: so-called liturgical or messianic time, specifically contributed to the cogency of ethnotypes from the tenth century onwards, in which thinking about ethnic groups’ acts in the past (in ‘vertical time’) and the significance of perceived collective behaviour and rituals performed and driven by ethnic virtues and vices of its members in the present (‘horizontal time’) and future coalesced. Thus, lists of ethnic virtues and vices reflected a religiously informed approach to time expressing the powerful notion that a shared past served as a code for understanding the present and foretelling the future, known as liturgical or messianic time. This is exemplified by a case study in which one of these ethnic vices rooted in history – English drinking – was appropriated in a sermon to excoriate the ‘communal guilt’ of the English people and its monarchy at a crucial moment in early-thirteenth-century English history: the end of the interdict in 1213. This case study in particular elucidates the process of imagining communities in medieval times, as English drunkenness was a cornerstone in the narrative of British, Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman collective memory as a ‘chosen people’, who had entered into a special

Blok, Gemma, Kuitenbrouwer, Vincent and Weeda, Claire (eds): Imagining Communities. Historical Reflections on the Process of Community Formation. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018 doi: 10.5117/9789462980037_ch01

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covenant with God; and elaborate drinking rituals were performed both on a daily basis and at a fixed moments on the calendar, namely between Christmas and New Year. Keywords: ethnic groups, Middle Ages, virtues and vices, eschatology, time

I Is the manifestation of ‘homogenous, empty time’ a prerequisite for imagining the nation, as Benedict Anderson argued it was in Imagined Communities?1 Indeed, in his seminal work, Anderson contended – inspired by Walter Benjamin’s essay ‘Theses on the Philosophy of History’2 – that communities resembled an imagined web or network, whose members experienced a sense of connectedness with their anonymous co-nationals. A pivotal factor in shaping this sense of connectedness was the experience of sharing daily routines in ‘calendrical’ or ‘horizontal-simultaneous’ time. With the introduction of mechanical clocks, and especially the rise of print-capitalism, community members could now, for instance, imagine how their co-nationals in the morning simultaneously read their newspapers at breakfast tables across the country, sharing the same national experiences, knowledge and culture, while the nation moved through ‘homogeneous, empty time’.3 On the front cover of the 2006 edition of Imagined Communities, stacks of daily newspapers thus symbolized the materialization of the nation’s increasingly secularized imagination, in which the community’s shared experiences and culture piled up whilst meaningless, empty time ticked on. Anderson’s argument implies that without the mechanisms of modern timekeeping and print-capitalism, social group members would have lacked the temporal infrastructure to imagine their co-members’ daily practices, and to tie these imaginings to a sense of belonging to an ethnic, or national,

1 B. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, 3rd, rev. ed. (London/New York, 2006), 23-36. 2 W. Benjamin, ‘Theses on the Philosophy of History’, in: W. Benjamin, Illuminations (London, 1973), 265. 3 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 24. In B. Anderson, The Spectre of Comparisons: Nationalism, Southeast Asia and the World (London/New York, 1998), 32-34, Anderson returns to the role of time and surmises that he may have emphasized one-sidedly the ‘significance of the calendrical simultaneity of apparently random occurrences’ in daily newspapers. He did not however revise his position on the role of calendrical time per se.

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community.4 This chapter will however question whether such an experience of homogenous, empty time indeed was a prerequisite for national community formation. For how does this supposition dovetail with the numerous testimonies to a sense of ethnic identity in late medieval times, in a period before print-capitalism and modern timekeeping? In European premodern societies, community members frequently employed ethnic images that bespoke a conceptual imagining in people’s minds of ‘ethnotypes’ – imagined members of a named ethnic group, who purportedly shared physical and mental characteristics (i.e. the English drunkard, the French boaster, the German aggressor) and had a sense of sharing a common culture, territory, history and descent.5 Especially in the later Middle Ages, these ethnotypes evolved into a pars pro toto for the metaphorical ‘national body’, according to which the national community was envisaged as a corporal persona, whose societal groups, offices and professions together made up the limbs and organs in harmonious although hierarchical cooperation.6 Which role did time then play in the emergence of and identification with such ethnotypes, in a world not yet dictated by the rhythms of mechanical clocks? To answer this question, it is necessary to examine how medieval ethnic communities were imagined temporally on their own terms. In this chapter I shall argue that in premodern times there existed various different concepts of time that in their own manner contributed to the emergence of ethnotypes 4 Here, an ethnic community is defined as having a collective proper name; myth of common ancestry; shared historical memories; one or more differentiating elements of common culture; an association with a specific ‘homeland’; and a sense of solidarity for significant sectors of the population. See A.D. Smith, National Identity (London, 1991), 21. 5 The number of publications about medieval ethnic or national communities is substantial. See C. Weeda, ‘Ethnic Identification and Stereotypes in Western Europe, c. 1100-1300’, History Compass 12 (2014), 586-606, for an overview. I can only mention a few titles here: R. Bartlett, The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization and Cultural Change, 950-1350 (London, 1994); R. Bartlett, ‘Medieval and Modern Concepts of Race and Ethnicity’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 31 (2001), 39-56; R.R. Davies, ‘Presidential Address: The People of Britain and Ireland 1100-1400, I: Identities’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 4 (1994), 1-20; R.R. Davies, ‘Presidential Address: The Peoples of Britain and Ireland 1100-1400, II: Names, Boundaries and Regnal Solidarities’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 5 (1995), 1-20; R.R. Davies, ‘Presidential Address: The Peoples of Britain and Ireland 1100-1400, III: Laws and Customs’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 6 (1996), 1-23; R.R. Davies, ‘Presidential Address: The Peoples of Britain and Ireland 1100-1400, IV: Language and Historical Mythology’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 7 (1997), 1-24. For an overview of ethnotypes in twelfth-century Western Europe, see C. Weeda, ‘Images of Ethnicity in Later Medieval Europe’ (dissertation, University of Amsterdam, 2012). 6 For the medieval ‘national body’ and the body politic, see V. Syros, ‘Galenic Medicine and Social Stability in Early Modern Florence and the Islamic Empires’, Journal of Early Modern History 17 (2013), 161-213.

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and a sense of belonging to an ‘ethnic’ community. As I argue, besides the already much researched identity-formation processes rooted in genealogy and origo gentis-myths – which I shall not discuss further here – the concept of so-called liturgical or messianic time specifically contributed to the employment of ethnotypes from the tenth century onwards, in which thinking about ethnic groups’ acts in the past (in ‘vertical time’) and the significance of perceived collective behaviour and rituals performed and driven by ethnic virtues and vices of its members in the present (‘horizontal time’) and future coalesced.7 Thus, from the tenth century, monks began to enumerate the purportedly dominant shared virtues and vices of ethnic groups in lists, emphasizing both the ethnic groups’ past role in salvation history as well as the enactment of these virtues and vices by community members in the present.8 These lists of ethnic virtues and vices reflected a religiously informed approach to time expressing the powerful notion that a shared past served as a code for understanding the present and foretelling the future, known as liturgical or messianic time. This will be explained further below, and expanded by examining a case study in which one of these ethnic vices rooted in history – English drinking – was appropriated in a sermon to excoriate the ‘communal guilt’ of the English people and its monarchy at a crucial moment in early-thirteenth-century English history, the end of the interdict in 1213. I have chosen to present the case study of English drinking because English drunkenness was a cornerstone in the narrative of British, Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman collective memory as a ‘chosen people’, who had entered into a special covenant with God; and because elaborate drinking rituals were performed both on a daily basis and at a fixed moments on the calendar, namely between Christmas and New Year. Consequently, the ethnotype of the English drunkard features in over 30 different sources from the twelfth century and as such may be termed an ubiquitous stereotype.9 7 ‘Messianic time’ is the term introduced by E. Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, trans. W. Trask (New York, 1957), 64, and subsequently adopted by Anderson. For literature on the role of myths, memories and genealogy in medieval ethnicity, I refer for instance to J. Ehlers (ed.), Ansätze und Diskontinuität deutscher Nationsbildung im Mittelalter (Sigmaringen, 1989); J. Garber, ‘Trojaner-Römer-Franken-Deutsche. “Nationale” Abstammungstheorien im Vorfeld der Nationalstaatsbildung’, in: K. Garber (ed.), Nation und Literatur im Europa der Frühen Neuzeit: Akten des I. Internationalen Osnabrücker Kongresses zur Kulturgeschichte der frühen Neuzeit (Tübingen, 1989), 108-163. 8 C. Weeda, ‘The Characteristics of Bodies and Ethnicity c. 900-1200’, Medieval Worlds 5 (2017), 95-112. 9 See C. Weeda, ‘Images of Ethnicity in Later Medieval Europe’; I. Short, ‘Tam Angli quam Franci: Self-Definition in Anglo-Norman England’, Anglo-Norman Studies: Proceedings of the

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Anderson, among others, argued that early medieval sources where past and present figures and events are mentioned simultaneously and placed within the same timeframe, should be taken as evidence that medieval people had ‘no conception of […] radical separations between past and present’.10 This common misconception has been adequately refuted by Goetz, who contends that in medieval historiography the past instead served as a underlying blueprint for deciphering the meaning of present acts – including communal acts of ethnic groups in the here and now – with a view to understanding the events of the future.11 In this context, interpreting contemporaneous communal acts was especially relevant because sinful acts and dispositions were considered to determine the outcome of events – and sinful behaviour was something to overcome through free will, even if ultimately all events occurred according to God’s plan. Moreover, as will become clear below, although theoretically, within the Christian community, all ethnic bonds and characteristics were said to dissolve in a populus Christianorum, ethnicity still retained its cogency throughout the Middle Ages, serving as a categorical concept as medieval nations such as the Franks and Anglo-Saxons competed for ‘chosenness’ as God’s people, instead of merging into one Christian body.12 The belief that religion overruled ethnic thinking in the Middle Ages is thus highly debatable. Before turning to the concept of messianic time in more detail, the question should first be addressed whether in the era preceding ‘clock timekeeping’, members of ethnic groups could imagine events, such as ritual drinking feasts, being acted out simultaneously by anonymous co-members of the group. As I shall argue, to an extent they could: in medieval times, horizontal, Battle Conference 1995 18 (1996), 153-175, here at 153; H. Thomas, The English and the Normans: Ethnic Hostility, Assimilation, and Identity 1066-c. 1220 (Oxford, 2003), 52; P. Rickard, Britain in Medieval Literature,1100-1500 (Cambridge, 1956), 167. 10 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 23. 11 H.W. Goetz, ‘The Concept of Time in the Historiography of the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries’, in: G. Althoff, J. Fried and P.J. Geary (eds), Medieval Concepts of the Past: Ritual, Memory, Historiography (Washington, DC/Cambridge, 2002), 139-165. 12 For the longevity of ethnic essential thought in Christendom, see especially D.K. Buell, Why This New Race: Ethnic Reasoning in Early Christianity (New York, 2005); D.K. Buell, ‘Early Christian Universalism and Modern Racism’, in: M. Eliav-Feldon, B. Isaac and J. Ziegler (eds), The Origins of Racism in the West (Cambridge, 2009), 109-131. For the concept of chosenness and medieval ethnicity, see M. Garrison, ‘The Franks as the New Israel? Education for an Identity from Pippin to Charlemagne’, in: Y. Hen and M. Innes (eds), The Uses of the Past in the Early Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2000), 114-161; A. Murray, ‘Bede and the Unchosen Race’, in: H. Pryce and J. Watts (eds), Power and Identity in the Middle Ages: Essays in Memory of Rees Davies (Oxford, 2007), 52-67; M. Gabriele, ‘The Chosen Peoples of the Eleventh and Twenty-First Centuries’, Relegere: Studies in Religion and Perception 2 (2012), 281-290.

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homogenous time was not only experienced through the daily rhythms of agriculture, the daily hours of sunlight and the seasons, but especially through the chiming of church bells, as well as in correspondence with liturgical and saint’s calendars. Thus, priests celebrating mass followed a more or less fixed liturgical annual program and saints’ vital data were celebrated annually and regularly on set communal feast days. At least on major occasions such as Christmas, Easter, the Feast of the Assumption, Ascension Day, Pentecost, the Feasts of Peter and Paul, of John the Baptist, and of All Saints, medieval people could certainly imagine their co-members’ simultaneous goings about, when both the laity and clergy attended mass and communal feasts throughout the country. Moreover, medieval people acknowledged various other methods for the ordering of time. From the early Middle Ages, people marked wax candles in order to record the passage of time (known as the equal hours system).13 Before the evolution of urban ‘merchant’s time’ and the appearance of mechanical clocks in the fourteenth century, horizontal time was further structured by monks who subjected their daily routines to the system of the monastic hours through the application of the temporal hours system (dividing the fluctuating period of daylight into twelve variable, equal parts). Schmitt has thus posited that social rhythms, rather than being structured by methods of timekeeping such as mechanical clocks, themselves shaped the temporal categories of a given culture.14 Instead of then assuming that modern, homogenous and horizontal timekeeping created the framework for the birth of national communities, it might therefore be argued that within medieval society the ‘ethnic group’ materialized within its own specific framework of temporality. As I will argue in this chapter, in this context, rituals in particular served as a bridge between the vertical and horizontal timeframe, as they served as acts referring to and drawing meaning from the past that were performed and filled with meaning in the present. The enactment of rituals thereby tapped into a sense of rootedness in the past, yet at the same time functioned as a ‘rite de passage’ in the present, entangling both the ‘horizontal’ and ‘vertical’ timeframe. Especially when these rituals referred to ethnicity and were extended to the whole community, such as was the case with the English drinking ritual discussed below, these rituals allowed ethnic members to reinforce their horizontal, communal ties 13 C. Humphrey, ‘Time and Urban Culture in Late Medieval England’, in: C. Humphrey and W.R. Ormrod (eds), Time in the Medieval World (York, 2001), 105-118, here at 106-107. 14 J.-C. Schmitt, ‘A History of Rhythms during the Middle Ages’, Medieval History Journal 15 (2012), 1-24, here at 2, 7-10. For instance, nineteenth-century industrial production spurned the rhythms of production line work that shaped working-class concepts of time.

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by (re)affirming their ‘membership of the pack’, at the same time referring to and engaging with both their forebears as well as future progeny through a form of timeless bonding. In this light, although a fundamental aspect of rituals is their timeless repetition,15 participation in a ritual is thus also an act inducing group conformity, as Bloch has argued.16 Rituals thereby might help create groups in the present, by reference to the group’s perceived past. Liturgical or messianic time The concept of ‘liturgical’ or ‘messianic time’ is fundamental to understanding medieval ethnicity and its relation to past and present until at least the thirteenth century, in particular in monastic and clerical circles. According to Spiegel, the dominant concept of ‘liturgical time’ entails a historical experience in which ‘recent or contemporary experiences acquire meaning only insofar as they can be subsumed within biblical categories of events and their interpretation bequeathed to the community through the medium of Scripture’.17 In liturgical time, historical events are thus transfigured ‘ritually and liturgically, into repetitions and re-enactments’ that revivify the past, bringing it to life in the present in the liturgical event.18 In liturgical time, moreover, past events are experienced cyclically, repetitively and timelessly. As Auerbach posited, in vertical-horizontal liturgical time, the here and now is thus ‘simultaneously something which has always been, and will be fulfilled in the future’.19 Within this medieval epistemology, all things, both past and present, were viewed within a parallel and simultaneous timeframe of creation, temporality and final events, within the narrative of salvation. This does not, however, mean that medieval people could not make a distinction between events of the past and the present; only that within this religious, conceptual framework, past events continued to shape 15 C. Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions (New York, 1997), 152-153. 16 M. Bloch, ‘Symbols, Song, Dance and Features of Articulation: Is Religion an Extreme Form of Traditional Authority?’, European Journal of Psychology 15 (1974), 54-81. 17 For the concept of liturgical time, see G.M. Spiegel, ‘Memory and History: Liturgical Time and Historical Time’, History and Theory 41 (2002), 149-162, here at 149. Italics are mine. Although the liturgical concept of time belonged to Jewish historical thought, it was applicable to Catholic concepts of temporality until at least the thirteenth century, and especially informed clerics and monks. Christianity, as a religion of imitation of Judaic Biblical concepts, had readily adopted this concept of time, taking the prophecies of the Old Testament’s past and centring them around the prefigurement and fulfilment of the Incarnation and future materialization of Christ’s Second Coming. 18 Spiegel, ‘Memory and History’, 149, 152. 19 Auerbach, Mimesis, 64.

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the experience of and lend meaning to the present, serving as a code for their interpretation, with an eye to the future. As such, time could be both linear and coetaneous, horizontal-homogenous and vertical at the same moment. A deistic mode of thinking about temporality, liturgical time had specific relevance for ethnic identification because genealogically ‘inherited’ ethnic virtues and vices were considered to play a key role in the fate of ethnic groups in both past and present – as well as in the history of mankind in its entirety. Significant in this regard is that monks and clerics embedded their concept of history in an eschatological world view, wherein all events were ultimately coordinated with a view to the end of time, when the whole of humanity would be judged for its deeds. In this regard, the acts of ethnic groups were considered to play a crucial role in salvation history and to be caused by group characteristics – virtues and vices – that were purportedly determined by, among others, climatological factors, heredity and free will. These acts in time were equally and intrinsically bound to space, as temporal events acted out by peoples throughout history inadvertently took place on a geographical stage.20 This relationship between time, space and peoples is reflected in the countless geographical-ethnographical prologues in medieval historiography – setting the stage, the time, and the actors in major historical events.21 The same underlying concept is also present in the measurement of time in lists of ethnic groups and their sins, which in medieval manuscripts so often are accompanied by so-called computus calculations (tables calculating the Easter dates) and geographical information.22 Thus, in liturgical time, space, time and ethnic groups cannot be viewed separately, for whereas geography (space) formed the setting for historical events, history (time) was acted out by peoples. As a consequence, the bond between a territory, its history and inhabitants invited contemplation on the behaviour and fate of peoples in relation to divine providence. Collective ethnic sins, past and present, were thereby said to have repercussions for the expected fulfilment of the end of history, as one of the New Testament prophecies had stipulated that Christendom necessarily should spread to all four corners of the world, embraced by all 20 D. Woodward, ‘Reality, Symbolism, Time, and Space in Medieval World Maps’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 75 (1985), 510-521, here at 514; E. Edson, Mapping Time and Space: How Medieval Mapmakers Viewed Their World (London, 1997), esp. ch. 4. As theologized medieval pictures, medieval maps often depicted time in relation to space, from the genesis in the East, where Paradise is located, in slow progression to the West, to make full circle in the centre, where a heavenly Jerusalem would descend at the end of time. 21 A.H. Merrills, History and Geography in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 2005). 22 Edson, Mapping Time and Space, 32.

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nations, before Christ was to return upon earth. In this sense, the actualization of Christ’s Second Coming was considered as dependent on the collective and individual behaviour of the clergy and the laity. The perceived influence of collective ethnic virtues and vices on the shaping of history, was also tied to the notion of chosenness – which in the Christian era was adopted and expanded to all kinds of peoples, termed as ‘new Israelites’.23 Chosenness reflected an ethnic group’s specific bond with God, who not only favoured his chosen nation, but also frequently punished it for its transgressions. In the case of the English, as we shall see below, this ethnic transgression generally involved drunkenness and gluttony, two inherited ethnic vices that were deemed the catalyst of major disasters in the history of the British Isles. Nonetheless, the inhabitants of Britain were not the only people to identify themselves as chosen; Smith has listed among ‘peoples of the covenant’ and ‘missionary peoples’ in late medieval and modern times Gregorian Armenians, Amharic Ethiopians, Afrikaners, Greek Orthodox, Russians, Franks and the Scots.24 As favoured nations, chosen peoples held a specific responsibility to serve the interests of the Christian community, for example by fighting in God’s army, as the Franks so poignantly boasted during the First Crusade. To summarize: in a world-historical view determined by liturgical time, not only memories of the past, but also ethnic virtues and vices of the past, ultimately rooted in scripture, continued to lend meaning to and shape the present. Events referring back to these virtues or vices of the past, likewise contributed to the collective memory of the ethnic past, and rituals allowed for the re-enactment of ethnic virtues or vices in the present, thus not only temporarily fusing past and present but also forging a sense of community in the present. For that reason, monks and clerics urged community members to ponder on their communal sins of the past, in light of the present, for communal sins were considered to shape the contemporary vicissitudes of chosen peoples, materializing in ‘national’ disasters such as famine, war and conquest. Moreover, in the grand scheme of things, communal ethnic vices played a role in shaping the history of mankind, each ethnic group fulfilling its own role and destiny in embracing or rejecting Christianity. As such, Christendom was populated by many nations, often competing with one another over their allotted role in history. Such was also the case with regard to the English and their drinking rituals. As I shall argue in the second part of this chapter, the communal 23 See above note 12 for references to chosenness. 24 See A.D. Smith, Chosen Peoples (Oxford, 2003), chs 4-5.

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custom of English drinking was attributed specific meaning in both liturgical and horizontal time, as the ‘sin’ of drinking was replete with meaning in reference to English history, and at the same time repeatedly acted out in communal drinking sessions in contemporary society. In this capacity wassailing (the English drinking ritual) was, in my view, a catalyser for imagining the anonymous co-nationals’ routines before the advent of modern timekeeping or print-capitalism.

II Ebriety in Britain is embedded in a strong and elaborate discourse going back to at least the early Middle Ages. Besides general references to drunkenness and cultural battles over the merits of beer and wine, fought out in poetry and works of satire, drinking on the British peninsula was associated with the specific custom of ‘wassailing’, which involved elaborate toasting rituals.25 At least from the eleventh century, wassailing was recognized as a widespread custom. Notably, it was practiced within a specific time slot on the liturgical calendar, in the period from Christmas to New Year. During those winter days, community members might convene to bring out elaborate toasts until the early hours. In addition, the term wassailing was used to refer to toasting rituals on other festive occasions, such as dining ceremonies at the courts and in the monasteries. It was associated with merriment and embraced as a sign of plenty, according to Thomas.26 It was also, however, viewed as a token of gluttony and as such a cardinal sin. It was, moreover, distinctly associated with the ethnic identity of, respectively, the British, the Anglo-Saxons and the Anglo-Normans.

25 For the ritual of wassailing, see M. Lamont, ‘Becoming English: Ronwenne’s Wassail, Language, and National Identity in the Middle English Prose Brut’, Studies in Philology 107 (2010), 283-309; A. Gautier, ‘Wassail, drinchail et savoir-vivre, ou la disqualification culturelle d’une élite’, Cahiers de recherches médiévales (xiiie-xve siècles) 19 (2010), 11-26, who argues that the condemnation of Anglo-Saxon drinking by the Norman elite was an opportunity to disparage the customs of the subordinated inhabitants of Britain. However, as will become clear below, in the course of the twelfth century many sources attest to the Normans embracing English drinking rituals as part of their identity. 26 Thomas, The English and the Normans, 302. The notion that drunkenness was related to England’s wealth is possibly echoed in William of Normandy’s early-thirteenth-century Besant, who states that Pride had married his three daughters in England: Envy, Luxury, and Drunkenness. Cf. C.-V. Langlois, ‘Les Anglais du Moyen Âge d’après les sources francaises’, Revue historique 52:2 (1893), 298-315, here at 308 note 1.

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Certainly in the wake of the Norman Conquest in 1066, communal carousals might smoothen social relations and forge new bonds. Various sources have come down to us describing how communal drinking blurred ethnic divisions in the century after this watershed event in English history. The twelfth-century cleric Gerald of Wales, for instance, recorded an anecdote about how King Henry II of England, on an incognito visit to a Cistercian abbey, was enticed to speed up the drinking by the local abbot, who reassured him that the English toasting ritual consisted of a terse ‘pril’ and ‘wril’ instead of the double syllabic ‘wesheil’, ‘drincheil’.27 When, according to Gerald, the abbot later visited the royal court, the now no longer incognito King Henry in turn welcomed him with a ‘pril’, embarrassing the thirsty abbot in front of the courtiers. The gist of Gerald’s anecdote lies in the message that, by putting the abbot to shame at court, Henry was acknowledging his full awareness of English customs, the abbot in fact being reminded of the right manner of wassailing by the ‘foreign’ king.28 Such anecdotes demonstrate how ethnic customs might be gradually adopted and adapted by newcomers to England who had now taken power. In this sense, English drunkenness served as a broader cultural agency uniting those who, as inhabitants of the island, participated in communal customs. Especially in ritual toasting rituals, island inhabitants could, even if only temporarily, engage in a drunken rite de passage fostering a new communal spirit. Many twelfth-century sources consequently reflect upon the ubiquity of English drinking. In the Dialogue of the Exchequer, for instance, Richard Fitz Nigel speaks of the ‘natural drunkenness of its [England’s] inhabitants’, relating it to crime rates in the country.29 And communal drinking was not merely the laity’s vice. Although Church moralists generally, regardless of their ethnicity, were bent on condemning drunkenness, clerics likewise might revel in drinking. Drunkenness was joked about, and there was a certain pride in drinking large quantities of 27 Gerald of Wales, Speculum Ecclesiae III, 13; cf. R. Bartlett, England under the Norman and Angevin Kings, 1075-1225 (Oxford, 2000), 578; E. Coleman, ‘Nasty Habits – Satire and the Medieval Monk’, History Today 43 (1993), 36-42. 28 A clear example of how identity and alterity can interpenetrate and mingle. Cf. J.T. Leerssen, ‘Identity/Alterity/Hybridity’, in: M. Beller and J.T. Leerssen (eds), Imagology: The Cultural Construction and Literary Representation of National Characters: A Critical Survey (Amsterdam/ New York, 2007), 335-342, here at 341; P. Hoppenbrouwers, ‘The Dynamics of National Identity in the later Middle Ages’, in: R. Stein and J.S. Pollmann (eds), Networks, Regions and Nations: Shaping Identities in the Low Countries, 1300-1650 (Leiden, 2010), 19-42, here at 34. 29 Richard Fitz Nigel, Dialogus de Scaccario, ed. and trans. C. Johnson, F.E.L. Carter and D.E. Greenway, Dialogus de Scaccario: The Course of the Exchequer: The Establishment of the Royal Household (Oxford, 1983), 87: ‘innatam indigenis crapulam’.

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wine and beer. In Henry d’Andeli’s Bataille des vins (c. 1225), an English priest is thus set the task of sampling all the wines of the world. Each he tastes with great indiscriminate satisfaction, except for beer, which he afterwards excommunicates.30 Satirical jokes were made about the drunkenness of the English clergy studying abroad in Paris, as for example mentioned by Jacques de Vitry in his History of the West, or in sayings such as ‘French learning, English thirst, Breton stupidity, and Norman boasting all increase with increasing years’.31 In some cases, drinking was similarly engaged by French writers to disparage English political claims. English King Henry II’s claims to the Vexin in the 1150s were, for instance, related to English drinking in a debate verse written by Pierre Riga, supporter of French King Louis VII.32 From the twelfth century, with the influx of Arabic-Galenic medicine, English drinking was subsequently ensconced in medical-hereditary terms.33 In a letter to the otherwise unknown Baldwin of Valle Darii, possibly from Christ Church, Canterbury, the famous cleric John of Salisbury refers directly to English drinking, exclaiming, ‘you and your like are not to blame for such behaviour, however, since nature and heredity make you drunk so that you cannot even be sober when you have had nothing’.34 The French cleric Peter of Celle went so far as to condemn English drinking as a visible sign that resembled Hebrew circumcision.35 Because of their excessive drinking, the English thought ‘our France a land of sheep and the French mutton-heads’, 30 Cf. Rickard, Britain in Medieval Literature, 169. 31 In B. Hauréau, Notices et extraits de quelques manuscrits latins de la Bibliothèque nationale, 6 vols. (Paris 1890-1893), vol. 6, 124: ‘Francis scire, sitis Anglis, nescire Britannis, / Fastus Normannis crescit, crescentibus annis.’ See C.V. Langlois, ‘Les Anglais du Moyen Âge d’après les sources francaises’, Revue Historique 52 (1893), 298-315, here at 306. 32 Printed in B. Hauréau, ‘Un poème inédit de Pierre Riga’, Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartres 44 (1883), 5-11; F.J.E. Raby, A History of Secular Latin Poetry in the Middle Ages, 2 vols (Oxford, 1934), vol. 2, 37; Thomas, The English and the Normans, 318. 33 For concepts of heredity in the Late Middle Ages, see M. van der Lugt and C. de Miramon, L’hérédité entre Moyen Âge et Époque Moderne: Perspectives Historiques (Florence, 2008). 34 The Letters of John of Salisbury, Volume 2: The Later Letters (1163-1180), ed. and trans. W.J. Millor and C.N.L. Brooke (Oxford, 1979), no. 270: ‘Quod tamen tibi tuique similibus imputari non debet, quibus tam natura quam mos patrius ebriositatem ingerit ut etiam ieiuni sobrii esse non possint.’ 35 See Peter of Celle’s letter to John of Salisbury, The Letters of Peter of Celle, no. 173, ed. and trans. J.P. Haseldine (Oxford, 2001), 666-669: ‘Regarding your people and their customs, it is well enough known to me that they are accustomed to fill up their wineskins, nay their bellies, even indeed to fill them to overflowing, both with wine and with mead without censure and, as the Hebrews circumcise their flesh as a sign that they are the seed of Abraham, without the disgrace of dishonour.’ See also letter no. 172, ed. and trans. Haseldine, 664-665, again addressed to John of Salisbury.

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whereas ‘for you to think us French drunk is as if the bandy-legged should ridicule the straight-legged, or the Ethiopian the white man’.36 Writers even intimated that the vice of drunkenness was a consequence of the fall of mankind, a morally depraved behaviour ‘inherited’ by Adam’s offspring. English ebriety thus features as a recurrent vice in a substantial number of twelfth- and thirteenth-century sources, as a shared cultural custom that in the ritualized form of wassailing was acted out in ‘horizontal time’. At the same time, drinking as a communal activity in Britain was however also considered as rooted in cyclical, liturgical time. And it is in this ritual act of ‘sinful’ drinking that members of the English ethnic community might specifically have experienced a sense of timeless bonding with their forebears and progeny, the past, the present, and the future. Although wassailing was considered a token of merriment, it was thus also often used in the negative context of the sinful catalyser of God’s wrath at key moments of British and subsequently English history, as God punished his ‘chosen people’ for breaking its covenant with God. As such, communal drinking on specific festive days was replete with meaning that stretched far beyond oblivious merriment, as it might also refer to ‘inherited’ ethnic sins of the past that had shaped English history. Here, communal drinking as a shared custom in horizontal time might thus tap into the rhetoric of drinking in vertical time, as an ethnic vice of the past that was re-enacted in the present. Drinking in liturgical time Already in the early Middle Ages, English drinking had been allotted a prominent position in the rhetoric of chosenness, as part of the tradition of interpreting the fate of ethnic groups in light of God’s plan.37 One of the first to relate the sin of English drinking to their fate in British historiography, was the British monk Gildas.38 He wrote his De excidio Britonum (The ruin of the British) in the first half of the sixth century as a jeremiad of the evils of his time, which were in his view festering in particular among Britain’s rulers and the Church.39 Gildas’ objective was to invite the British to repent and 36 Ibid.: ‘Franciam nostrum ueruecum patriam credas et Francos esse uerueces. […] Nos Francos ebriosos putas, ac si loripes rectum derideat, Aethiops album.’ 37 P. Meyvaert, ‘Rainaldus est malus scriptor Francigenus: Voicing National Antipathy in the Middle Ages’, Speculum 66 (1991), 743-763, here at 746-747. 38 R.W. Hanning, The Vision of History in Early Britain: From Gildas to Geoffrey of Monmouth (New York, 1966), 46-48. 39 It is usually dated to circa 540, although George proposes a date somewhere between 510 and 530; cf. K. George, Gildas’s De Excidio Britonum and the Early British Church (Woodbridge,

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thus regain God’s favour. He was also one of the first to textually represent the British as God’s chosen people. 40 Through this special covenant, the island’s inhabitants were thereby the receivers of divine assistance, as God intervened to aid Britain after it had been abandoned by Rome. 41 God was, however, equally inclined to punish the Britons if they persevered in sin. In a wave of corrective punishments – the invasion of the Picts, a plague and finally the coming of the Saxons – God thus wreaked his revenge. 42 According to Gildas, the weakness of the Britons was partly due to their effeminacy, as well as their treachery and cowardice. 43 Yet it was their drunkenness, both of the clergy and laymen, which above all powerfully incited God’s wrath and opened the gateway to the coming of the Saxons: Things pleasing and displeasing to God weighed the same in the balance – unless indeed things displeasing were regarded with more favour. In fact, the old saying of the prophet denouncing his people could have been aptly applied to our country: ‘Lawless sons, you have abandoned God, and provoked to anger the holy one of Israel.’ […] Everything they did went against their salvation, just as though the true doctor of us all granted the world no medicine. And this was truly not merely of worldly men: the flock of the Lord and his shepherds, who should have been an example to the whole people, lay about, most of them, in drunken stupor, as though sodden in wine. 44

2009), 4; J. Morris, ‘Historical Introduction’, in: Gildas, The Ruin of Britain and Other Documents, ed. and trans. M. Winterbottom (Guildford, 2002), 1. 40 See above, note 12. 41 Hanning, Vision of History, 54. 42 Ibid., 56. Hanning points out that Gildas is also using the model of the last three books of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History. Cf. N. Howe, Migration and Mythmaking in Anglo-Saxon England (New Haven, 1989), 41-42. 43 Gildas, De excidio Britanniae VI, The Ruin of Britain and Other Works, ed. and trans. Winterbottom, 18, 91: ‘manusque vinciendae muliebriter protenduntur, ita ut in proverbium et derisum longe lateque efferretur quod Britanni nec in bello fortes sint nec in pace fideles’. 44 Ibid., XXI, The Ruin of Britain and Other Works, ed. and trans. Winterbottom, 25, 96: ‘omnia quae displicuerunt deo et quae placuerunt aequali saltem lance pendebantur, si non gratiora fuissent displicentia; ita ut merito patriae illud propheticum, quod veterno illi populo denuntiatum est, potuerit aptari, “filii”, inquiens, “sine lege, dereliquistis deum, et ad iracundiam provocastis sanctum Israel.” […] Sicque agebant cuncta quae saluti contraria fuerint, ac si nihil mundo medicinae a vero omnium medico largiretur. Et non solum haec saeculares viri, sed et ipse grex domini eiusque pastores, qui exemplo esse omni plebi debuerint, ebrietate quam plurimi quasi vino madidi torpebant.’

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This powerful rhetoric, in which drunkenness went hand in hand with envy and dissension, laid the framework for subsequent interpretations of both past, present and future events on the island. As a token of divine retribution, the migration myth (the coming of the Saxons) was retold by early medieval Anglo-Saxon monks Bede, Alcuin – who was the most explicit about the English as new Israelites in Versus de patribus regibus et sanctis Euboricensis Ecclesiae – and, in the eleventh century, Wulfstan. 45 Indeed, just as the cultural traditions of the island’s inhabitants could be passed down from one ethnic group to another, so the myth retained its power for the Anglo-Saxons, who had subsequently adopted Gildas’ model as a ‘migratory nation’. In this context, the island was presented as a ‘promised land’, where the Anglo-Saxons were now the new Israelites, chosen by God to replace the sin-stained Britons. 46 Thus Bede, in 731, in his account of Anglo-Saxon Britain in the Historia Ecclesiastica, opened his work with a representation of England as a temperate land of milk and honey, repeating how internal quarrels, violence and drunkenness among the British had led to their downfall at the hands of the then still pagan Anglo-Saxons.47 Yet again, when in the eleventh-century Scandinavians were making incursions, Wulfstan repeated Gildas’ position that the country and its people perished through its gluttony and many sins. 48 And again, on the eve of the Norman Conquest in 1066, morality was according to William of Malmesbury in a deplorable state. 49 Just as the fifth-century British king Vortigern had wallowed in debauchery, prostitutes and laziness on the eve of the Anglo-Saxon migration, so Anglo-Saxon boozing had caused their loss on the battlefield: So the leaders on both sides, in high spirits, drew up their lines of battle, each in the traditional manner. The English – so I have heard – spent a 45 Howe, Migration and Mythmaking, 26; P. Wormald, ‘Engla Lond: the Making of an Allegiance’, Journal of Historical Sociology 7 (1994), 1-24. 46 Wormald, ‘Engla Lond’, 14-15. For Anglo-Saxon identity in relation to the indigenous Britons before the tenth century, see D. Banham, ‘Anglo-Saxon Attitudes: In Search of the Origins of English Racism’, European Review of History – Revue européenne d’Histoire 1 (1994), 143-156. 47 Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica I, 15. For the Anglo-Saxon sense of place, see N. Howe, ‘An Angle on this Earth: Sense of Place in Anglo-Saxon England’, Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 82 (2000), 1-25. 48 Wulfstan, Sermo lupi ad Anglos, in: English Historical Documents c. 500-1042, ed. D. Whitelock (London/New York, 2007), 1002. 49 Wormald notes that William of Malmesbury and Orderic Vitalis wrote that ‘it was the sins of the English which had brought their drastic punishment upon them, and the Normans who had been its instrument’; cf. Wormald, ‘Engla Lond’, 17.

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sleepless night in song and wassail, and in the morning moved without delay against the enemy. […] The Normans on the other hand spent the whole night confessing their sins, and in the morning made their communion.50

In this manner, the stereotype of the drunken Englishman served as a symbol of moral depravity that in the past and present wreaked disaster on the nation, through conquest, war and famine. It was a catalyser for evoking God’s wrath at key moments in history, determining the fate of the island and its chosen peoples. It was an image to be decried, both by the clerics in general and by those from various ethnic backgrounds (British, Anglo-Saxon, Norman) in particular, as a token of past reprehensive behaviour. Yet at the same time, people continued to drink, sometimes merrily, for example during the annual wassailing feasts between Christmas and New Year. It is not too hazardous to assume that at least those monks, clerics and laymen who had knowledge of biblical texts and concepts, were consciously aware, when engaging in the ritual of wassailing, that they were performing an act directly related to the ethnic group’s past fate and future destiny. In that sense, in their toasts, they were entering into timelessness, bonding with their co-nationals, in both past, present, and future. The rhetoric of drunkenness, thus so replete with meaning, could consequently take on meaning in contemporary political discourse in which one of the fundamental rhythms of Christian life – the celebration of mass – was at stake. Indeed, in the early thirteenth century, the communal custom of drinking was invoked on at least one highly significant political occasion as the cause of a collective ban on access to the sacraments throughout the whole English nation. In a speech held by Archbishop of Canterbury Stephen Langton, after the lifting of the Church interdict in 1213, communal wassailing was beguiled as the catalyser of great misfortune to the English ‘chosen people’. At such moments, the dire consequences of this collective sin of drinking would assuredly have sparked an imagining of the deeds of the anonymous co-members, both in horizontal and vertical time.

50 William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum Anglorum II, 241-242, ed. and trans. R.A.B. Mynors, R.M. Thomson and M. Winterbottom (Oxford, 1998), vol. 1, 452-455: ‘Ita utrimque animosi duces disponunt aties, patrio quisque ritu. Angli, ut accepimus, totam noctem insomnem cantibus potibusque ducentes, mane incunctanter in hostem procedunt. […] Contra Normanni, nocte tota confessioni peccatorum uacantes, mane Dominico corpori communicarunt.’ Cf. F. Kemmler, ‘Facts and Fictions – The Norman Conquest’, in: B. Korte and R. Schneider (eds), War and the Cultural Construction of Identities in Britain (Amsterdam, 2002), 39-60, here at 42.

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The fissure leading to the interdict had followed a political dispute over the election of Cardinal Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury, an appointment which King John had refused to accept, partly on the grounds that Langton’s loyalty supposedly lay with the French Capetian monarchy.51 As a consequence, in 1208, a general interdict had been pronounced by Pope Innocent III, denying the English king’s subjects access to most of the sacraments, including mass, baptism, marriage and confession – and thus hitting at the heart of the English community’s religious life in a most dramatic manner. Although a temporary measure (pena temporalis), such an interdict struck the entire English nation, as a consequence of purported collective guilt, sparing only the dying, although the interdict was momentarily lifted at important annual events such as Christmas or Easter. The interdict thus served as a collective punishment for the sins of one individual, in this case King John, who in this case stood morally as a pars pro toto for the entire English nation.52 The community was held responsible for not speaking out or admonishing the King for his transgression, a transgression considered almost as reprehensible as the sin itself, as Pope Innocent III argued in an open letter from 1207 to the English aristocracy.53 When at last the conflict was resolved in July 1213, and England became a vassal state of the pope, Langton immediately crossed the Channel and upon arriving in London, addressed a large crowd at St. Paul’s Cathedral on 25 August 1213.54 In his sermon – another cardinal moment in England’s history – Langton spoke the following words, possibly in the vernacular: 55 The English are burdened with the weight of numerous sins, but they are especially weighed down by two which sink them into the basest of things: 51 R.V. Turner, King John (London/New York, 1994), 157-174; C.R. Cheney, ‘King John and the Papal Interdict’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 31 (1948), 295-317. 52 P.D. Clarke, The Interdict in the Thirteenth Century: A Question of Collective Guilt (Oxford, 2007), 31, 41. 53 Innocence III, Letter to the Nobility of England (no. 32), 97-99. 54 G. Lacombe, ‘An Unpublished Document on the Great Interdict (1207-1213)’, Catholic Historical Review 15 (1929/1930), 408-420, here at 409; J.W. Baldwin, Masters, Princes and Merchants: The Social Views of Peter the Chanter & His Circle, 2 vols. (Princeton, 1970), vol. 1, 27. The manuscripts containing sermons preached to a lay audience sometimes contain the rubric ad populum, as is the case in the sermon preached by Langton in August 1213. See P.B. Roberts, Stephanus de Lingua-Tonante: Studies in the Sermons of Stephen Langton (Toronto, 1968), 47. 55 Although the sermon is conserved in relatively simple Latin, whether it was actually delivered in Latin or in the vernacular is a matter of debate. In the case of Langton, evidence seems to point to the practice that sermons to the laity were preached in the vernacular but written down, probably during or afterwards, in Latin. Cf. Roberts, Sermons of Stephen Langton, 52.

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gluttony and drunkenness. These two vices reign strongest in England, and it is the nature of the English to drink to wassail.56

Langton further indicated that English drinking was passed down from father to son and as such was hereditary, as had Peter of Celle and John of Salisbury earlier. According to Langton, Adam’s gluttony banished him from Paradise, yet his children continued to wallow in vice. To convey his message, the archbishop employed a medical metaphor, admonishing: ‘These two, gluttony and drunkenness, rule in us English; but in order that these are abandoned, we set forth an example how to flee from them. You have heard that certain diseases are passed by heredity to the progeny and derivate from father to son, as in the case of gout.’57 Because the English, however, continued to indulge in these vices, they ‘subject themselves to their Lord’s judgment and judge themselves worthy of the punishment of traitors. Drunkenness is the rope by which we are bound; gluttony is the vice for which we are reputed to be traitors.’58 Although the controversy between the monarchy and the papacy centred on the issue who was empowered to elect the Archbishop of Canterbury, Langton in his address to the nobility thus embedded a widespread cultural custom in his exemplification of the moral state of affairs. The underlying notion in this sermon is that England was a chosen people, that was being punished for its sins. In this sermon, the bond between God and the English people was tried and tested in direct relation to the mother Church, the papacy and the ruling dynasty. Here, the ‘innate’ sins of the English people were held directly responsible for the papal interdict imposed on England in 1208. And it is the shared custom of the laity, the communal wassailing – daily performed in taverns and at dining tables, and, ironically, communally at important moments of the Church calendar such as between Christmas and New Year – which ‘decided’ the fate of the English people, the monarchy, and the English Church. Taking into account the considerable effects the interdict would have had on the community – being denied access to most of the sacraments – and 56 Sermon II, Selected Sermons of Stephen Langton, ed. P.B. Roberts (Toronto, 1980), 7: ‘Sarcinas innumeras peccatorum gerunt Anglicani, sed duabus proprie specialiter deprimuntur quibus descendunt ad infima: hee sunt ingluvies et ebrietas. Hec duo vicia maxime regnant in Anglia, et est Anglorum proprietas bibere ad verseil.’ 57 Ibid.: ‘Hec duo, gula et ebrietas, in nobis Anglicis principantur; set ut illa recedant de cetero exemplum proponemus ipsa fugiendi. Audistis quod quedam inf irmitates iure hereditario transfunduntur in posteros et a patribus in filios deriuantur, ut est pedum egritudo.’ 58 Ibid.: ‘Et ita domini sui se subicientes iuditio, dignos se iudicant supplicio traditorum. Ebrietas est vinculum quo ligamur, ingluvies est vicium pro quo pro proditoribus reputamur.’

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the direct relationship drawn between the English’ sins and these events, Langton’s address would surely have evoked a deep sense of community among those present. Although in the Christian medieval view, power flowed from God, with the populus supposedly guided and protected by its divinely appointed ruler, within the triad God-king-people the sinful behaviour of an ethnic group, as a chosen people, might indeed in this case be viewed as determining the outcome of events of momentous importance, not only for the monarch who had lacked proper guidance, but the nation itself, who had purportedly wallowed in its inherited sin that in the past had so often brought disaster to the community. These events thus leave open the question how convivially the English wassailed at their festive tables after the lifting of the interdict, during the festive season of 1213. Assuredly, for those who had knowledge of the outcome of the interdict, the ritual of wassailing would now have been laden with guilt, evoking memories of transgressions past and present. Perhaps participants of the ritual of wassailing across the country were rather subdued around the New Year of 1214, in light of the only recent re-instalment of access to the sacraments in England. In medieval times, the nation was not yet viewed as an individualized protagonist that might keep his own time. Nor were the simultaneous acts of members of nation imagined as comprehensively or intricately as in, for instance, the modern novel. Nonetheless, in premodernity both horizontal and vertical time left their stamps on a sense of a shared past, contemporary and future destinies. At pivotal moments, such as in the wake of the Church interdict of 1208-1213, which was attributed to communal drinking, the ritual of wassailing must have sparked imaginings about the anonymous co-members doings, particularly at events marked on the religious calendar. On such occasions, participants of rituals that referred to ‘inherited ethnic sins’ engaged with their ancestors, co-members and future progeny. Acting out these rituals replete with meaning served as a bonding experience, as communal drunkenness offered a passage way to a new ‘English’ or ‘British’ identity. These ethnic identities were from the twelfth century further territorialized and politicized, among others through new judicial interpretations of the meaning of the patria, which now took on the meaning of a political (often royal) sacral territory – a sacrum imperium or regnum.59 In the same period, the metaphor of the body politic – representing the political community as a 59 C. Hirschi, The Origins of Nationalism: An Alternative History from Ancient Rome to Early Modern Germany (Cambridge, 2012), 50-77; see also G. Post, ‘Two Notes on Nationalism in the Middle Ages’, Traditio 9 (1953), 281-320, which contains useful references.

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bounded, hierarchically organized entity that acted as a persona – was also being explored and disseminated, not in the least by clerics and friars in their sermons.60 Participation in the English drinking ritual would thus have meant that the imagined community entered into a potent dialogue with the past, acting out a communal inherited sin, re-enacted in the present as part of a narrative of the English kingdom. It is therefore important to examine notions of time in relation to premodern ethnicity on their own terms, accentuating graduated distinctions rather than juxtaposing a medieval total lack of ethnic consciousness with the ‘advent of the nation’ in early modern times.

About the author Claire Weeda is a cultural historian whose main fields of interest include ethnic stereotyping, the history of the body, medicine, and social and religious ethics in later medieval Europe. She has published in various international journals and volumes on ethnic stereotyping, humoral theory, religion, violence and politics. In 2015, her dissertation Images of Ethnicity in Later Medieval Europe was awarded the Keetje Hodshon Prijs by the Koninklijke Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen. She is currently assistant professor of medieval history at Leiden University and is conducting research on the body politic, urban policies and public health in the late Middle Ages.

60 For the metaphor of the body politic in this period, see especially J. Kaye, A History of Balance, 1250-1375: The Emergence of a New Model of Equilibrium and Its Impact on Thought (Cambridge, 2014).

2

Diverse Origins and Shared Circumstances European Settler Identity Formation in the SeventeenthCentury Plantation Colony of Suriname1 Suze Zijlstra

Abstract This chapter focuses on the way migration to the colony of Suriname transformed the identities of European migrants. They did not shed their old identity, but rather gained an additional identity, as they became part of a community of European settlers of Suriname. The European settler community that developed was based on shared material interests and fear for the (enslaved) Amerindians and Africans, rather than on cultural similarities. This chapter questions the role of print media in the formation of imagined communities. European migrants in Suriname confirmed their old identities through correspondence with the Dutch Republic, and their new European settler identity grew through word of mouth and written communications within the colony. Keywords: Suriname, prize papers, print media, Atlantic history, colonization, imagined community

In May 1674, Wouter Assueros and Jacob Boldersen requested the Dutch province of Zeeland to finance their passage to the province’s plantation colony of Suriname. They emphasized that they were both born in the province’s capital, Middelburg, and asked their province’s support so they could set sail for the Caribbean sugar colony, where they wanted to contribute to 1 The research for this article is supported by generous funding from the Dutch Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), and a Niels Stensen Fellowship.

Blok, Gemma, Kuitenbrouwer, Vincent and Weeda, Claire (eds): Imagining Communities. Historical Reflections on the Process of Community Formation. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018 doi: 10.5117/9789462980037_ch02

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the colony’s development and ‘seek [their] fortune’.2 The state of war in the Dutch Republic had wreaked so much havoc that they wanted to spend at least several years in Suriname. The province of Zeeland readily agreed to pay for their passage.3 The reasons for these men to leave the Dutch Republic are illustrative for the motivations of hundreds of people whose travels to Suriname the States of Zeeland paid for in the late 1660s and 1670s. Throughout the Dutch Republic, Zeeland had informed potential migrants in print of Suriname’s attractions by publishing positive reports to attract new settlers. Thus the migrants went to Suriname with more or less similar expectations, even though they came from different parts of the United Provinces. While the reality in Suriname generally did not meet those expectations, the new environment profoundly changed their lives and shaped their identities.4 The early migration to Suriname and availability of personal correspon­ dence of migrants in the 1670s allows us to research the development of a young colonial community in a distant land. To analyse the way migrants in the Americas developed their new worldview, the ideas of Benedict Anderson provide a valuable point of reference. In his study of the way that nationalism emerged and spread, Anderson argued that early ideas of ‘nation-ness’ evolved in the Americas before they were formed in Europe. His work focuses on the eighteenth century, in which the creole – that is, locally born – inhabitants of the Americas developed a sense of belonging to a particular community. This development was strongly related to new possibilities of mass communication, especially because print media were produced in higher numbers in the Americas than in the European metropole. Anderson focused on the nationalist movements that resulted from the ‘nexus of long-distance transportation and print-capitalist communications’.5 Considering that the mass production of print media was only introduced in the Americas numerous decades after long-distance transportation emerged, this article investigates what the particular influence was of longdistance transportation on the development of community formation. Did the move to a distant land lead to the creation of an imagined community 2 Request granted on 15 May 1674, Zeeuws Archief (ZA), Rekenkamer C (508), inv. no. 1444. 3 Ibid. 4 S. Zijlstra, ‘Corresponderen om te overleven. Het economische belang van persoonlijke brieven uit zeventiende-eeuws Suriname’, Tijdschrift voor Zeegeschiedenis 31 (2012), 27-41. 5 B. Anderson, The Spectre of Comparisons: Nationalism, Southeast Asia and the World (London/ New York, 1998), 62; B. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, 3rd, rev. ed. (London/New York, 2006), 47-66. On the idea of the Atlantic as an imagined community, see E.H. Gould, ‘Atlantic History and the Literary Turn’, William and Mary Quarterly 55 (2008), 175-176.

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before that distant land started to produce its own print media? And how did life in the Americas affect communities of people who were not born there? Working with the idea that people ‘exiled’6 from the place where they were born were the first who developed a new sense of community, this essay seeks to establish whether the confrontation with a new and challenging environment in Suriname enhanced the colonists’ feeling of belonging to one Dutch community, instead of just relating to the city where they came from, or whether it shaped an entirely new settler identity. Suriname offers a valuable opportunity to study the development of identity formation among colonists because of the presence of migrants from various parts of Europe. Most prominently, English-speaking people from the British Isles inhabited Suriname together with Dutch people from the provinces of Holland and Zeeland. They were joined by Sephardic Jews who had migrated from the Iberian peninsula via Brazil, the Dutch Republic, and other American colonies to end up in Suriname in the 1660s and 1670s. The presence of a significant number of indigenous inhabitants, some of whom resisted the invasion of Europeans, ensured that the newcomers could only settle the area with much difficulty. The European migrants themselves added to those complications by enslaving thousands of people from Africa to conduct labour on their plantations, while also enslaving hundreds of local Amerindians. European migrants trying to build a life in Suriname, then, were influenced by internal cultural differences and by the extremely fragile power balance between Europeans, Africans, and Amerindians. But did people from various European backgrounds create a common identity when moving to an American settlement before the spread of locally produced print media? The varied make-up of Suriname’s settler community, combined with their volatile interactions with Africans and Amerindians in the first decades of colonization, offers the opportunity to study this in more detail. Ultimately, this article sheds light on the impact of migration and the resulting interethnic interactions on the development of an imagined community, while questioning the importance of the spread of locally produced print-media in that process.

Capturing Suriname The capture of Suriname in 1667 was one of the most important Dutch triumphs over the English in the Second Anglo-Dutch War (1665-1667). It compensated the Dutch Republic for the loss of the West India Company 6 Anderson, The Spectre of Comparisons, 60-61.

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(WIC) colony of New Netherland, conquered by the English in 1664 and named New York. In the 1660s, the Dutch considered the ‘exchange’ of New Netherland for Suriname to be advantageous, as they were looking to develop a ‘Second Brazil’, referring to the sugar colony that they briefly possessed a part of between 1630 and 1654.7 The sugar industry was booming and the Dutch were eager to regain a foothold in this lucrative colonial business. Suriname did not fall into the hands of the Dutch Republic, however, since the Dutch province of Zeeland had equipped the fleet that conquered the colony. Zeeland wanted to retain control over the colony because it had invested heavily in its conquest. The province of Holland argued instead that the colony should belong to the WIC – in which Holland had a large share. After all, the charter of the WIC gave the Company the exclusive right to trade and settle west of the Cape of Good Hope. Zeeland nevertheless persisted in its claim to have the right to govern Suriname and profit from its products.8 Although most of the colonists were English at the 1667 conquest, some Jewish planters had joined them in the early 1660s. Fewer than one thousand colonists likely possessed several thousand enslaved labourers – mostly African. The number of European settlers had been higher in the early 1660s, but in 1665 an epidemic had swept through the colony with a devastating effect. Political turmoil in that same year had prompted a few hundred Englishmen to depart for another colony. After the Dutch conquest yet more decided to leave for Antigua with their families and enslaved labourers, destroying their plantations before abandoning the colony. The English governor of Barbados encouraged English settlers to leave Suriname, because he wanted to weaken the colony. After the Dutch had taken over, the labour necessary to further develop the sugar plantations was therefore in high demand.9 Zeeland had a special interest to meet this demand for labour. The transfer of power to Zeeland instead of the Dutch Republic’s WIC had consequences for the colony’s finances, trade, and population. Not only did Zeeland fund the conquest, it also continued to pay for the colony’s military force and 7 S.B. Schwartz, ‘Looking for a New Brazil: Crisis and Rebirth in the Atlantic World after the Fall of Pernambuco’, in: M. van Groesen (ed.), The Legacy of Dutch Brazil (New York, 2014), 41-58. On the transfer of power, see also J. Roberts, ‘Surrendering Surinam: The Barbadian Diaspora and the Expansion of the English Sugar Frontier, 1650-75’, William and Mary Quarterly 73 (2016), 225-256. 8 G. W. van der Meiden, Betwist bestuur: Een eeuw strijd om de macht in Suriname 1651-1753 (Amsterdam, 1987), 22-23; S. Zijlstra, ‘Anglo-Dutch Suriname: Ethnic Interaction and Colonial Transition in the Caribbean, 1651-1682’ (dissertation, University of Amsterdam, 2015), 11-12. 9 A. Games, ‘Cohabitation, Suriname Style: English Inhabitants in Dutch Suriname after 1667’, William and Mary Quarterly 72 (2015), 217-218.

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for all of the colony’s officials. While it did not equip its own ships like the WIC did, it limited the Suriname trade by ordering all ships to depart from a Zeeland harbour, and to return there with its tropical merchandise. The province expected to profit from Suriname by taxing this trade and implementing an acre tax in the colony. To be able to make such profits, the number of enslaved labourers and European inhabitants had to increase. Zeeland struck a deal with the WIC that the Company would provide the colony with five hundred enslaved Africans each year, while the province simultaneously promised five years of tax freedom to anyone who migrated from the Dutch Republic to Suriname.10 In addition to this period of tax freedom, Zeeland promised potential migrants golden opportunities. When they arrived in Suriname, they would receive an abundance of acres to cultivate the desirable sugar cane and to grow food crops and raise their cattle. The States promised that the land was fertile and well suited for the cultivation of sugar, and added that the climate was good and not troubled by the hurricanes that regularly threatened other colonies in that part of the world. Migrants could settle in Suriname regardless of their religion: religious minorities did not have to pay any additional taxes.11 The following year, Zeeland even promised settlers that the province would pay for the passage of all those ‘who would arrive there from whatever province or city of this land’.12 Such promises were necessary as the Dutch generally found it difficult to attract enough settlers to their overseas territories.13 Even though Zeeland encouraged people from all over the Dutch Republic to move to the colony, the seaside provinces of Holland and Zeeland provided the majority of the new migrants – both Dutch and Jewish. Amsterdam was Holland’s most important source of migrants, while the majority of settlers came from Zeeland’s cities of Middelburg and Flushing. These settler communities were tightly knit. Especially colonists from Zeeland often informed their correspondents how mutual acquaintances were doing, commenting on who had died and who had recently arrived. Many settlers corresponded with the same influential people in Zeeland, such as the ship owner Laurens Verpoorte in Flushing or the merchant Guilliam de Backer 10 On Zeeland’s financial investment in Suriname, see E. Verdegem, ‘De Zeeuwen in Suriname, 1667-1682’ (MA thesis, Ghent University, 2005). 11 ‘Vrydom voor de gene die met hare persoonen, huysgesinnen en gevolgh, naer Suriname gaen’, 6-7-1668, ZA, 2.1, inv. no. 1580.1. 12 ‘Waerschouwinghe…’, 9-7-1669, ibid. 13 G. Kruijtzer, ‘European Migration in the Dutch Sphere’, in G. Oostindie (ed.), Dutch Colonialism, Migration and Cultural Heritage (Leiden, 2008), 97-154.

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in Middelburg. While the settlers’ interests were mostly tied to Zeeland, the colonists from Amsterdam hoped that trade with other provinces would soon open up – which it did in 1674, after Zeeland conceded that it was not profitable to limit the ships to Zeeland’s harbours.14 From the beginning, the interests of the new settlers from the United Provinces transcended the local level.

Connecting to the Dutch Republic The Dutch migrants living in Suriname connected with the country where they came from in various ways, demonstrating that while they were ‘exiled’, they were dedicated to maintaining their ties with the Dutch Republic. They eagerly discussed news with new arrivals, they read the printed news bulletins sent from the Dutch Republic, and they faithfully corresponded with their family, friends, and business partners. Few people received printed papers from their contacts, however, and because Suriname did not yet have a printing press, news predominantly spread through personal communications.15 Even though the news did not arrive in one medium read by all, migrants from the Dutch Republic felt strongly connected to the Republic as a whole, and not just to the city or province where they came from. Whenever they mentioned the Dutch Republic in their correspondence, it becomes clear that especially the possibility of war between the Dutch Republic and other European states shaped the colonists’ sense of being part of the United Provinces. This is not to say that they did not engage in purely local matters on an urban or provincial level, but when they did, they did so in relation to their personal or business interests. Correspondents mentioned cities as ports of departure, as the places where their business contacts lived, and as places where their merchandise and trading partners came from.16 Local contacts were important to settle successfully in Suriname. One colonist from Flushing wrote that he had arrived in Suriname with his merchandise but that his ‘neighbour from Flushing’ had warned him that he should be careful 14 Intercepted mail and papers from Suriname, The National Archives, Kew, High Court of Admiralty (HCA), 30, inv. nos. 227 and 223. 15 On the importance of print media in the Dutch Republic itself, see F. Deen, D. Onnekink and M. Reinders (eds), Pamphlets and Politics in the Dutch Republic (Leiden, 2011); R. Harms, Pamfletten en publieke opinie: Massamedia in de zeventiende eeuw (Amsterdam, 2011). 16 I. van Mildert to Daniel van Mildert, 7 January 1672, Lourens Menis to Mr van Rhee and Van Phere, 12 December 1671, Maerten Lemps to his masters, 15 January 1672, HCA 30, inv. no. 227/1.

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not to allow people to buy his merchandise on credit.17 At various times correspondents mentioned a city where a person came from to establish their identity.18 Cities also played an important part when specific shipments were being discussed.19 Sometimes people sent products to contacts in Flushing that were intended for a contact in Amsterdam. For instance, one settler instructed the intended recipient she could pick the shipment up or have it sent to her own city.20 The reasons for mentioning such local places are therefore clear and most often have a practical and personal purpose. Commercial interests that superseded the provincial level and war with other European states made the realities of the federal state more relevant for many Dutch colonists, just as it did for people living in the Dutch Republic.21 Colonists rarely discussed the Dutch Republic explicitly as a political unit, but when they did, it concerned the possession of Suriname and the question whether the colony would come under control of the generality – the Dutch Republic’s States-General of the ‘free united Netherlands’.22 Two correspondents who referred to the States-General and the possibility of Zeeland handing over control over Suriname were corresponding with people from Amsterdam, who had a great interest in such a transfer of power. Sometimes correspondents referred to their federal state more explicitly: especially in 1672, they mentioned the war with the English and the French, asking their relatives about the war of ‘our state’ and proclaiming during the war that Suriname would not continue to exist without military assistance of the state.23 The correspondents discussed the country where they came from in a more abstract way as well, expressing a clear sense of belonging to a country that included more than their own city or province. While few explicitly mentioned the Dutch Republic, they did use a term that many related to these United Netherlands: the ‘fatherland’.24 They employed this term in various ways: when they were eager for news from the fatherland, when 17 Jacob Antonissen to Gillis Mesdag, 8 January 1672, HCA 30, inv. no. 227/1. 18 Augustinus Bruns to Willem Wilhelmie, 1 January 1672, HCA 30, inv. no. 227/1; Johan Basseliers to Guiljam de Backer, 31 December 1671, TNA, 30, inv. no. 227/2. 19 Jean le Grand to Moijse Catteau, 7 January 1672, HCA 30, inv. no. 227/1; Sijmon Lijon to Nelcken Frans, 9 September 1672, HCA 30, inv. no. 223. 20 Jan Eghbertz to Afie Jans, 6 January 1672, HCA 30, inv. no. 227/2. 21 J. Brouwer, Levenstekens: Gekaapte brieven uit het Rampjaar 1672 (Hilversum, 2014). 22 Joris Darvall to Dirck en Adriaen Dominicus, 17 December 1671, HCA 30, inv. no. 227/2. 23 Jan van Ruijven to J. van der Poelen, 14 September 1672; Mattijs Lantmeester to Davidt Lisbrechtsen, HCA 30, inv. no. 223. 24 Nicolaes de Zoutte to his mother, 3 September 1672, HCA 30, inv. no. 223. They consistently used the term ‘fatherland’, never referring to the female version of the word.

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they were comparing Suriname to the fatherland, or when discussing their plans to return. All uses indicate the strong sense of personal connection to this land, as they feel that their fates are bound to that of their ‘fatherland’. Even when living in Suriname, they felt part of the country where they were born. The fate of the colony was after all strongly connected to the state of affairs in the Dutch Republic. The opportunities of the colonists were bound to the success or failure of their fatherland.25 Before the war broke out in 1672, most colonists who used the term ‘fatherland’ reflected on their own position. They wanted to make a comparison or consider their return: they wrote that one could make a better profit in Suriname than in the fatherland, one could practice one’s faith as a Christian as well as in the fatherland, one was healthier than in the fatherland, and the meat was expensive because it came from the fatherland. Thus they contemplated their present situation and put their situation in perspective for their correspondents, most of whom had not experienced life in the colonies themselves. Some colonists expressed the hope that they would return to the fatherland with a good profit, others hoped to be back in the fatherland at the time of the yearly Amsterdam fair.26 These instances were therefore also an expression of the way they viewed their personal position, if more focused on future plans. The war especially strengthened the sense of Dutch settlers that their colony was part of the United Provinces. During the war, people naturally were even more interested in news from the Dutch Republic. They were frustrated about the fact that fewer ships were arriving from the fatherland and they regularly expressed the hope to hear news from the fatherland. One colonist even remarked that he had heard that the fatherland was burning.27 Their concerns were not only related to the wellbeing of the country they came from, but also to their own position in the colony. Suriname had only been in Dutch hands for a few years and many feared that the English would try to retrieve their former colony. Rumours circulated that a fleet from Jamaica would come to conquer Suriname for the English. The involvement 25 See also Brouwer, Levenstekens, 216-217. 26 Willem Blaeu to Anna Maria Soetens Huijs, 10 January 1672, Reijnier Warner to Marija Cruise, 12 January 1672, Golken Ceuvelaer to her siblings, 11 January 1672, Alexander Batij to Alexander Batij, 7 January 1672, Jacob Cornelis van Machem to Maretjen Tijes, undated, all in HCA 30, inv. no. 227/1; Anonymous to Cornelija de Gelder, 10 January 1672, HCA 30, inv. no. 227/2. 27 Anonymous to Chrijstijaen Backer, undated, Nicolaes de Zoutte to his mother, 3 September 1672, Bastiaen Thijssen Danielsen to Dirck Stakenburch, 5 September 1672, Jacob vande Velde to Elijsabeth Gillis, 14 September 1672, Dominicus Pottey to Hermaenus Pottey, 11 September 1672, HCA 30, inv. no. 223.

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of the Dutch Republic in any European war, but particularly a war with the English, could have serious consequences for the ownership of the colony. These implications made the settlers acutely aware of the connection between Suriname and the Dutch Republic, their fatherland.28

Connections with other Europeans While the correspondence of the Dutch settlers is valuable to gain insight in their ideas about their relation to the Dutch Republic, their letters only partially reflect their position in Suriname’s society. Until 1671, the English planters who had remained in the colony after the Zeeland conquest remained the majority of the Europeans, and as late as 1675 they formed 40 per cent of the European population. In addition, Jewish settlers became an increasingly important part of the colonial society after 1667. However, together the Europeans still only formed a minority within the Suriname population. In 1671, a group of prominent planters reported that there were only 800 ‘whites’, while there were 2,500 ‘negros’ and 500 ‘Indian slaves’.29 They did not mention the number of free Amerindians living in the colony’s towns and on the plantations, but there must have been at least a few thousand Amerindians living in villages around the colony.30 The Dutch formed only a minor part of the total number of inhabitants of Suriname. Even though the European population was in itself ethnically diverse, the Europeans formed one group within the colonial society. Materially, the European settlers shared similar circumstances and disappointments.31 Commodities were sparse and expensive, food was hard to come by, and tropical diseases threatened the lives of most new arrivals.32 There were hardly any qualified doctors who could look after those suffering from the epidemic and there was not enough medication available.33 While no 28 D. Haks, Vaderland & Vrede, 1672-1713: Publiciteit over de Nederlandse Republiek in oorlog (Hilversum, 2013), 78. 29 Petition of colonists, 11-3-1671, ZA, 2.1, inv. no. 2035, no. 225. 30 Games, ‘Cohabitation, Suriname Style’; J. Selwood, ‘Present at the Creation: Diaspora, Hybridity and the Place of Jews in the History of English Toleration’, in: Eliane Glaser (ed.), Religious Tolerance in the Atlantic World: Early Modern and Contemporary Perspectives (Basingstoke, 2014), 193-213; Zijlstra, ‘Anglo-Dutch Suriname’, 52-53. 31 V. Enthoven, ‘Suriname and Zeeland: Fifteen Years of Dutch Misery on the Wild Coast, 1667-1682’, in: J. Everaert and J. Parmentier (eds), Proceedings of the International Conference on Shipping, Factories and Colonization (Brussels, 1996), 249-260. 32 Reijnier Warner to Pieter Cruis, 10 January 1672, HCA 30, inv. no. 227/1. 33 Johan Simon to Van de Wiele, 11 January 1672, HCA 30, inv. no. 227/1.

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doubt the hardships of the colonists paled in comparison to the lives of their enslaved labourers, the European inhabitants of Suriname felt that they were facing a harsh reality themselves.34 The colonists depended on trade with the Amerindians to have access to enough food, especially when the European ships stopped arriving in Suriname because of the war.35 The supply of European commodities was insufficient, particularly because they were not yet being produced in the colony itself. The requests for products from Europe in Jewish and Dutch correspondence show that colonists from different ethnicities experienced the same shortages. They all emphasized their need for food and clothes above all else. Both groups depended on their contacts in the Dutch Republic for essentials.36 The planters moreover experienced other economic burdens. The States of Zeeland imposed a tax after the period of tax freedom had expired. The colonists resisted this imposition, particularly because the Third AngloDutch War (1672-1674) had already placed a heavier burden on them than they had anticipated. They had not been able to cultivate or sell as much sugar as they had expected, as the production of sugar had stagnated during the war and few ships came to Suriname to pick up sugar shipments. The West India Company did not bring the number of enslaved labourers they wanted, and the work conditions and the disease that spread through the colony had caused the untimely death of many of the enslaved Africans. Slavers sold the people who survived the harrowing Middle Passage from Africa at a high price, and most planters could only afford to buy a few of them at a time. Because the planters did not have enough labourers, they were angry with the States, which taxed them according to the amount of land they owned, even though some of that land was not in use.37 34 Jan van Ruijven to Jan van der Poelen, late August, 1672, HCA 30, inv. no. 223. 35 Abraham de Badt to Joos de Badt, 7 September 1672; Jean le Grand to Pieter Buteux, HCA 30, inv. no. 223. 36 For instance, Abigail de Brito to Fransisco de Medina, 10 September 1672; Raquel da Silva to Ishac del Sotto, 1 September 1672, HCA 30, inv. no. 223; Ishai Arias to Pedro Pereira, 12 December 1671, Note to Antonio Monteiros, HCA 30, inv. no. 227/1. All letters written by the Jewish colonists that I use have been translated from Portuguese to Dutch by Lucia Werneck Xavier. M. Moelands, ‘Opdat er geen onzekerheid zal bestaan over de maat. Postonderbestellingen vóór het confectietijdperk’, in: E. van der Doe, P. Moree and D.J. Tang (eds), De dominee met het stenen hart en andere overzeese briefgeheimen (Zutphen, 2008), 98-103; Zijlstra, ‘Corresponderen om te overleven’. 37 Petition of colonists, [May 1675], ZA, 2.1, inv. no. 2035.2, no. 258. ‘Lieut.s Gen.ls Byams Journall of Guiana from 1665 to 1667’ (hereafter cited as Byams Journall), British Library (BL), Sloane Manuscripts 3662, fol. 29r; Games, ‘Cohabitation, Suriname Style’, 235-236; Zijlstra, ‘Anglo-Dutch Suriname’, 96-102.

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Most importantly, the Europeans shared similar circumstances because they were all free and white inhabitants of the colony. Even those who came impoverished or in search of religious freedom had made the choice of migrating to Suriname themselves. The white labourers who bound themselves for a few years to an employer received bed and board and could even demand a high yearly wage after the Dutch had taken over the colony. The civil and criminal laws that the Dutch governor introduced in 1669 applied to all ‘inhabitants’, but in fact only the European population was counted among this category.38 The government later introduced in various stages separate laws describing the way that Africans had to be treated. These laws were meant to suppress any disorderly or potentially rebellious behaviour. For instance, it proclaimed in 1670 that owners of enslaved labourers were required to bring disobedient enslaved labourers to the government so that person could be punished. Even Africans who had gained their freedom were required to work as paid labourers; free Africans who were found loitering would be whipped.39 The Europeans expressed their sense of superiority in various ways that show how they considered themselves to be different from their enslaved labourers. Complaining about the inferior food that was available, one merchant remarked that the meat that had been sent was of such poor quality that ‘whites’ would never eat it; they would only be willing to pay a lower price in order to buy food for their enslaved labourers.40 Moth-eaten clothes were deemed to have no other purpose than to be given to the slaves. 41 The disregard of the colonists for the non-European population possibly becomes most clear from the fact that they rarely mention Amerindians, let alone Africans, as individual human beings. In their correspondence, the Dutch mentioned Africans as part of the inventory of their plantations. When they complained about shortages in the labour force, they frequently listed enslaved labourers together with the livestock. When there were too few horses to operate a mill, the Africans simply had to replace them. 42 The Europeans living in Suriname became closer as a group because they formed a white minority that was trying to keep the land and labourers they considered their property under their control. The power balance between the colonists and the free indigenous population had been fragile ever since 38 J.A. Schiltkamp and J.Th. de Smidt (eds), West Indisch plakaatboek: Plakaten, ordonnantiën en andere wetten, uitgevaardigd in Suriname, I, 1667-1761 (Amsterdam, 1973), 28. 39 Ibid., 56-58. 40 Jan van Ruijven to J. van der Poelen, 14 September 1672, TNA, HCA 30, inv. no. 223. 41 Jean le Grand to P. Buteux, 15 September 1672, ibid. 42 Simon van Cleeff to Willem van Cleeff, 7 September 1672, ibid.

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Europeans attempted to settle along the Suriname River. Although the colonists tried to maintain good relations with the Amerindians because the colonists needed them to trade for food, part of the indigenous population continued to violently resist their settling in the area. From the moment Europeans settled in the Suriname area, Amerindians had turned against the migrants. They were especially likely to attack areas where few Europeans were living and who were therefore particularly vulnerable. While the European settlers had to trade with the Amerindians, they also feared them, as they were aware that Amerindians had used force to try and expel the Europeans from their area. 43 The Europeans were keenly aware of how weak they were in number compared to the number of enslaved labourers. The vast majority of the people living on the plantations had been brought from Africa by force. The colonists continuously feared that their enslaved labourers would rise against them. Through regulations and the use of violence, the settlers tried to keep the Africans under their control, but with the slaves soon outnumbering the settlers at least ten to one, the colonists knew that their position was by no means safeguarded. Their fears speak from the regulations that the government established in 1684, which stipulated that all plantations had to have at least one white employee per ten enslaved workers, to oversee their work on the plantation.44 Clearly not all planters adhered to this, since the order was issued again in 1692 after the government had observed that the ‘malevolence’ of the slaves was increasing daily and not all planters had enough white employees to make the required 10 per cent. 45 Overall, the material realities and the interethnic complexities of colonial life turned out to be much more challenging than the prospects promised by the States of Zeeland.

Connecting within the colony The realities of colonial life meant that the colonists created new identities that were not connected to the place where they originally came from, but to their new circumstances. As was the case for Dutch colonists, who had both 43 L. Hulsman, ‘De Guiaansche Compagnie. Nederlanders in Suriname in de periode 1604-1617’, OSO, Tijdschrift voor Surinamistiek en het Caraïbisch gebied 29 (2010), 300-314; R. Buve, ‘Gouverneur Johannes Heinsius. De rol van Van Aerssen’s voorganger in de Surinaamse Indianenoorlog, 1678-1680’, New West Indian Guide 45 (1966), 14-26. 44 Schiltkamp and Smidt, West Indisch Plakaatboek, 137. 45 Ibid., 196.

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local and national interests, the European planters developed new levels of interest in their colonial society. This started with their local interests. Neighbours were highly dependent on one another, although planters could only maintain close contact with a few of them due to the geographical characteristics of Suriname, as the plantations were spread across the colony along the rivers. The forests were too dense to travel through, but even by boat it could take more than a week to move from one part of the colony to another. Especially those living on a plantation rather than in the colony’s towns therefore had a small social circle. The planters needed each other’s material and human capital. Those planters who did not own a sugar mill went to their neighbours to have their sugar cane processed, and neighbours rented out labourers to each other and sold each other merchandise. These local loyalties were not necessarily dependent on one’s ethnicity, because particularly the English and the Dutch were living spread across the colony. The Jewish planters, in contrast, were geographically more isolated because they had settled in one specific area, the Joden Savannah.46 In spite of the long distances, news travelled fast through the colony. While news was not printed locally, the colonists had a strong network through which news spread. The nature of this news varied from reports about the outbreak of the Dutch Republic’s war with England, to local messages about the death of prominent members of the colonial society. Sometimes reports were only rumours, for instance, when colonists discussed the expected attack on Suriname by an English fleet from Jamaica. In addition to receiving news directly from correspondents in the Dutch Republic, the European settlers exchanged news when visiting town for the monthly civil court day. Heads of households attended these days to settle minor debts or to enforce debtors to pay up. They would also pick up merchandise if a new ship had arrived and hear the latest reports from the captain or sailors of the ship. When returning to their plantations they brought the latest reports with them. In addition, people travelling inland stopped by plantations for a break, which also offered the opportunity to discuss news. With dependable correspondents abroad, and the towns of Torarica and Paramaribo as central hubs in the colony, it was not necessary to have print media to keep informed of colonial and international developments.

46 Lieven de Wever to Jacob Pediceur, 13-1-1672, HCA 30, inv. no. 227/1; Boudewijn de Witte to Gillis and Pieter Munnincx, 16-12-1672, HCA 30, inv. no. 227/2; Caerte ofte vertooninge vande Rivieren van Suriname en Commewijne […] anno 1671 [Attributed to Willem Mogge], John Carter Brown Library Map Collection, no. 8189-8139.

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The necessity to organize and defend the colony also encouraged contacts that went beyond the local level. The colony consisted of five districts: Opland, Torarica, Para, Surino, and Paramaribo. Two of these units, Torarica and Paramaribo, were towns, whereas the others were rural districts. The planters further developed the area of the Commewijne River, making it a district of its own. These districts had their own jurators who were allowed to draft official documents, to investigate crimes and to act as coroners. In 1671, they also installed a justice of peace who could judge civil cases that did not exceed 300 pounds of sugar. Various divisions were appointed their own captain, while the Jews had a captain of their own. 47 When the colony had to be prepared for a potential attack in 1673, the government decided how many enslaved labourers the planters had to provide per division to strengthen the fortress.48 In 1677, when the French threatened to attack, the colonists were similarly called upon to form civil companies based on the district divisions. 49 They had to keep guard in special shifts in anticipation of the invasion of the colony. The colony-wide cooperation for the defence of the colony does not mean that descent was irrelevant. The Jewish planters had their own distinct geographical sphere, based on descent and religion. The Dutch and English, while both were considered Christians, were still regarded by the government as separate groups. When the government counted the colony’s European inhabitants in 1675, it made three separate lists, for the Dutch, the English, and the Jews. Because the English continued to have contacts with their government in England and with leaders in Barbados, who tried to lure them away from Suriname, inviting them to resettle in an English colony, the English were often considered separately in such political matters. Moreover, when war broke out in 1672, the government formulated separate regulations to ensure that English planters would not leave their plantation in order to join an English invasion force.50 While these differences across the colony were certainly acknowledged, the colonists also developed a clear settler identity regardless of descent, based on their being planters in Suriname. When the prominent planters 47 Schiltkamp and Smidt, West Indisch Plakaatboek, 42, 64. 48 Proclamation of 8 June 1673, NA, Aanwinsten Eerste Afdeling (1.11.01.01), inv. no. 1101, fol. 40v. This entire inventory number is a set of modern transcriptions of the seventeenth-century originals. The folio numbers are not always copied; I refer to the folio numbers whenever possible. 49 Proclamation of 29 November 1677, ibid., fol. 67v-68r. 50 Lists of inhabitants, ZA, 2.1, inv. no. 2035.2, no. 261-262; Pieter Versterre to the States of Zeeland, 6 July 1675, ibid., no. 266; T. Weterings, ‘Should We Stay or Should We Go? Being on Opposite Sides after a Colonial Takeover’, Journal of Early American History 4:2 (2014), 130-148.

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gathered to discuss colonial policy and to express their discontent, they consistently emphasized that they were one group. In the petitions they wrote to the States of Zeeland, they listed their concerns in the name of ‘we, the inhabitants of this colony’,51 the ‘inhabitants of Suriname’.52 They declared their number of ‘whites, Christians as well as Jews’ to have been 800. While the distinction between Christians and Jews shows that the colonists were aware of their internal differences, they nevertheless presented themselves as one group interested in the same goal: making Suriname a successful plantation colony. In a similar manner, all prominent planters gathered in 1675 to address the States of Zeeland as ‘inhabitants of Suriname’, when they wrote a petition that was also aimed to improve living standards for the settlers and to change Zeeland’s colonial policy. At that time, the relative number of Jewish planters was even higher, because many English settlers had left. Nevertheless, the Dutch and Jewish planters united as inhabitants of Suriname.53 In 1678, the planters even sent a representative to the States of Zeeland, to personally deliver the petition of the council of Suriname and the ‘prominent inhabitants of Suriname’, which included Dutch, Jewish, and even a few of the remaining English settlers.54 The concerns they brought forward in the petitions demonstrate how local circumstances and colonial mismanagement had caused them to unite as colonists. On the one hand, they prominently mentioned their material concerns. In 1671 they requested the possibility to trade freely with nations who are not at war with the Dutch Republic, and asked the States of Zeeland to instate a central point where people who could not afford a sugar mill could have their sugar cane processed. After the war had erupted, the storehouses of the colony became even emptier, as the settlers mentioned in 1675. They had been able to produce less because of the strain of war, and therefore implored the States of Zeeland not to increase Suriname’s taxes. In 1678, they repeated their request for free shipping from other nations, since it had become clear that Zeeland had been unable to provide the colony with enough trade and settlers.55 The colonists increasingly considered the low number of white colonists to control the enslaved population to be a problem. In 1671, their requests for more European labourers concentrated on the need for skilled labourers 51 Petition of colonists, [March 1669], ZA, 2.1, inv. no. 2035.1, nos. 129. 52 Petition of colonists, 11-3-1671, ibid., no. 225. 53 Petition of colonists, [May 1675], ZA, 2.1, inv. no. 2035.2, no. 258. 54 Petition of 1678: ZA, 2.1, inv. no. 680, fol. 235v-239r. 55 Petitions of 1669, 1671 and 1675: ZA, 2.1, inv. no. 2035, nos. 129, 225, 258. Petition of 1678: ZA, 2.1, inv. no. 680, fol. 235v-239r.

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in the colony. They hoped that the States of Zeeland would lower the taxes so people would be inclined to come to Suriname rather than migrate to a French or English colony. The unbalanced nature of the population became problematic for the colonists particularly when the Third Anglo-Dutch War erupted and the colonists had to defend the fortress, as the settlers explained in their 1675 petition. Because they did not have enough white employees, some of them had to abandon their plantations, which meant that they could not control their enslaved labourers and their estate was vulnerable to an Amerindian attack. When the number of settlers declined even further, and the tensions between settlers and Amerindians increased, the colonists became even more concerned about their position. In 1678, they repeated their request for more white servants, to make sure that plantations did not have to be abandoned to the enslaved Africans and Amerindians.56 The settlers who united to pressure the States of Zeeland emphasized their union by threatening to leave Suriname. In 1671, the petitioners predicted that if the States of Zeeland did not invest more in the development of the colony, then surely the majority of the colonists ‘of whatever nation they may be’ would leave the colony.57 Just like they presented themselves as the inhabitants of Suriname, this shows how they felt their fate was subject to the same circumstances regardless of their origins. In 1675, after most of the English had indeed left, the Dutch and Jewish settlers left in Suriname threatened to follow the English example. Even if the Dutch settlers were born in the Dutch Republic, and the Jewish settlers were attracted to the free environment of Suriname, they wanted to make it clear that their loyalty was not to be taken for granted. They identified themselves as inhabitants of Suriname, but only when it was beneficial to them. It did not have to take long for a new arrival to become part of the ‘inhabi­ tants of Suriname’. After receiving Zeeland’s promise to fund their passage, Wouter Assueros and Jacob Boldersen arrived in Suriname in May 1675.58 By 1678, Assueros had joined the ‘prominent inhabitants’ who drafted the petition that they would send with a messenger to Zeeland.59 Just a few years after emphasizing that he was born in the Dutch city of Middelburg, Assueros identified with the inhabitants of Suriname. This suggests that the concerns of the colonists were so strong and urgent that they quickly gave rise to another identity that, if not surpassing their previous identities, 56 Ibid. 57 ZA, 2.1, inv. no. 2035, no. 225. 58 15 May 1674, ZA, 508, inv. no. 1444. 59 NA, 1.11.01.01, inv. no. 1101, fol. 89.

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existed in addition to their former identities. Although the settlers regularly emphasized in their petition that they were loyal subjects of the States of Zeeland, they based their identity as petitioners on their position in the colony and initiated the petitions because of the concerns regarding life in Suriname.60

Conclusion The identity of the colonists living in Suriname was complex, as each colonist had interests and loyalties at various levels. In the case of the Dutch, local interests co-existed with their position as inhabitants of the Dutch Republic. Moving to the colony resulted in new identities, most prominently their identity as inhabitants of Suriname, which did not replace their former communities, but were added to them. These multiple identities did not at all times carry the same weight. When war broke out, their Dutch identity was most important as they were still living in a Dutch territory. When colonial concerns were discussed among the planter elite, their new identity as settlers of Suriname dominated. At those moments, common material interests transcended particular European ethnicities and motivated a group of people from various parts of Europe to regard themselves as belonging to a community of Surinamese settlers. The new community emanated from shared material interests and fear for the Amerindians and Africans, rather than from cultural similarities. The case of Suriname shows that while ‘exiled’ from their native land in Suriname, Dutch migrants felt strongly connected to the Dutch Republic. This connection was not enforced or shaped by print media, but through personal correspondence with the inhabitants of the Dutch Republic, in which people exchanged news about the Dutch Republic and its international conflicts. In a similar manner, print media did not play a significant part within Suriname itself. News spread through word of mouth and via written dispatches. Conflicts with the indigenous population, potential slave revolts, and shared material circumstances all enhanced the European colonists’ feeling of belonging to one settler community. While starting a new life at a great distance from their native country in an entirely new environment strongly impacted the development of a new settler community, print media was not yet essential in this process.

60 Petitions of 1669, 1671 and 1675, ZA, 2.1, inv. no. 2035, nos. 129, 225, 258.

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About the author Suze Zijlstra is Assistant Professor of Maritime History at Leiden University. She received her PhD at the University of Amsterdam in 2015 after defending a dissertation on seventeenth-century Suriname. The following year she spent as a postdoctoral researcher at Georgetown University on a Niels Stensen Fellowship. She is currently working on a book manuscript.

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Imagining Europe The Peace of Ryswick (1697) and the Rise of European Consciousness Lotte Jensen Abstract This chapter focuses on the European community as it was imagined in 1697 by Dutch authors celebrating the Peace of Ryswick. The aim is threefold. Firstly, to show that the concept of ‘imagined community’ can be stretched in a temporal way, as it provides us with a useful tool to discern the rise of imagined communities, more particularly the rise of national and European communities, in the early modern period. Secondly, to demonstrate that the European community was imagined in a variety of ways and dispersed into several different imagined communities that were defined by in- and exclusion of other denominations. Thirdly, to show that there was a strong interplay between the national and European levels. A close reading of the Dutch writings published to celebrate the Peace of Ryswick reveals that these publications expressed a strong sense of a shared European identity. Nevertheless, the majority primarily served as a means to propagate national sentiments, supporting the political and religious views of King/Stadtholder William III. History played a key role in the creation of this Dutch sense of exceptionalism within a larger European framework. Keywords: Peace of Ryswick, national identity, Europeanism, imagined community, Dutch history, King/Stadtholder William III

Europe, world’s pride, whose heart was trampled by infuriated plagues of war plunged into a sea of disasters, buffeted from day to day by thundering gusts

Blok, Gemma, Kuitenbrouwer, Vincent and Weeda, Claire (eds): Imagining Communities. Historical Reflections on the Process of Community Formation. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018 doi: 10.5117/9789462980037_ch03

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in the crashing of the breakers against the coast wounded by the murder weapon, sinks powerless down to the earth […] Ah! She calls […] I descend in the eternal grave, my glory has gone.1

With this dramatic scene the Dutch bookseller and poet François Halma opened his ode to the Peace of Ryswick in 1697. Europe is about to descend into the grave: all her powers are gone, and her former glory has vanished. All hope seems to be lost, but then the poem takes a new turn. Europe begs the princes and rulers of Europe to stop shedding their fellow Christians’ blood. Instead they should join forces to combat their common enemy, the Turks. In the end, Europe’s wish is fulfilled: the European leaders make peace at Ryswick, and a new period of prosperity dawns. What is more, Europe forecasts a bright future, in which Istanbul, the Islamic capital of the Ottoman Empire, will once again fall into Christian hands. Halma’s poem celebrated an important event in European history: the Peace of Ryswick. This international peace agreement ended nine years of bloody warfare between France and the Grand Alliance, consisting of Austria, several German principalities, Spain, England and the Dutch Republic. During this war, several major battles took place, including at Fleurus (1690), the River Boyne (1690) and Namen (1695).2 Although secret negotiations had already started in 1693, peace was not achieved until the end of 1697.3 In the treaty between Spain and France it was stated that ‘the bloodiest war, which had grieved Europe for such a long time’ had finally come to an end. 4 War nevertheless continued in the central and eastern parts of Europe, where 1 François Halma, Europe herstelt door de Algemeen Vrede (Utrecht 1697), A 2: ‘Europe, �s waerelds Pronk, door woedende oorlogsplaagen, / Op �t hert getrappelt, en gedompelt in een zee / Van rampen, dag op dag van bulderende vlaagen / Geslingert in �t geklots der barning op de ree […]: /Door �t moordrapier gewond; zygt magteloos ter aarde […] Ach! roept ze […] Ik daale in ‘t eeuwig graf. myn glory is vergaan.’ 2 On the Nine Years’ Wars, see: G. Clark, ‘The Nine Years War, 1688-1697’, in: J.S. Bromley (ed.), The New Cambridge History, Volume 6: The Rise of Great Britain and Russia 1688-1715/25 (Cambridge, 1970), 223-253. 3 H. Gabel, ‘Politik zwischen Wunsch und Wirklichkeit. Wilhelm III, die Niederländische Republik und der Friede von Rijswijk (1697)’, in: Simon Groenveld, Maurits Ebben and Raymond Fagel (eds), Tussen Munster & Aken, De Nederlandse Republiek als grote mogendheid (1648-1748) (Maastricht, 2005), 39-45. On international relations in general during the Peace of Ryswick, see: H. Duchhardt (ed.), Der Friede von Rijswijk 1697 (Mainz, 1998). 4 Traité de Paix, Fait, conclu & arresté a Rijswijk en Hollande, les 20. du mois de Septembre, 1697. Entre les Ambassadeurs & Plenipotentiaires de sa majesté tres-chrestienne d’une; Et les Ambassadeurs & Plenipotentiaires des seigneurs Estats Generaux des Provinces Unies du Pays-Bas de l’autre part (La Haye 1697), 1: ‘la plus sanglante Guerre dont l’Europe ait eté affligeé depuis long temps’.

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the Ottoman Empire was trying to expand its territory. After the Siege of Vienna by the Turks in 1683, these wars reached a new zenith in the 1690s.5 Halma’s concept of a European peace was based on the idea of a ‘pax christiana universalis’, a general Christian peace. In his eyes, the coalition of European princes had to protect Europe against the permanent threat of the Turks. His poem fits into a large body of early modern writings in which the terms ‘Europe’ and ‘European’ play a significant role. As the historian Peter Burke has convincingly argued, from the sixteenth century and onwards Europe was a community with which people could identify.6 The terms ‘Europe’ and ‘European’ were most frequently used in relation to the Turkish threat: being European primarily meant being Christian and not Muslim. These and other uses make clear that ‘Europe’ was more than a geographical term alone. It also expressed a form of collective consciousness or a sense of group identity, very similar to, for instance, class consciousness or national consciousness.7 Burke published his observations in 1980, three years before the introduction of the term ‘imagined community’ by Benedict Anderson. However, Burke’s remarks about a collective European identity match astonishingly well with the concept of the ‘imagined community’, at least if one is prepared to broaden the scope both temporally and geographically. Both authors make use of a discursive approach, focusing on the way printed matter was pivotal in shaping communal bonds amongst inhabitants of the same territory. However, while Anderson solely applied the term to national communities in the mass media of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Burke’s study concerns early modern conceptions of Europe in sources which obviously had much lower circulation figures. Since Burke’s study, many overviews about the emergence of European consciousness or identity have appeared.8 Whether they begin in Antiquity, the Middle Ages or the Early Modern Period, they all have in common that they consider Europe as a political and cultural idea, which changed over times. Consequently, if one wishes to map the changes and continuities in 5 The wars ended with the Peace of Karlowitz (1699). On these wars, see: J. Whaley, Germany and the Holy Roman Empire, Volume 2: The Peace of Westphalia to the Dissolution of the Reich, 1648-1806 (Oxford, 2012), 42-45. 6 P. Burke, ‘Did Europe Exist before 1700?’, History of European Ideas 1 (1980), 21-29. 7 Burke, ‘Did Europe Exist before 1700?’, 21. 8 See, amongst others, G. Delanty, Inventing Europe: Idea, Identity, Reality (Basingstoke, 1995); K. Wilson and J. van der Dussen (eds), The History of the Idea of Europe (London, 1995); R.M. Dainotto, Europe (in Theory) (Durham/London, 2007); P. den Boer, Europa: De geschiedenis van een idee, 4th, rev. ed. (Amsterdam, 2005); A. Drace-Francis, European Identity: A Historical Reader (New York, 2013); P. Pasture, Imagining European Unity since 1000 AD (Basingstoke, 2015); M. Wintle, The Image of Europe (Cambridge, 2009).

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Figure 3.1 Negotiating peace at the House of Nieuburch in Ryswick (1697).

Source: Jan van Vianen, Atlas van Stolk.

Figure 3.2 Fireworks to celebrate the Peace of Ryswick of 1697.

Source: Laurens Scherm, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam.

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European consciousness, a thorough analysis of the contemporary discourses is required as well as a historical contextualization. This chapter focuses on the European community as it was imagined in 1697 by Dutch authors celebrating the Peace of Ryswick. The aim is threefold. Firstly, to show that the concept of ‘imagined community’ can be stretched in a temporal way, as it provides us with a useful tool to discern the rise of imagined communities, more particularly the rise of national and European communities, in the early modern period. Secondly, to demonstrate that the European community was imagined in a variety of ways and dispersed into several different imagined communities that were defined by in- and exclusion of other denominations. Thirdly, to show that there was a strong interplay between the national and European levels.9 On closer inspection, these visions of Europe were as much influenced by national perspectives as by European ideals; these often entered into a dialogue with another. Celebrating European peace, paradoxically, primarily served as a means to propagate national sentiments. The ‘European identity’ was, on the one hand, framed in terms of religion (Christianity versus Islam), which provided the public with a sense of timelessness. On the other hand, there was no doubt which nation was best suited to lead this fight against the ‘pagans’; the connection with particular political circumstances suggested a far more dynamic conceptualization of time. In other words: history played a key role in the creation of a form of Dutch sense of exceptionalism within a larger European framework. This can be demonstrated by a close reading the writings published to celebrate the Peace of Ryswick in the Dutch Republic. However, before discussing the contents of these peace writings, some general remarks about the use of the terms ‘imagined community’ and ‘Europe’ must be made.

The imagined European community In his seminal book Imagined Communities, Anderson perceived modern nations as political imagined communities that were shaped by the vernacular ‘print-communities’ of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.10 He 9 Astrid Erll has convincingly argued that scholars should take into account the interrelatedness of the regional, national and supranational levels in community building. See: A. Erll, ‘Regional integration and (trans)cultural memory’, Asia Europe Journal 8 (2010), 305-315, accessed 4-11-2015, doi: 10.1007/s10308-010-0268-5. 10 B. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism (London, 1987), 49. The term ‘print-communities’ is used by A. Smith, Nationalism: Theory, Ideology, History, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 2013), 86.

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argued that the convergence of capitalism and print technology made the emergence of these imagined communities possible. Despite not knowing their fellow-members personally, members shared the same images of their community, which were spread through mass media such as newspapers and books, offering them a sense of ‘a deep, horizontal comradeship’.11 Hence, the nation was essentially a cultural artefact, which owed its existence to recurrent images and discourses. Anderson explicitly situated these developments in modern times, thus considering the nation as a quintessentially modern phenomenon. However, in recent years, the ‘modernist paradigm’ has been challenged by a growing number of scholars who situate the origins of nationalism and nationhood in earlier times. They in particular point to nations that took the form of a national cultural and political community from a very early stage, such as Sweden, England, Spain, Iceland and the Dutch Republic.12 In the early modern period, unifying images of these nations were disseminated through a wide range of media, creating a sense of nationhood. Burke recently emphasized the importance of early modern print culture, in particular printed religious texts, sermons and catechisms, in the formation of imagined communities based on a common language – indeed now explicitly using Anderson’s concept.13 In a similar vein, Andrew Hadfield pointed to the importance of the printing press in the development of a public sphere and a shared national identity in seventeenth-century England. If one acknowledges that the printing press played an essential role in the formation of public opinion and shaping supralocal communities in the early modern period, then it is only logical to apply the concept of the ‘imagined community’ to earlier periods as well.14 Of course, these early modern ‘imagined communities’ were of a completely different nature than those of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. For one thing, the circulation of printed material was much lower than in modern times.15 However, the idea that the imagined community is shaped in vernacular print-communities also makes the concept suitable for premodernists, at 11 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 16. 12 For a recent overview of the discussion between the ‘modernists and traditionalists’, see L. Jensen, ‘The Roots of Nationalism: Introduction’, in: L. Jensen (ed.), The Roots of Nationalism: National Identity Formation in Early Modern Europe, 1600-1815 (Amsterdam, 2016), 9-27. 13 P. Burke, ‘Nationalisms and Vernaculars, 1500-1800’, in: John Breuilly (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the History of Nationalism (Oxford, 2013), 5. 14 On the rise of public opinion in the early modern period and the role literature played in that process, see J. Bloemendal, A. van Dixhoorn and Elsa Strietman, Literary Cultures and Public Opinion in the Low Countries, 1450-1650 (Leiden, 2011). 15 See, for instance Burke, ‘Did Europe Exist before 1700?’, 29.

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least if one is prepared to use the term in a more loose, metaphorical sense, without requiring large circulation figures as a prerequisite.16 Along the same line, one could stretch the concept geographically and consider Europe as an imagined community. Concepts of Europe were abundantly present in early modern writings, as becomes clear from a growing body of historical works about the development of Europe as a geographical, political, juridical and cultural entity.17 The emergence of European consciousness is usually situated in the late fifteenth century, when the term ‘Europe’ began to be used more frequently, primarily as a Christian commonwealth. During the Renaissance and Enlightenment the idea of superiority entered the discourse; seventeenth- and eighteenthcentury intellectuals expressed a strong sense of belonging to a highly civilized European culture. Through this constant production of both visual and textual images of Europe, European awareness was generated, based on some persistent continuities (such as its Christian character) but also changing significantly throughout the ages.18 In the early modern period the term ‘Europe’ was, broadly speaking, used in three different contexts.19 In the first place there was a Christian and anti-Turkish context. The constant threat of invasion by the heathen Turks, especially after the fall of Belgrade in 1521, demanded the European princes and rulers to maintain peace amongst themselves and unite forces against the infidel Turks. Humanists like Erasmus and Vives, for instance, propagated the union of Christians and defined Europe in opposition to the Turks.20 In 1603, Maximilien de Béthune, minister of the French king and a Huguenot, drew up a European peace plan, pleading for a Christian Europe that did not include the Ottoman and Russian Empires.21 The Christian and anti-Turkish concept of Europe was given an extra impulse in the 1680s, when the Ottomans managed to expand their territory in Eastern and Central Europe. The second context entailed the relationship between Europe and other cultures that had been discovered through exploration and trade voyages, such as Brazil, North America, India and Peru. Travellers reflected upon 16 Cf. A.D. Smith, The Nation in History: Historiographical Debates about Ethnicity and Nationalism (Hanover, 2000), 58. 17 See, for instance, P. Pasture, Imagining European Unity since 1000 AD (Basingstoke, 2015), and Wintle, The Image of Europe. 18 See also M. Wintle, ‘The History of the Idea of Europe: Where Are We Now?’, Perspectives on Europe 43 (2013), 8-12. 19 Burke, ‘Did Europe Exist before 1700?’, 24-26. 20 Burke, ‘Did Europe Exist before 1700?’; Pasture, Imagining European Union, 21. 21 Pasture, Imagining European Union, 28.

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their European identity in relation to these new worlds, often expressing a sense of superiority. Growing internal political tensions in Europe triggered the third context. One of the greatest threats to European peace came from within: from the 1670s, the European nations were permanently embroiled in conflict, mainly driven by the French King Louis XIV’s ambitions. One of his fiercest opponents was the Dutch stadtholder William III, who in 1688 became the King of England, Scotland and Ireland. He adopted a political strategy emphasizing his role as the ‘protector and liberator of Europe’. According to William, peace could be assured only once a territorial barrier in the Spanish Netherlands had been established.22 In contemporary diplomatic discourses Europe was perceived as a political system of different states and nations, rather than a Christian unity. This shift from thinking in terms of a ‘respublica christiana’ towards a balance of power rapidly gained ground at the end of the seventeenth century and profoundly changed the system of international relations in eighteenth-century Europe.23 The three different contexts in which the term ‘Europe’ was used co-existed for a long time. Although diplomats started putting more emphasis on the idea of Europe as a power of balance, their writings were still very much inspired by Christian ideas in general or the idea of Europe as a Christian unity in particular. General outlines like these are usually based upon texts produced by a small group of elite authors, such as Erasmus, Vives, Montaigne, and Rousseau, and a select number of diplomatic sources. One might therefore ask how far European awareness stretched: was it restricted to a few intellectuals or extended further? Burke’s thesis is that the concept of Europe became more common in the last quarter of the seventeenth century. He points to popular songs, diaries, and periodicals from this period that show a frequent use of the term.24 Peace writings also offer an excellent opportunity to gain more insight into the spread of European consciousness in the early modern period. These writings are doomed to be forgotten because of their ephemeral uses, but they are an important source to form an impression 22 W. Troost, ‘“To Restore and Preserve the Liberty of Europe”: William III’s Ideas on Foreign Policy’, in: David Onnekink and Gijs Rommelse (eds), Ideology and Foreign Policy in Early Modern Europe (1650-1750) (Ashgate, 2011), 283-285. 23 E. Luard, The Balance of Power: The System of International Relations, 1648-1815 (Basingstoke, 1992), 8-21; R. Lesaffer, Europa: een zoektocht naar vrede? 1453-1763 en 1945-1997 (Leuven, 1999), 354-355; W. Schulze, ‘Europa in der frühen Neuzeit – Begriffsgeschichtliche Befunde’, in: H. Duchhardt and Andreas Kunz (eds), Europäische Geschichte als historiographisches Problem (Mainz, 1997), 57-58. 24 Burke, ‘Did Europe Exist before 1700?’, 26-27.

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of public opinion in earlier days. Although it is difficult to establish the exact impact of these publications, they do give us some insight into the preoccupations and ideas of a group of people broader than the elite thinkers alone.25 Persons with various backgrounds wrote these texts; amongst the authors we find a bookseller, an organist, the director of the Amsterdam Theater, an alderman and several poetesses. A closer look at these texts reveals a strong sense of Europeanness, but European unity was imagined in a variety of ways.

The Peace of Ryswick and European thought The Peace of Ryswick incited many Dutch authors to write appraisals: around 40 works were published, including poems, treatises, sermons and theatre plays. They were written by a wide range of authors, who came from different regions of the Republic. Approximately one-fifth were published in Amsterdam, while the rest appeared in cities such as Groningen, Dordrecht, Middelburg, The Hague and Leiden. These writings reveal a great interest in European affairs. Authors reflected upon the present state of Europe, as well as its past and its future, thus expressing a growing sense of ‘Europe’ as an international community. If one looks at the contexts in which Europe is mentioned, one is struck by the fact that it is employed predominantly in a Christian and anti-Turkish context. The second context (superiority in relation to other continents) appears only very sporadically, while the idea of Europe as a political conglomeration and the idea of a balance of power are totally absent. The notion of a Christian Europe set against the Turkish threat was rooted in a longer tradition. ‘Europe’ was already being used in a similar sense during earlier peace celebrations, such as the Peace of Münster (1648) and the Peace of Nijmegen (1678). In 1697, however, this theme dominates the celebratory writings. The remarks of the mayor and poet Pieter Nuyts are characteristic of the general mood. He speaks of ‘Islamic swines’ who had coloured their territory red with Christian blood. It was paramount to stop 25 On pamphlets and the rise of a public sphere, see for example A. Halasz, The Marketplace of Print Pamphlets and the Public Sphere in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 1997). For an overview of the Dutch developments: J. de Kruif, M. Meijer Drees and J. Salman, Het lange leven van het pamflet: Boekhistorische, iconografische, literaire en politieke apscten van pamfletten 1600-1900 (Hilversum, 2006). For an overview of peace writings and the shaping of European and Dutch identities, see Lotte Jensen, Celebrating Peace. The Emergence of Dutch Identity, 1648-1815 (Nijmegen 2017).

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these ‘barbarians’, who were standing at the gates of Austria and other parts of the Holy Roman Empire, by any and all means. Consequently the European princes had to make peace and protect ‘the people of the European states’.26 The authors agreed that Europe had to unite as Christians to stand up against the Ottoman Empire. However, in reality there was no such thing as one, united Christian community. Since the Reformation, Christianity had become internally divided into Catholicism and Protestantism. This ‘christianitas afflicta’ posed a serious threat to European peace.27 Catholic princes were opposed to Protestant rulers, who in turn were strongly divided internally as well. Generally speaking, three different positions can be discerned in the celebratory writings on Ryswick. The first is the most tolerant, presenting a European peace that includes all Christians. Christianity here refers to the sum of Christian people, without any exceptions or hierarchical differences. The second position gives priority to Protestants, claiming that they are the true Christians. In order to defeat the Turks, however, a Christian union with the Catholics is necessary. The third position leaves no room for Catholics and defines the idea of a united Europe exclusively from a Protestant perspective. The most tolerant position was adhered to by only a handful of authors, while the most exclusionary image of Europe as a union of Protestants dominates the discourse. Most Dutch authors apparently defined a ‘pax christiana universalis’ from a Protestant perspective, considering European peace primarily as a victory of the Protestant William III over the Catholic Louis XIV. Their Protestant Europeanism went hand in hand with an Orangist attitude, supporting the interests of the Dutch stadtholder. In other words, their Protestant religion not only played a role in creating a self-image of national unity, but also in their concept of Europe.28 The work of François van Bergen, a lawyer from Middelburg in the province of Zeeland, provides a good example of the first position, the most tolerant one. He published a long treatise, entitled Vreugde-Reden (Oration of Joy), in which he presents a lengthy list of the benefits of universal and eternal peace amongst Christians. He considers peace as the ‘best triumph of all triumphs, and the ultimate victory over all victories’.29 His description 26 Pieter Nuyts, Vredezang (Amsterdam 1697), 7, 20. 27 Schulze, ‘Europa in der frühen Neuzeit’, 39. 28 On the importance of religion in the shaping of a national self-image during the years 1672 to 1713, see D. Haks, ‘The States General on Religion and War: Manifestos, Policy Documents and Prayer Days in the Dutch Republic, 1672-1713’, in: David Onnekink (ed.), War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648-1713 (Farnham, 2009), 155-175. 29 François van Bergen, Vreugde-Reden […] Middelburg 1697), 1: ‘Overwinster van alle Overwinningen, en Zége-praalster over alle Zégepraalen’.

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of peace reveals how deeply connected were the vocabularies on war and peace, as peace was defined as the result of a hard-won battle. Van Bergen presents an extensive and learned overview of classical and Christian authors who had engaged with the issue of peace. First, he offers a series of comments by classical thinkers, including Herodotus, Ovid, Boethius, Cicero, and Tibullus; then these ideas are placed in a Christian context with fragments taken from the works of Justinian, Augustine, Mantuan and Erasmus. Van Bergen also quotes the Italian humanist Francesco Guicciardini, who argued that war violated the tenets of Christianity and that a general peace amongst the Christian princes was necessary to maintain piety and virtue in society.30 By quoting the classical and Christian authors so extensively, Van Bergen situates the Peace of Ryswick in a long tradition of peacemaking, thereby putting the current developments in a moral and Christian perspective. He ends his treatise by thanking God, the greatest Prince of Peace, who demands that his servants live in harmony and peace. Van Bergen also wrote a long poem on the Peace of Ryswick, in which he cherished the benefits of peace. All the traditional advantages of peace are mentioned, such as the renewed blossoming of trade and the arts and sciences. Prosperous times are to be expected not only in the Dutch Republic but in all European nations, including France, Ireland, Scotland, Austria, the German states and Britain. In the words of the author: ‘I feel the resurrection of entire Europe.’31 This optimistic and peaceful message, however, does not apply to the Turks. On the contrary. Europe must direct all its efforts at ‘destroying the Empire of the Ottomans’.32 The same combination of promoting peace amongst Christians, while at the same time calling for military action against the Turks, can be found in the writings of the couple Anna Maria Paauw and Christoffel Pierson. They imagined a united and peaceful Europe that unanimously stood up against the Ottoman Empire. In 1693 Paauw had written a fierce complaint about the discord between the Christian princes of Europe (Europaas-Klagt over de oneenigheyd der Kristen Vorsten), in which she supported William III in his fight against Louis XIV. On the occasion of the Peace of Ryswick she no longer felt the need to take sides but called for Christian unity and military action against the Turks.33 Her husband went even further by expressing 30 Van Bergen, Vreugde-reden, 8. 31 Ibid., 24. 32 Ibid., 22. 33 Anna Maria Paauw, Vree-bazuyn: Uytgegalmt, Wegens de Gelukkige herstelling van Europaas eendracht, Voltrokken, op des selfs Algemene vreede (Rotterdam 1697).

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his hopes that the medieval crusades would be revived and that Istanbul and Jerusalem would once again become Christian cities. Achieving this goal would require a sustained European peace.34 Celebrating peace in general terms and refraining from mentioning any particular names could also be a way of avoiding topics that were politically charged from a national perspective. During the Nine Years’ War, the support for the bellicose William III diminished signif icantly in some cities of the Republic. In Amsterdam, for instance, high taxes had turned the people against his rule and had even led to a popular revolt in 1696. At the Amsterdam peace celebrations, the role of the stadtholder therefore was remarkably limited.35 Whether the above-mentioned writers, who published their works in the cities of Middelburg, Rotterdam and Gouda, were also influenced by such considerations is hard to tell. The treatise of Van Bergen, however, seems a genuine plea for a universal Christian peace.

True Christians Dutch authors expressed the second position – true Christians are Protestants, but peace with Catholics is necessary to counter the Turkish threat – more often. They imagined Europe as a safe haven for Protestants but emphasized the necessity of Christian unity for both ideological (the war against the Turks) and pragmatic reasons. The above-mentioned Halma, for instance, propagated an alliance between William III and Louis XIV, not only because their union would strengthen Europe in its struggle against the Turks but also for commercial trade reasons: ‘Now you can send fleet after fleet to the shores and harbours of France, / With stiff clotted cream, the fruit of the Dutch cow.’36 He hoped that the Dutch stadtholder and French king would live in peace and ‘true alliance’, although only one of them professed the true religion, namely William III: ‘God’s community considers him as the protectionist of true religion.37 The fairly obscure poet Hendrik Hasmoor also praised the Catholic princes, in particular Louis XIV

34 Christoffel Pierson, Op het sluyten van De Eeuwige Vreede, In ‘t jaar 1697 (Gouda 1697). 35 K. van der Haven, ‘“Dat heeft men uw Beleid, uw groot Beleid te danken”: theatervieringen van de Vrede van Rijswijk (1697), in Amsterdam en Hamburg’, Holland 35 (2004), 313-326. 36 Halma, Europe herstelt, 8: ‘Nu zend gy vloot op vloot naar Vrankryks kust en haven, / Met styfgeronnen room, de vrucht van Hollandsch koe.’ 37 Halma, Europe herstelt, 8: ‘waare bondschap’, 12: ‘Godts Kruiskerk ziet op hem als haar Geloofsverweerder.’

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and Leopold I, for contributing to peace, but also saved most of his praise for ‘Britain’s very famous King William, the Dutch glory and honour’.38 Pieter Rabus equally emphasized the importance of peace amongst the Christian princes and rulers in his work. Rabus was a self-made intellectual from the city of Rotterdam, who is known for having established the first learned periodical in Dutch, De Boekzaal van Europe (1692-1702). Rabus despised dogmatism in religious matters, on both the Protestant and Catholic sides. He propagated an enlightened view of religion, based upon the critical use of reason. He was, however, very outspoken in his political convictions.39 He whole-heartedly supported William III, as also becomes clear in his celebratory poem on the Peace of Ryswick, Vrede- en vreugdezang. The Dutch stadtholder was portrayed as the great hero of European warfare, who excelled in the Battle of Boyne, where he defeated the English King James II, and in the reconquering of Namen in 1695. According to Rabus, William III should be seen as the hero and great liberator of Europe, who had paved the way to stability and peace in Europe. Rabus’ celebration of William III, however, did not lead to strong anti-Catholic statements. On the contrary. He stated that Christians should unite in order to counter the more acute problem of the Turkish threat that was endangering the stability of Europe. The third and least tolerant position was dominant in the celebratory writings on Ryswick. Most Dutch authors interpreted the European peace in Protestant terms and considered it as a victory of the Protestant King William III over the Catholic French King Louis XIV. The composer and poet Johan Snep expressed this point of view most explicitly. He recited a long poem on the Peace of Ryswick in the provincial town Zierikzee in Zeeland, on 6 November 1697, which had been officially designated by the States-General as a national day of prayer. These prayer days created a sense of community on a supra-regional level and went hand in hand with all sorts of social events, such as church services, meals, musical and theatrical performances and fireworks. 40 Snep’s poem comprised more than five hundred verses and was entitled: ‘Vrede der Christenheyd. Geslooten op het kasteel tot Rijs-wijk, Den 20 September 1697’ (Peace of Christianity. Conducted at the Castle of Ryswick, 20 September 1697). The title suggests solidarity amongst all Christians, 38 Hendrik Hasmoor, Oorlog en vreede Of d’Oorlog door Vreede verjaagt. In ‘t Jaar 1697 (Amsterdam 1697), 13: ‘Eng’lands hoog beroemde Koning, / Wiljam, Hollands roem en eer.’ 39 On Rabus’ religious and political viewpoints: P. Rietbergen, ‘Pieter Rabus en de Boekzaal van Europe’, in: J. Bots (ed.), Pieter Rabus en de Boekzaal van Europe 1692-1702 (Amsterdam, 1974), 1-109. 40 D. Haks, Vaderland en vrede 1672-1713: Publiciteit over de Nederlandse Republiek in oorlog (Hilversum, 2013), 87-90.

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but in reality, Snep directed his attacks at the Catholic French and their ambitious King Louis XIV. The established peace was, in fact, a triumph for William III: Now one can see the pride of France trampled underfoot, Murder and fire, and fierce combat expelled The bloody flags displayed at rest, The entire Christianity has bound itself with precious oaths And kissed sweet Peace all together. 41

This fragment makes clear that true Christians were Protestants and that the Catholics were to be despised. The Dutch Republic had a special role to fulfil in Europe’s history, as it revealed the other nations the right direction in religious matters. Snep expressed a sense of superiority by claiming that the Dutch God’s Chosen People (Dutch Israël). This idea was also often propagated by ministers from the Reformed Church as Cornelis Huisman has shown in his study on national consciousness in Reformed circles in the eighteenth century. 42 Snep also presented an extensive overview of the history of the Dutch Republic, starting with the Eighty Years’ War against Spain and ending with the treaty of Ryswick. The Revolt was represented as a struggle for the freedom of religion, led by the heroic William of Orange against the ‘monstrous’ Duke of Alba. With the help of God, the Dutch had managed to liberate themselves from oppression and had settled peace at Münster in 1648. Those who died in their fight for freedom should be considered as God’s Chosen People and martyrs, who had spread the ‘true seed of the church’. 43 Snep continues by discussing the disasters of the year 1672, when both France and the bishop of Münster attacked the Dutch Republic. Once again, God sending a new stadtholder, William III, who took the lead in the struggle against France, saved the Republic. As a second ‘Hercules’, William III had gained important victories, defeated the Catholic King James II and planted the Orange flag at the Castle of Namen in 1695. According to Snep, this last 41 Johan Snep, Vreugde-galmen, Ter Gedagtenis van de Algemeyne Vrede der Christenheyd (Middelburg 1697), 4: ‘Nu siet men Vrankryks trots, en hoogmoed met de voet / Verbrijseld, Moord en Brand, en felle Krijg vertreden, / De Bloedige Banier, te pronk elk is in rust, / De gantsche Christenheyd, heeft sig met diere Eeden / Verknogt, en soo al t’saem, de lieve Vrêê gekust.’ 42 C. Huisman, Neerlands Israël: Het natiebesef der traditioneel-gereformeerden in de achttiende eeuw (Dordrecht, 1983), 52-60. 43 Snep, Vreugde-galmen, 8. Cf. Tertullian, Apologeticus, ch. 50, 13: ‘The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.’

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event should be considered a turning point in the nation’s and Europe’s history. It forced France to accept peace and a set of humiliating conditions: The French crown had to throw everything up again What it had swallowed, and now the head of King William is decorated again See there the Christian nations And all the princes of Europe making peace.44

Peace was made between the Christian nations, which basically meant that William III had taken back what he was entitled to. Snep’s attack on France did not stand by itself but can be witnessed in the writings of many other Dutch authors as well. Their anti-French feelings went hand in hand with anti-papist utterances and laudations of William III who had defended true Christian principles. To reinforce their statements they often compared Louis XIV with the mythological figure Phaeton, who overplayed his hand by wanting to drive his father’s chariot. He lost control and was killed by Jupiter with a thunderbolt. 45

Concluding remarks Dutch authors who celebrated the Peace of Ryswick expressed a strong sense of a shared collective European identity, in which being Christian and opposing the Turks were the binding forces. They unanimously pleaded for a European peace, in order to unite the European princes and rulers in their fight against the infidel Turks. Their visions, however, were not identical. The European community was imagined in a variety of ways, ranging from a very tolerant, pan-Christian ideal image to a less tolerant view. A minority included all Christians in their imagined Europe, while most emphasized the superiority of Protestantism and excluded Catholics from their ideal European community. They were mainly driven by national sentiments and were fierce supporters of the King-stadtholder William III. They defined European peace in terms of a victory of William III over the French king, which gave these texts a rather bellicose, aggressive character. Their Europeanism served, in fact, as a means 44 Snep, Vreugde-galmen, 24: ‘de France Kroon weer alles uyt moest braaken, / ‘t Geen hy had ingeslokt. En dus op nieuw geçierd, / Het Hoofd van Koning Wilm, siet daar de Christen Landen; / En al de Vorsten van Europa tot verdrag’. 45 See, for instance, Cornelis Sweerts, De triumfeerende vrede (Amsterdam 1697), 5.

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to propagate Orangism on a national level. Europe was basically used as an extension of their nationally oriented political and religious views. Despite these differences, there was also a general sense of relief that nine years of warfare had come to an end. However, the hopes for a better future and a united Europe soon vanished into thin air. Only a few years after the treaties of Ryswick were signed, the War of the Spanish Succession (1702-1713), broke out. France, Spain, Cologne and Bavaria found themselves opposed to Britain, the Dutch Republic, most states of the Holy Roman Empire, Portugal and Savoy. Again, major battles were fought, for example, at Höchstädt (1704), Ramillies (1706), and Oudenaarde (1708). In 1713 peace was made in Utrecht, and this time, the treaties would indeed bring an end to the French aspirations of establishing a ‘universal monarchy’. When comparing the Dutch celebratory writings of Ryswick and Utrecht, two differences stand out. Firstly, William III plays only a minor role in the occasional writings of 1713. His death in 1702 marked the beginning of the so-called second stadtholderless period (1702-1747), and this is reflected in his absence from most of the texts. 46 Secondly, the notion of a European community being held together by the Turkish threat has disappeared completely. This absence can be explained by the fact that in 1699 the Peace of Karlowitz had been signed, ending the Austro-Ottoman War and the acute threat of a Turkish invasion. Instead, Europe was being defined more in terms of a collection of competitive states, in which the Dutch Republic stood out. In other words, between 1697 and 1713 the concept of Europe as a Christian union (‘pax christiana universalis’) was replaced by a vocabulary that focused more on the idea of Europe as a political community. 47 This shift can also be seen in the studies on European thought in relation to peace and international relations of Burke, Duchhardt and Schulze. 48 Hence, it is not this shift that is most remarkable but the fact that this conceptual change is also visible in the occasional, ephemeral writings of that time. Overviews of early modern concepts of Europe tend to focus on a small group of elite thinkers and politicians, but these sources reveal 46 Although some authors, like Coenraet Droste, Jacobus de Groot and François Halma, grabbed the opportunity to make an Orangist statement. See L. Jensen, ‘Visions of Europe: Contrasts and Combinations of National and European Identities in Literary Representations of the Peace of Utrecht (1713)’, in: R. de Bruin et al. (eds), Performances of Peace: Utrecht 1713 (Leiden/Boston, 2015), 169-171. 47 Jensen, ‘Visions of Europe’, 173-177. 48 Burke, ‘Did Europe Exist before 1700?’, 27; H. Duchhardt, Frieden im Europa der Vormoderne. Ausgewählte Aufsätze 1979-2011, ed. and intro. Martin Espenhorst (Paderborn, 2012), 114-115; Schulze, ‘Europa in der frühen Neuzeit’, 57-58.

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that European awareness was more widespread. The imagined European community was present in the minds of many others as well, including an organist from Middelburg, a poetess from Rotterdam and a bookseller from Utrecht. Moreover, they gave the public a dynamic vision of Dutch exceptionalism within a larger European framework, which was connected to particular political events and a particular time frame. This makes it even more plausible to apply Anderson’s term of the imagined community to premodern times.

About the author Lotte Jensen is Professor in Dutch Cultural and Literary History at Radboud University Nijmegen. Jensen’s research is concerned with the role of literature and historiography in processes of national identity formation during the period 1600-1900. Her publications include De verheerlijking van het verleden. Helden, literatuur en natievorming in de negentiende eeuw (Vantilt, 2008), Verzet tegen Napoleon (Vantilt, 2013), and Celebrating Peace: The Emergence of Dutch Identity, 1648-1815 (Vantilt, 2017). She was co-editor of Free Access to the Past: Romanticism, Cultural Heritage and the Nation (Brill, 2010), Performances of Peace: The Treaty of Utrecht (1713) (Brill, 2015) and editor of The Roots of Nationalism: National Identity Formation in Europe, 1600-1815 (Amsterdam University Press, 2016).

4

Gypsy Music and the Fashioning of the National Community Krisztina Lajosi

Abstract Gypsy music has long been emblematic of Hungarian national identity. The presence of Roma musicians in Hungary dates from the fifteenth century, and Gypsy music has been regarded as part of the Hungarian national heritage since the early eighteenth century, when the Roma played a significant role in the Rákóczi uprising. Roma musicians were later employed by the Habsburg army to provide entertainment during recruiting events. Verbunkos, or recruitment music, has become associated with the Hungarian national style. This chapter explores the role of material culture in establishing the link between Gypsy music and Hungarian national identity. It examines the interactions and correlations among music, materiality, and history writing, and explores the ways in which the Roma community has been imagined and framed as part of the nation, and conversely, how Hungarian patriotic feelings have been shaped by Roma musicians. Keywords: nationalism, music, Gypsy, Roma, verbunkos, materiality, imagined community

How did the Gypsy musical tradition grow into an emblem of the Hungarian national style? In the age of nineteenth-century European nation-building, when national communities were imagined along the lines of ethnic myths and a common historical consciousness, how could a community that was living on the fringes of society become central to the national image? This article seeks to explore the interplay between collective identity, musical culture and the plasticity of national stereotypes. What circumstances and social positions shaped the romanticized image of the Roma people in

Blok, Gemma, Kuitenbrouwer, Vincent and Weeda, Claire (eds): Imagining Communities. Historical Reflections on the Process of Community Formation. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018 doi: 10.5117/9789462980037_ch04

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Hungary? How were the feelings of belonging of the Roma people navigated in public discourse in the period of European nation-building? How did they define themselves, and how did they figure in the imagined community called the nation? How were practices of community building and belonging experienced through material culture with symbolic national value (such as garments or musical instruments)? My aim is twofold: on the one hand, to throw light on the ways in which Gypsy music shaped national identity, and on the other, to examine the ways in which the Gypsy musical tradition has been framed in both positive and negative terms according to ideas of the national self-image. National styles have been shaped by the interaction between local and transnational exchanges, and the relationship between the imagined and imagining communities did not result in a fixed identity. Instead, it changed over time and was defined by a dynamic process of both inclusion and exclusion. Music became a significant marker of modern European nation-building by the first half of the nineteenth century and, therefore, nationalism can be better understood if one examines how and why particular kinds of music came to be seen as ‘national’. Musical practices like public concerts, operas and collective choral singing became platforms for national mobilization.1 Though concert repertoires were largely cosmopolitan, the discourse about music was focused on definitions of national styles. Therefore, nineteenth-century music criticism can also be seen as a nationalist enterprise which sometimes favoured and sometimes disparaged Gypsy musical traditions and practices. In the course of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the Hungarian national style came to be associated with verbunkos (a name derived from the German Werbung, meaning ‘recruitment of soldiers’). Starting in the 1710s Gypsy musicians were hired by the Habsburg army to play music for recruiting events in villages and towns throughout Hungary. This recruitment was a festive occasion where soldiers in full military uniform danced and sang to impress young men and encourage them to join the army. These practices of recruitment ended with the Hungarian War of Independence in 1849. It is ironic that a musical genre originally associated with the Habsburg Empire should come to symbolize Hungary’s struggle for independence from Austria in the Reform Era, in the first half of the nineteenth century. The names by which European societies have denoted the Roma community throughout the ages are an important marker of their relation to the societies with which they interacted. For example, the naming of these 1

See K. Lajosi and A. Stynen (eds), Choral Societies and Nationalism in Europe (Leiden, 2015).

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musicians was a controversial issue during the reign of Maria Theresa (17171780) and Joseph II (1741-1790), whose politics of assimilation did not favour the name ‘Cigány’ (Hungarian for ‘Gypsy’); instead the Roma ethnic group was called ‘new Hungarians’, ‘new citizens’, or ‘folk musicians’.2 The term cigányzenekar (Gypsy music band) was common both in scholarly and popular discourse by the turn of the twentieth century. The music of the Gypsy bands was praised by many writers, musicians, and travellers in the nineteenth century, culminating in the famous treatise by Franz Liszt, Des Bohémiens et de leur musique en Hongrie, first published in French in Paris in 1859. Gypsy music was immensely popular with the Hungarian middle-class public, and due to its ubiquitous presence in the operetta (light opera) theatre, cafés, and the public sphere in general, it became well known outside Hungary and has been associated with Hungarian music ever since. Even today, Hungarian restaurants and bars frequented by tourists employ Gypsy bands and perpetuate the centuries-long tradition. Despite or perhaps because of its popularity, twentieth-century modernists like Béla Bartók (1881-1945) and Zoltán Kodály (1882-1967) rejected the Gypsy tradition together with Liszt’s claims, and argued that Gypsy music has nothing to do with the Hungarian character (magyarság). According to them the authentic Hungarian music is peasant music, which has not been ‘corrupted’ by Western musical or Gypsy traditions. Both Bartók and Kodály expressed their views on this subject in polemical essays: Bartók published a piece entitled ‘A magyar zenéről’ (On Hungarian music) in 1911 in the journal Aurora;3 and Kodály’s famous article ‘Magyarság a zenében’ (The Hungarian character in music) appeared in 1939 in a volume of collected essays on Hungarian nature, Mi a magyar? (What is Hungarian?), edited by the historian Gyula Szekfű (1883-1955). 4 Liszt, Bartók, and Kodály are defining figures in the development of Hungarian music, and their writings about music have received close critical scrutiny. The differences in their views about Hungarian music have been extensively and thoroughly examined by prominent Hungarian and international scholars such as Lynn M. Hooker, Shay Loya, and David E. Schneider.5 2 B. Sárosi, Zene anyanyelvünk (Budapest, 2003), 214. 3 Béla Bartók, ‘A magyar zenéről’, in Béla Bartók, Önéletrajz: Írások a zenéről (Budapest, 1946), 10-13, accessed at: http://mek.oszk.hu/14800/14874/14874.pdf on 04-08-2016. 4 Gyula Szekfű (ed.), Mi a Magyar? (Budapest, 1939), accessed at: http://mtdaportal.extra.hu/ books/szekfu_gyula_mi_a_magyar.pdf on 04-08-2016. 5 See L.M. Hooker, Redefining Hungarian Music from Liszt to Bartók (New York, 2013); S. Loya, Liszt’s Transcultural Modernism and Hungarian-Gypsy Tradition (Rochester, 2011); and D.E. Schneider, Bartók, Hungary, and the Renewal of Tradition (Berkeley, 2006).

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Gypsy musicality From early on, Gypsies were perceived as entertainers: animal tamers, musicians, acrobats, actors, palm readers. Even if the speculation about their names cannot be linked to a specific artistic profession, the designation contributed to the stereotypes and topoi attached to the Roma: vagrants who earned their keep by providing spectacles, music, and other ancillary services. The words ‘musician’ and ‘Gypsy’ were often used as synonyms in Hungarian, Turkish, and Greek, and cigány, zingene and gyphtos also signified the occupation of musician.6 Though Roma were notorious practitioners of music in Spain (flamenco style), Russia (where they acquired fame mainly as singers in choirs, which became immensely popular in the nineteenth century), and throughout the Balkans, nowhere did ‘Gypsy music’ become more closely associated with a national style than in the case of Hungarian music. In the nineteenth-century Hungarian discourse about nation-building, identity, and music, the ‘Gypsy’ character was regarded as part of the national identity. Not until the end of the nineteenth century was this perception criticized and in the twentieth century contested and heavily resisted, also by musicians such as Bartók and Kodály. Musicality has been one of the oldest characteristics associated with the Roma.7 According to Fraser, the Roma of Persia and Syria, the so-called Doms, were described as musicians as early as the sixth century CE: ‘In Sanskrit the word took on the sense of “man of low caste living by singing and music.”’8 Some scholars have claimed that the Persian name for Gypsies, Luri, is derived from the name of the musical instrument they played, the lute.9 Others believed that the Zott musicians (or Luri) mentioned in a document written by the Arab historian Hamza of Ispahan referred to the Roma people. According to this chronicle, the Persian monarch Bahram Gur decided that his people should be exposed to more music and therefore asked the King of India to send him 12,000 musicians. Hamza identified these musicians as the Zott. The Persian national epic, the Shah-nameh (Book of kings) by Firdawsi, recounts the same story, but in his version the musicians were called Luri. Zott is the Arab version of the Indian Jat; but as Fraser reminds us, whether these are identical with the original Gypsy tribes was a highly debated issue for at least a hundred years.10 6 B. Sárosi, Gypsy Music (Budapest, 1978), 38. 7 A. Fraser, The Gypsies (Oxford, 1995), 200. 8 Ibid., 25. 9 Jean-Paul Clébert, cited by A. Piotrowska, Gypsy Music in European Culture, trans. G.R. Torr (Boston, 2013), 4. 10 Fraser, Gypsies, 36-37.

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Most scholars agree that despite the ubiquitous presence of musicians in their ethnic group, Roma did not fan out from the same musical tradition. However, Bernard Leblon in his Musiques Tsiganes et Flamenco argued that Gypsies, regardless of their geographic location, preserve and prefer the instrumental patterns customary in India and other eastern lands. They adapted to local traditions and musical language, but they have in common their choice of instruments and the peculiar inclination for ornamentation in style. Positive and negative topoi about the Roma have alternated throughout the centuries. Gypsies throughout the world were professional musicians and were deemed indispensable for popular entertainment. Hungary, as Leblon mentions, is in a unique position, because the Gypsies were more tolerated than elsewhere in Europe and they built up a musical reputation from the fifteenth century.11 In 1423 King Sigismund of Hungary and the Holy Roman Emperor granted the Gypsy leader Ladislau and his followers travel permits, which resulted in large-scale migration of Roma into Hungary: ‘The new Gypsy settlers worked as castle musicians and metal workers.’12 They were so highly regarded for their skills that they were declared royal servants; for example, when the city of Hermannstadt (now Sibiu, Romania) needed to hire Gypsy workers, they had to apply for royal approval. King Ulászló II, the successor to King Matthias I, granted a travel permit to the Gypsy leader Tamás Polgár, the ‘vayvodam Pharaonum’, and allowed him and his group of smiths to travel and settle in the country wherever they pleased.13 Many Roma served in the army and were admired for their fierceness by their Hungarian fellow soldiers.14

Tormented souls Gypsies were not harassed when they f irst arrived in Europe, because they were seen as pilgrims. After the fifteenth century, they were either persecuted, as in most parts of Western Europe; enslaved, as in the Ottoman Empire, Wallachia, and Moldavia; or regarded with suspicion, as in Hungary, where the Gypsies were seen as Ottoman spies after the Battle of Mohács in 1526, when the country was divided into three parts: the Kingdom of 11 B. Leblon, Musiques Tsiganes et Flamenco (Paris, 1990), 16, 21. 12 D.M. Crowe, The History of the Gypsies of Eastern Europe and Russia (New York, 2007), 70. 13 Sárosi, Gypsy Music, 14. 14 Crowe, The History of the Gypsies, 70.

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Hungary in the northwest, Buda and the centre under Ottoman rule, and the semi-independent Transylvania in the east.15 In this situation the Gypsies became more and more isolated from the rest of the population. Their worsened reputation resulted in impaired living conditions. In the late fifteenth century countries in Western Europe began to ban and persecute the Gypsies. In 1492 Spain issued a decree for their banishment, and in 1498 the parliament in Freiburg declared them outlaws, followed by a similar decree in England in 1531 and later in Milan, Venice, and Parma. Their persecution was exacerbated from the sixteenth to the beginning of the nineteenth centuries in Germany, France, England, and the Scandinavian countries. At the same time, in Eastern-Central Europe Gypsies met with a greater degree of tolerance.16 This idealized image of the Gypsies crystallized into a discursive tradition in Hungarian literature (especially in the poems of Gvadányi and Csokonai) and gained symbolic significance in nineteenth-century poetry after the suppressed War of Independence from Habsburg rule in 1849; in the poems of Mihály Vörösmarty and János Arany the sympathetic figure of the Gypsy musician represents the tormented soul and the sorrows of the Hungarian nation. Habsburg rulers, starting with Empress Maria Theresa’s father, Charles VI, were hostile to the nomadic Gypsies, but their strict rules against vagrant Gypsies did not achieve the desired results. In a decree of 1768 Maria Theresa forced the ‘new Hungarians’ (Neu-Bauern) to settle; vagrants and foreign travellers were driven out from all her domains. Gypsies were not allowed to speak their own language, to trade or to own horses, and they were required to respect the habits of the Empire and wear Western-style garments. The reforms instituted in 1780 by her son, the Emperor Joseph II, were also designed to assimilate the Roma, but succeeded only in creating tension between the Gypsies and the local authorities. Officials limited the number of Gypsy musicians, and smiths were banned from local fairs, only allowed to practice their crafts in times of need. This large-scale social engineering was a failure. Within one year the number of Roma in Hungary fell dramatically, but those who stayed ‘found ways around the Emperor’s Rom decrees and moved from areas “where the policy was more vigorously enforced to those which were more lax”’.17 In neighbouring Wallachia and Moldova the Roma (known as robie in Romanian) were kept in slavery until the late nineteenth century, while in 15 Ibid., 71. 16 Sárosi, Gypsy Music, 16-17. 17 Crowe, The History of the Gypsies, 77.

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Hungary ‘they met with a greater degree of tolerance than was usual for the time, though a form of bondage was imposed on some of them, especially in Transylvania (where serfdom was not abolished until 1848)’. Musician Gypsies enjoyed the highest rank among the Roma, and distinguished themselves from other groups by being sedentary and more thoroughly assimilated. They settled in villages and in certain districts in cities, learned the languages and customs of the local population, adopted their religion, and played the local music, albeit in their own Gypsy interpretations: the melodies and tunes were local, but the style in which they were played and the talented improvisations and variations were Gypsy. Hungarian Roma musicians were mentioned as early as 1489. Gypsies, who in that time in Hungary were called Pharaones (the people of the Pharaohs, alluding to their Egyptian origin), were hired to play music on Csepel, the island of Queen Beatrix, the wife of King Matthias I (1443-1490). In 1532, in a letter written in Latin to Tamás Nádasdy, the Hussar captain Pál Bakyth asked for cytharedos chyganos, which probably referred to Roma lute players, though in that time the names of the instruments were used interchangeably and a cytharedos could also mean a musician playing on a lute, lyre, or fiddle.18 Sárosi notes that whenever Gypsy musicians are mentioned sporadically in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century sources, their music is admired but also perceived as foreign.19 From the mid-eighteenth century, however, Gypsy musicians become more and more ‘nationalized’ and appreciated for their unique ability to express the Hungarian character in music. Most of the iconographical representations of Hungarian Gypsy musicians date also from the eighteenth century. Martin Johann Stock, from the Transylvanian Saxon city of Hermannstadt (now Sibiu, Romania), left a number of engravings of the Gypsy musicians of Galánta who lived on the estates of the Eszterházy family. These images can serve as valuable historical sources of information about the instruments the Gypsy musicians played, the garments they wore, and the relations they had with other figures such as dancing soldiers or peasants. The Gypsies played the cimbalom, the fiddle, and the double bass. It is remarkable that the stricter the Habsburg measures for assimilation and integration became, the more fame and general admiration the Gypsy musicians acquired in Hungary. Many Hungarian aristocrats did not enforce the Habsburg laws concerning Gypsies on their domains; they resisted imposing the rules partly because they wanted to avoid taking responsibility for ‘their’ 18 Sárosi, Gypsy Music, 56. 19 Ibid., 50.

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Gypsies, and partly because traditionally the Hungarian nobility reserved the right to run their estates in their own way and not to take orders from the Viennese court. The Hungarian Gypsies (who were also called romungros) spoke Hungarian, were mostly sedentary, and regarded themselves as part of Hungarian culture. The music they played was local Hungarian popular music. The so-called ‘Gypsy’ music is not the musical heritage of the Gypsies, but rather the Gypsy interpretation of local musical styles. From the mid-eighteenth century it became a common practice among the Hungarian nobility and middle classes to hire Gypsies to provide music. Hungarians celebrated and grieved to the sounds of music made by Gypsies. Gypsy musicians were an indispensable element of scenes of the notorious Hungarian weeping merriment (sírva vigadás): the Hungarian gentry would gather in a tavern or in their vineyard press houses to lament about the poor conditions of the Hungarian nation while indulging in singing and drinking. Gypsy music soothed sorrow or enhanced joy, depending on the mood of the gentry who asked the Gypsy musicians to play for them.20 Gypsy musicians were one of the favourite topics of the Hussar officer and poet József Gvadányi (1725-1801), who appreciated their talent but also had a coarse sense of humour and liked to play practical jokes on the Gypsy musicians he hired: on one occasion he describes a winter entertainment when the aristocratic guests were sitting in a sleigh followed by Gypsy musicians, with trumpeters and drummers in the last sleigh. The musicians looked like shivering crows because they were afraid to go on the ice with their sleighs. Indeed, the ice broke under them, and to the great amusement of the guests the Gypsies had to save not only themselves but also their precious instruments, which they held up high above their heads as they swam to the shore in the ice-cold water.21 In another poem, ‘Badalai kvártélyozásom idején’ from 1765, Gvadányi described a village ball he organized for which he hired two Gypsy musicians. This poem is a rich source of information about the lower-class village Gypsy musicians, who are described as unkempt and neglected. They had primitive instruments and were wearing sleeveless capes. Putyu, the main violinist, sat Turkish style, cross-legged on a chair, and played what the guests at the ball demanded. When they were asked to play ‘noble’ foreign dances they missed notes and their instruments squeaked so that Gvadányi and his guests laughed at their unrecognizable 20 One of the most famous examples of such drinking songs can be found in Ferenc Erkel’s national opera Bánk Bán. 21 József Gvadányi, ‘Egy szánkázásnak kétsorú versekben tett leírása’ (1788), accessed at: http:// mek.oszk.hu/11400/11408/11408.htm#3 on 16-08-2016.

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caterwauling. But when they were asked to ‘play Hungarian style’, Putyu and his companions brightened up and started playing with such abandon that Gvadányi feared the house would collapse.22 Gvadányi’s attitude of appreciation mixed with social disrespect is typical of the attitude of the Hungarian gentry towards the Gypsies: the Hungarian lord sings, while the Gypsy provides the music. Gypsies were admired for their musical talent, but rarely enjoyed such high social standing as Count Eszterházy’s Gypsy musicians of Galánta. Musicians in general were not very highly regarded, and ‘Gypsy’ and ‘musician’ became synonyms just like zingene or gyphtos in Turkish or Greek.23 Joseph Haydn, for example, who was hired as court musician for the Eszterházy family, also had the status of an ordinary servant in the household of the count and needed the permission of his lord to travel. Though the Eszterházys appreciated him, Haydn was not a free ‘artist’ but a servant responsible for the musical entertainment of the aristocratic family and their guests. A generation later, musicians enjoyed greater freedom and more autonomy, whether they were Gypsies or not: János Bihari (1764-1824), a musically illiterate Hungarian Gypsy musician, acquired fame throughout Europe with his virtuoso violin technique and his improvisational skills. He became wealthy as a musician, played in several royal and aristocratic courts, and was admired by Beethoven and Liszt. But with the exception of a few outstanding individuals like Bihari, the status of village Gypsy bands did not change radically; they were mainly seen as entertainers, if nonetheless essential participants in celebrations, until the end of the twentieth century. The relationship between Gypsy musicians and the Hungarian gentry is well illustrated in a novel from 1914 by the famous Hungarian writer Zsigmond Móricz (1879-1942), Nem élhetek muzsikaszó nélkül (I cannot live without music). Set in the 1880s, the novel describes the marital problems of an impoverished gentleman, Balázs Nyíri, whose life is an ongoing feast with Gypsy musicians who follow Balázs wherever he goes and play his favourite songs in the tavern and at home.24 It seems that Balázs is willing to spend his whole fortune on Gypsy music, which almost destroys his marriage. The iconic tavern scenes with Gypsy musicians and singing Hungarian 22 Gvadányi, ‘Badalai kvártélyozásom idején’, accessed at: https://play.google.com/books/ reader?id=HuRdAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA7 on 16-08-2016. 23 Sárosi, Gypsy Music, 38. 24 Z. Móricz, Nem élhetek muzsikaszó nélkül (Budapest, 1984).

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gentry capture the notorious ‘weeping merriment’ and provide an accurate fictional representation of middle- and lower-class Hungarian culture in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. When Gypsies were asked to ‘play Hungarian style’, this meant either dance music (verbunkos and later csárdás) or Hungarian songs (magyar nóta). However, the nineteenth-century Hungarian style was different from the old medieval and Renaissance Hungarian court music, the palotás, which was a slow dance fit for aristocratic entertainment. In 1490 Hungarian-style dances were a regular part of the court entertainment in Milan. Sheet music preserved from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries shows that the pipe was the accompanying instrument of the palotás.25 Wind instruments like the pipe, the flute, and the trumpet are the oldest Hungarian musical instruments. String instruments and the cimbalom are later developments that came to Hungary with travelling Italian, German, and Slavic troubadours and Minnesänger, who also disseminated the palotás and other ‘Ungaresca’-style music elsewhere in Europe. Music was an important and indispensable pastime at the court of King Matthias I, and musical life at his court was populated by the best European musicians of his time.26 In 1485 Galeotto Marzio attended one of the banquets given at King Matthias’ court and wrote that the cithadaeri (which most probably refers to lute players) made music and sang in Hungarian about the achievements of famous heroes. Marzio also observed that there were no great differences among the various Hungarian dialects or between the speech of the aristocracy and the lower classes.27 Other chroniclers like Bonfini also mentioned the musical entertainments of the Hungarian Hussars, who after a victorious battle would drink wine, sing epic songs about the brave deeds of their leaders, and dance with their swords so that the whole place resounded from the noise of their weapons and the strange jovial jumping dance.28 The English poet Sir Philip Sidney visited Hungary in 1573, and noted that ‘In Hungary I have seen it the manner of all feasts, 25 Bence Szabolcsi, A magyar zene évszázadai. Tanulmányok a középkortól a XVII. századig (Budapest, 1959), 159, accessed at: http://mek.oszk.hu/02000/02044/html/1kotet/78.html on 17-08-2016. 26 Szabolcsi, A magyar zene évszázadai, 114. 27 Galeotto Marzio, De egregie, sapienter, jocose dictis et factis Regis Matthiae, cap. XVII; quoted by Bence Szabolcsi, A magyar zene évszázadai, 32, accessed at: http://mek.oszk.hu/02000/02044/ html/1kotet/14.html#note1-32-27 on 17-08-2016. 28 Bonf ini, Rerum Hungaricum Decades (-1496), IV. Decas, 6; quoted by Bence Szabolcsi, A magyar zene évszázadai, 32, accessed at: http://mek.oszk.hu/02000/02044/html/1kotet/14. html#note1-32-27 on 17-08-2016.

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and other such meetings, to have songs of their ancestors’ valour, which that right soldierlike nation think the chiefest kindlers of brave courage. The incomparable Lacedæmonians did not only carry that kind of music ever with them to the field, but even at home, as such songs were made, so were they all content to be singers of them.’29 In these descriptions of feasting with music there is no mention of Gypsy musicians, or only sporadically and as an element of curiosity.

Music and memory Later, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries under Ottoman rule, singing was not only a pastime but became an important medium for the preservation and transmission of national memory: history songs (históriás ének) became popular, and their creators moved among all layers of society disseminating the same myths and stories of old times, creating a homoge­neous historical consciousness in a tripartite country. These vagrant chroniclers of the nation were not Gypsies, but had a nomadic life and roamed from aristocratic courts to battlefields, from town councils to village fairs, to sing about the history of the old country. Their epic poems set to music were not intended as subjective lyrical masterpieces, but as functional mobile and immaterial chronicles of the nation. Dance music was performed mainly in the principality of Transylvania at the court of the suzerain. In 1736, Péter Apor, a Transylvanian aristocrat, described the musical customs of Hungarian gentlemen in his Metamorphosis Transylvaniae: ‘Their very pleasant music was the Turkish pipe, together with the drum, and then there were lovely Hungarian songs, and they played them.’30 This description of the material culture shows that the ‘Turkish pipe’ (an eastern-style oboe, known as tárogató in Hungarian) came to Hungary through Turkish mediation, and the drum and Turkish pipe (zurna in Turkish) were a popular combination not just in civilian life but also in the military. The tárogató became the favourite instrument of the musicians in the kuruc army of prince Ferenc Rákóczi II in the uprising and war of independence against the Habsburgs (1703-1711). As the Rákóczi uprising and the anti-Habsburg resistance gained greater significance during the struggles for national autonomy in the nineteenth century, the tárogató came to be 29 Sir Philip Sidney, The Defence of Poesy (1579), accessed at: http://www.bartleby.com/27/1. html on 17-08-2016. 30 Sárosi, Gypsy Music, 37.

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seen as an ancient national instrument. Some patriotic antiquarians and composers, like István Fáy, András Suck, and Mihály Mosonyi, wanted to introduce the tárogató into artistic orchestras, and revived the songs from the kuruc period of Rákóczi transcribed for tárogató. In 1853 Count István Fáy, a great lover of Gypsy music and friend of Liszt, issued an appeal to the nation in the journal Délibáb to search for and collect old tárogatós. In 1859 Fáy urged the Gypsy musicians to play the tárogató in their bands. Between 1853 and 1864 many tárogató-type instruments were sent to the National Museum, but only very few of these were actually tárogató. A large part of the collection included English horns, oboes, or other types of wind instruments.31 In the wake of Romantic nationalism the tárogató was modernized and came more and more to resemble a regular oboe, but it became nonetheless an emblematic instrument in the imagination of the nation. It was used in nineteenth-century Hungarian national operas as a symbolic marker of music associated with national expression. This material embodiment of music also had a strong impact on community formation in the seventeenth and again in the nineteenth century. The tárogató played a significant role in the revival and idealization of the anti-Habsburg kuruc culture in nineteenth-century national discourse. The materiality of the instrument, together with the famous Rákóczi March, occupied a prominent position in the canon of the nineteenth-century national community. In Rákóczi’s army the pipers were not Gypsies but peasant soldiers. However, in the nineteenth century, when Gypsy music was popular among all layers of society, the court of Rákóczi II was populated with Gypsy musicians or even Gypsy orchestras. The fact is that among the 29 musicians of the kuruc leader Imre Thököly, only one was of Gypsy origin, a certain ‘György’; while Prince Ferenc Rákóczi II preferred baroque music and his guests danced to the tunes of Western musicians, who were mostly German.32 The renowned Hungarian nineteenth-century writer Mór Jókai placed the famous eighteenth-century female Gypsy violinist, Panna Czinka, in one of his novels in the court of Rákóczi II and describes the Romantic unrequited love of the Gypsy woman for the prince. Since Rákóczi died almost a century before Panna was born, it is no wonder that her love was unrequited.33 It was also Jókai who attributed to Rákóczi the authorship of a 31 J. Brauer-Benke, A népi hangszerek története és tipológiája (Budapest, 2014), 197-219. 32 E. Haraszti, ‘Barokk zene és kuruc nóta’, Századok 67 (1933), 546-610, especially at 552. 33 Mór Jókai, Szeretve mind a vérpadig (1882), accessed at: http://mek.oszk.hu/00700/00794/ html on 18-08-2016.

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popular song ‘Repülj fecském’ (Fly, my swallow), composed by Ede Reményi, a nineteenth-century musician. In Jókai’s novels Rákóczi’s army dances verbunkos to the accompaniment of the tárogató, associating the symbolic dance that became popular during the Napoleonic wars with the iconic instrument used in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.34 The different layers of national memory are thus merged in nineteenth-century Romantic nationalist fiction. After all, it was not historical accuracy that writers like Jókai were aiming for, but rather the forging of a collective national identity based on shared symbols and a common historical consciousness. Liszt argued in Des Bohémiens that Gypsies were always the only musicians in Hungary and that they were present in the country as early as 1219 during the reign of King Andrew II.35 As we have seen, this statement was inspired by Liszt’s Romantic infatuation with the Gypsies; but it is at variance with historical facts. In the same paragraph Liszt described the procession of the Wallachian suzerain, Mihai Viteazul, who in 1599 marched triumphantly into Transylvania and through the streets of Gyulafehérvár (now Alba Iulia, Romania) in ‘full Asian pomp’, often mentioned by historians; ten Gypsy singers walked in front of the prince and celebrated his victory with the loud, jubilant music that was suitable for the occasion. Celebrations of military victory with Gypsy musicians were common in the Ottoman army.36 In 1584 Sinan Pasha sent Gypsy musicians to receive Henri Lichtenstein, the Emperor’s ambassador to Constantinople. According to the chronicler Hans Lawenclaw, the procession was led by three Gypsy musicians playing their lute-like string instruments while ‘they were singing in unpleasant, rough, bawling voices, and celebrated the military exploits of the sultans’.37 These Gypsy musicians did not make music while wandering freely in woods and plains, as Liszt liked to imagine them in the mid-nineteenth century – they were slaves. The enslavement of Gypsies was typical not only of the two Romanian principalities, Wallachia and Moldavia, but of the entire Ottoman Empire. During the Ottoman occupation of Hungary, many slave Gypsies came through Transylvania to Hungary and Bohemia. The borders where the 34 Haraszti, ‘Barokk zene és kuruc nóta’, 555. 35 F. Liszt, Des Bohémiens et de leurs musique en Hongrie (Leipzig, 1881), 441, accessed at: http:// petrucci.mus.auth.gr/imglnks/usimg/b/b0/IMSLP96686-PMLP198812-desbohmiensetd00lisz_ bw.pdf on 18-08-2016. 36 Sándor Takáts, A török hódoltság korából, I-II (Budapest, 1928), 496, accessed at: http:// digitalia.lib.pte.hu/books/takats-sandor-a-torok-hodoltsag-korabol-budapest-genius-1927/web/ index.php?page=a253&wpid=2975 on 18-08-2016. 37 Emil Haraszti, La musique hongroise (Paris1933), 41.

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Turkish-Hungarian wars were fought were not only sites of bloodshed but served also as cultural contact zones. According to Sándor Takáts, musicians were the most highly respected slaves. Turkish and Hungarian soldiers exchanged Gypsy musician slaves, instruments, and through the mobility of music, also cultural motifs and tunes.38 In the first half of the twentieth century, the radio played an important role in popularizing and spreading Gypsy music both in Romania and Hungary. The public in restaurants and cafés, and wealthier families in their homes, enjoyed broadcasts of concerts by famous Gypsy bands. Gypsy orchestras fought musical ‘duels’ through the medium of the radio: they listened to each other, and when they were scheduled for broadcasting, responded to the music of their rivals with virtuoso improvisations.39 It is remarkable that in 1943, when ideas of racial purity dominated the European public discourse, a collection of Hungarian-themed pieces in European music published in a series about ‘Hungarian culture’’ also included Gypsy music broadcast on the radio. The preface to this collection was written by Zoltán Kodály, who called attention to all the ‘Ungaresca’-style music on the radio abroad, but pointed out that ‘Hungarian’ or ‘Gypsy music’ is reproduced on the radio in many shapes and forms because it became a marketable brand. He began his preface by describing the musical program of a radio station in Frankfurt in 1937: 26 ‘Hungarian’ pieces, of which all but two were by German or Austrian composers. According to Kodály, the modern ‘national’ styles in music were disseminated by travelling virtuosi who on their tours played indigenous popular tunes to local publics. 40 The various ‘national’ styles became famous as a result of a process of transmission and transculturation. Kodály, like his contemporary Bartók, wanted to discover the ‘real’ and ‘authentic’ music that lay behind the surface of the superficial Romantic constructions of musical nationalism. However, as noted by recent scholarship, this search for ‘authenticity’ in music was also propelled by ethnic and often racial nationalism. 41 38 Sándor Takáts, ‘Török-magyar énekesek és muzsikások’, in: Bajvívó Magyarok. Képek a török világból (Budapest, 1979), accessed at: http://mek.oszk.hu/03500/03597/03597.htm#14 on 18-08-2016. 39 G. Tulvan, Scurtă istorie comparată a muzicii maghiare şi româneşti în context istoric şi European (Bucarest, 2007), 60. 40 Zoltán Kodály, ‘Előszó’ [Preface], in: M. Prahács (ed.), Magyar Témák a Külföldi Zenében (Budapest, 1943), 5-7. 41 D.E. Schneider, Bartók, Hungary, and the Renewal of Tradition (Berkeley, 2006), 12. See also J. Frigyesi, Béla Bartók and Turn-of-the-Century Budapest (Berkeley, 1998), and L.M. Hooker, Redefining Hungarian Music from Liszt to Bartók (New York/Oxford, 2013), 95-154.

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By rejecting the Gypsy tradition, Bartók and Kodály were actually contesting Liszt’s ideas about Gypsy music and its significance for the development of the Hungarian musical character. Liszt’s much-quoted Des Bohémiens is infused with Romantic imagery and describes the Gypsy as an idealized ‘noble savage’ who rather prefers to live in nature than to compromise with the civilized world corrupted by the sense of property and material interest. Liszt compares the Gypsies with the Jews, which was a common approach from the beginning of the scholarly interest in Gypsy culture; in Liszt’s narrative the Jews are presented as foils for the Gypsies, and the positive characteristics he ascribes to Gypsies are contrasted with his negative perception of the Jews. Liszt’s essay is thoroughly anti-Semitic and saturated with racist rhetoric. Des Bohémiens was published only nine years after Richard Wagner’s infamous Das Judenthum in der Musik (Jewishness in music), which, given the close relationship between the two composers, Liszt must have read. With its intensely offensive language and the preponderant use of racial stereotypes, Liszt’s book remains a disturbing testimony to nineteenth-century ‘conventional’ anti-Semitism. Despite the contested authorship of Des Bohémiens, it is odd how little attention has lately been given to the thoroughgoing anti-Semitism of this piece. In its own time, especially after the second edition rewritten and published by Carolyn Sayn-Wittgenstein (most probably without Liszt’s knowledge), it did wreak havoc among the music critics. 42 Liszt criticized the bourgeois culture (of the Jews) and presented the Gypsies as free-spirited artists, true bohémiens. The Gypsies chose liberty over the material bondage of Western civilization and expressed their free spirit in music, which, as Schopenhauer argued in his The World as Will and Representation (1819/1844/1859), was the highest form of artistic communication.

The export of Romantic nationalism Liszt focused on Hungarian Gypsy musicians who achieved fame Europewide: Panna Czinka (d. 1772), a Gypsy woman who was the first bandleader in the modern sense of the word; János Bihari (1764-1827), who elevated the 42 Miksa Schütz, the music critic of the Pester Lloyd, published a pamphlet entitled Franz Liszt über die Juden in which he pointed out the anti-Semitism in Liszt’s publication, but he also attacked Liszt the composer and expressed his dislike of his music, though he was much more accommodating when he discussed Richard Wagner’s views on the Jews. See K. Hamburger, ‘Liszt Cigánykönyvének Magyarországi Fogadtatása’, Muzsika 44 (2001), 11-17, accessed at: http:// www.muzsikalendarium.hu/muzsika/index.php?area=article&id_article=174 on 18-08-2016.

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verbunkos style to an artistic level; and Csermák and Lavotta, who were not of Roma origin but developed the verbunkos style established by Bihari. In his biography of Bihari, Liszt relied on the short biography of the Roma musician written in 1853 by Gábor (Rothkrepf) Mátray. In their treatment of the subject the two authors express opposing attitudes about Roma culture: while Liszt speaks very highly of the Roma in general, Mátray admires Bihari for having achieved remarkable European fame ‘despite being a Gypsy’ and coming from ‘the lowest race.’43 Mátray, like many Romanian critics, referred to the Roma musicians as ‘folk musicians’. Liszt’s work became controversial in Hungary immediately after its publication. He had many critics who objected to his claim that Gypsy music was the only musical tradition in Hungary. Many were scandalized by Liszt’s ideas even without having read his book. One music critic in particular, Kálmán Simonffy, attacked Liszt for his views and called him ‘a traitor to the Hungarian nation.’ Others were more moderate, like the Transylvanian mathematician and homo universalis Sámuel Brassai, who scrutinized Liszt’s claims in an article pointing out factual mistakes that Liszt had made in his treatise about the Gypsies. Liszt was hurt by this wave of often harsh criticism, and in a letter to the publisher Gusztáv Heckenast he wrote that ‘if they had read it, they would know: 1) How it was written first of all with the purpose of serving as a commentary on a musical work published several years ago to which I gave the title Rhapsodies hongroises and which had no small success in Hungary […]; 2) […] the sincerity of patriotism does not include blindness in matters of science and art.’44 Recently critics like Sarga Moussa have analysed the convoluted and unusually ornamented language of Des Bohémiens in depth and also compared it with the style of Liszt’s music. 45 In 1896 a Hungarian journalist named Miklós Markó published an album of 110 Gypsy musicians from Panna Czinka to his own times as a tribute to Gypsy music which he, like Liszt, regarded as an organic part of Hungarian culture; he lamented how some modern Gypsy bandleaders (prímás) were ashamed of their Gypsy origin. 46 Though the biographies of the musicians included in Markó’s album are inaccurate and he also included musicians of non-Gypsy origin, the illustrations and portrait pictures of the musicians 43 Gábor Mátray, ‘Bihari János magyar népzenész életrajza’, in F. Kubinyi and I. Vahot (eds), Magyarország és Erdély képekben I-IV (Pest 1853), vol. II, 156-161. 44 Quoted in Sárosi, Gypsy Music, 143. 45 Sarga Moussa, ‘Des Bohémiens de Liszt’, in: S. Moussa (ed.), Les Mythe des Bohémiens dans la litteérature et les arts en Europe (Paris, 2008), 223-242. 46 M. Markó, Czigányzenészek Albuma (Budapest, 2006).

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are a precious source of historical information. Since the eighteenth-century Hungarian Gypsy musicians, regardless of their regional roots in Hungary or Transylvania, wore national costumes, mostly Hussar uniforms or costumes from the Rákóczi era. Their uniforms carried a potent message about the collective identity of the Gypsy musicians and positioned them as the minstrels and living embodiments of national resistance to Habsburg rule. The theatre and the printing press played an important role in the dissemination of Hungarian style and fashion both in music and clothing. Actors wore Hungarian clothing on stage when they performed Hungarian plays, and came to be emulated by men of letters and theatre-loving patriots. In the 1840s noblewomen set up workshops to produce simple national clothing, which they then wore on fancy occasions. 47 Journals issued calls for original Hungarian plays, and great efforts were made to build permanent Hungarian stone theatres and opera houses in cities which had a predominantly German culture. In the years preceding and during the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 the Hungarian nobility and bourgeoisie chose to declare their national identity by wearing Hungarian dress and favouring Hungarian music, which was played by Gypsy bands who by that time toured Europe and booked significant success with international audiences. In the descriptions of Hungarian Gypsy bands in the foreign press, one of the most frequently mentioned characteristics was their costumes: since the end of the eighteenth century they wore Hungarian Hussar uniforms, which contributed significantly to the spectacle of their musical performances. Hungarian Gypsy bands began touring Europe – albeit sporadically and for shorter periods – from the late 1760s. The Transylvanian Count Dénes Bánffi brought a Gypsy band to Vienna in 1766 who gave a concert ‘wearing German costume’. The first newspaper report of the Gypsy orchestra of Galánta dates from 1787, and the article mentions that this was the second such band giving a concert in Vienna. 48 Later on, at the beginning of the nineteenth-century, János Bihari would elevate the exotic curiosity of Gypsy music to an artistic level admired not only by monarchs and statesmen gathered at the peace treaty talks in Vienna, but allegedly also by Beethoven and definitely by Liszt, who devoted an entire chapter in his book to describing Bihari’s musical skills. From 1830 Gypsy musicians expanded their range and travelled through Berlin to Paris. The music journal Ménestrel gave an account of their concerts and described them as a ‘nomads’ who dressed up 47 K.F. Dózsa, 1116 Years of Hungarian Fashion (Budapest, 2012), 98. 48 C. Szíjjártó, A cigány útra ment… A magyar zenészek külföldjárása a kiegyezés előtt (Budapest, 2002), 13-15.

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in Hungarian peasant clothes and played ‘two hundred Austrian Waltzes’. Nine years later, in 1839 the Gazette Musicale de Paris reported an event where Hungarian Gypsy musicians and dancers entertained the French public with national music and dances. 49 They played at major events in the houses of the Austrian and Russian ambassadors to Paris and were praised for their exquisite execution of difficult pieces. The French and German music critics referred to the repertoire of these travelling musicians only in a general and superficial way, mostly only mentioning the genres of the pieces they played (waltzes, csárdás, polkas, etc.). But from 1839 onwards one particular tune is mentioned regularly in the articles: the Rákóczi March. This piece gained fame everywhere in Europe, especially through Berlioz’s ‘Faust’ oratorio, where the Rákóczi March figures in the first scene, and Liszt’s ‘Hungarian Rhapsodies’. Nonetheless, by 1846, when Berlioz conducted his Rákóczi March with great success for a Hungarian concert audience in Pest, the piece was so familiar that it is no wonder that it triggered strong emotions from a public living for years in a nationalistic revolutionary fever (‘des cris, des trépignements inouïs ébranlèrent la salle […] qui me donnèrent le frisson de la terreur’).50 Berlioz also describes in his Mémoires how strongly nationalistic Pest was at the time of his visit and how the Hungarian public found everything German, and particularly Austrian, so repulsive that they put an embargo on Austrian products: they bought only products, clothing, and fashion items labelled ‘hony’ (homemade, produced in Hungary). Among the home-grown national products that Hungarians proudly exported was Gypsy music. In 1867, the year of the Austro-Hungarian compromise, two Gypsy bands were displayed at the Paris World Fair as the embodiment of the national heritage. The French press complimented the musicians whose repertoire included Berlioz’s Rákóczi March. The public also admired the cimbalom (hammered dulcimer), a strange instrument unknown to the French. The cimbalom made in the workshop of József Schunda was also a great success at the World Fair in Vienna in 1873. The Gypsy musicians became very popular and were admired for their national dress and for playing without sheet music. They were called ‘Orient unicum’, an ‘Oriental specialty’.51 At the next Parisian world fairs, at the beginning of the twentieth century, Romanian and Hungarian Gypsy bands played ‘musical duels’ with each other and entertained the international public, 49 Ibid., 19. 50 Hector Berlioz, Mémoires II (Paris, 1969), 204-215. 51 V. Gál, Hungary at the World Fairs, 1851-2010 (Budapest, 2010), 44, 63.

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who admired the exceptional musicality of all the Gypsy bands. In everyday parlance and the cultural memory of the public, the Romanian Roma musicians were seen as ‘folk musicians’ playing ‘peasant tunes,’ while Hungarian Gypsy bands were identified as the minstrels of ‘Gypsy music’ and of the Hungarian national style. This is what later, in the 1920s and 1930s, Bartók and Kodály would criticize and deconstruct. However, it proved a futile endeavour to resist stereotypes crystallized centuries ago.

Conclusion It can be concluded that since the ancient times of the earliest Asian and European records, the Roma people have been associated with music, and many of them have indeed practiced music as an occupation. Though musically illiterate, they learned their much admired instrumental skills by custom, by observing their musician family members. Music became a trade associated particularly with the Roma in four cultures: Hungarian, Romanian, Russian, and Spanish. A comparative framework is necessary to understand the social status of the Roma and the images formed about this ethnic group, which has often been marginalized, stigmatized, and suppressed everywhere in Europe. Thanks to their special skills, Roma musicians integrated more easily into society, and in some places achieved a special position. Though Roma musicians have historically been ubiquitous both in the Romanian principalities and in Hungary, only in Hungary did ‘Gypsy music’ become a synonym for ‘Hungarian music’ in the nineteenth century. The image of the Gypsy musician as a part of the national heritage was formed both abroad, through reports in the foreign press, and at home, through the association of the Roma with the preservation of the national musical heritage since the late seventeenth century. This convergence of ‘Gypsy music’ with ‘Hungarian national style’ was not only a matter of musical repertoire. The materiality of the culture also played an important role in the formation of this discursive trope: the instruments they played, the dress they wore, and the dances and spectacles they provided all formed an aggregation of elements charged with symbolic meaning and historical content which came to be identified with the Hungarian national character. Some of these elements participate in what Hobsbawm called the ‘invention of tradition’: for example, the ‘ancient’ historical past attributed to the tárogató oboe or to the csárdás dance, both of which were nineteenth-century inventions. Other aspects had indeed a long historical tradition: the importance of sartorial nationalism as a sign of anti-Habsburg

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resistance, or the connection between Gypsy musicians and Hungarian Hussars from the Rákóczi era to the high tide of the verbunkos. Many of these historical elements were romanticized in nineteenth-century fiction and art, and gained new meaning in the period of modern nation-building. Lithographs of Gypsy musicians often featured with dancing Hussars were also a signif icant material embodiment of this cultural heritage. These images were disseminated in the press of the time, but they were also displayed in the private collections of Hungarian aristocrats and in public museums. National thought enveloped both private and public, the ballrooms of Hungarian aristocrats, the public concert halls and theatres, fashion magazines, and the shop windows of department stores. Gypsy music and the iconography historically associated with it was central both to the national image Hungary projected about itself and the way that Hungarian culture, and especially music, was represented in the foreign press. Music became a distinct marker of Hungarian identity, a true Hungaricum, not only because of the particularity of the tunes, but also because of the spectacle Gypsy musicians provided for audiences at home and abroad. Through the accumulation of all these factors and the prominence of the materiality of the culture, the Hungarian Roma community acquired a unique collective identity. The Hungarian nation as an imagined community is undoubtedly more indebted to Gypsy music, and more inextricably connected with it, than any other European culture.

About the author Krisztina Lajosi is Senior Lecturer in the Department of European Studies at the University of Amsterdam. She holds a PhD in cultural history and has published on the role of music in shaping national identity in nineteenthcentury Europe. Her most recent publications include Staging the Nation: Opera and Nationalism (Brill, 2018), Choral Societies and Nationalism in Europe (Brill, 2015), and ‘National Stereotypes and Music’, Nations and Nationalism 20:4 (2014).

5

‘Tired, Worried and Overworked’ An International Imagined Community of Nervous Sufferers in Medical Advertisements, 1900-1920 Gemma Blok Abstract Widely advertised around 1900, Pink Pills (patent medicines containing zinc or iron) were promoted to cure all kinds of ailments, including neurasthenia (‘weakness of the nerves’). The extensive advertisements portraying their consumers connected the ritual of daily pill taking to new psychiatric notions of ‘nervous fatigue’ as a legitimate modern condition. All over the world, newspaper readers were given the opportunity to identify with other ‘neurasthenics’: people they had never met, but who, like them, apparently struggled with the tensions and quick pace of modern life. Through reading newspapers and consuming Pink Pills, one could feel part of this imagined community. Thus, the patent medicine business was instrumental in the establishment of new psychiatric ways of thinking about oneself and the world. Keywords: patent medicines, neurasthenia, history, newspaper advertisements, imagined community

In 1907, a Mr W.W. Munroe, of 16 Hazel Park, Everett, Massachusetts, was quoted in an advertising campaign in American local newspapers as saying he had become ‘ill from overwork’. While working as a foreman in a large manufacturing establishment in Boston, during a particularly hot summer where he was working in confined conditions, he started losing weight, strength and appetite. His memory started to fail him, he lost interest in life, and friends remarked on his abysmal condition. One of his friends recommended a possible remedy: Pink Pills, which ‘actually make new blood, and have cured such diseases as rheumatism, nervous and general

Blok, Gemma, Kuitenbrouwer, Vincent and Weeda, Claire (eds): Imagining Communities. Historical Reflections on the Process of Community Formation. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018 doi: 10.5117/9789462980037_ch05

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debility, indigestion, and nervous headache’. The pills worked for Mr Munroe, he claimed. After several weeks, he had fully recovered. Pink Pills, an originally Canadian product, were introduced in America and many other countries during the late nineteenth century. The pills were said to help against many ailments that were caused by ‘physical and mental exhaustion’, such as migraines, an upset stomach, anaemia and the psychiatric condition called neurasthenia (nervous weakness). They refreshed the blood and gave its users a rosy complexion, hence the name. In the first decades of the twentieth century, advertisements for Pink Pills were omnipresent in newspapers around the world. Many of the ads were journalist-style written reports on people who, like Mr Munroe, were greatly revitalized thanks to the Pink Pills. Taken together, I will argue, these ads created an international imagined community of nervous sufferers. This imagined community offered individual sufferers an attractive channel for giving meaning to amorphous feelings of misery and despair. People bought Pink Pills because they represented hope and the promise of a cure, but perhaps part of the reason was also the recognition they felt while reading about their imaginary companions in nervous suffering. Thus, in this article the concept of the ‘imagined community’ will be used to analyse what Katie Wright has aptly called ‘the rise of the therapeutic society’,1 the increased tendency in modern Western culture to identify personal and social problems as (the result of) mental illness, as well as the growing attention to the importance of acknowledging and expressing feelings. Other authors have spoken of the ‘psychologization of society’ in the late nineteenth and twentieth century, to characterize the increasing social and cultural influence of psychology and psychiatry.2 Indeed, much has been written about this rise of the therapeutic in rather critical terms. For instance, modern therapeutic culture has been presented as the result of the activities of interest groups who have been busy trying to sell and legitimize their products, like psychotherapists and the producers of psycho-pharmaceuticals. Various historians of psychiatry and psychopharmacology suggest that the popularity of such drugs as the antidepressants may have been influenced more by pharmaceutical marketing than by medical necessity.3 Therapy 1 K. Wright, The Rise of the Therapeutic Society: Psychological Knowledge and the Contradictions of Cultural Change (Washington, DC, 2010). 2 K. Schaafsma (ed.), Het verlangen naar openheid: Over de psychologisering van het alledaagse (Amsterdam, 1995); M. Gijswijt-Hofstra and H. Oosterhuis, Verward van geest en ander ongerief: Psychiatrie en geestelijke gezondheidszorg in Nederland (1870-2005) (Houten, 2008), 990-995. 3 See, for instance, D. Healy, The Antidepressant Era (Boston, 1999); T. Dehue, De depressieepidemie: Over de plicht het lot in eigen handen te nemen (Amsterdam, 2008).

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Figure 5.1 Advertisement for dr. Williams’ Pink Pills in the American newspaper The Caldwell Tribune, May 20 1899. ADVOCATE AND THE NEWS.

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Miss Cora Watrous, the daughter of Mir. I. C. Watrons, of St., Bradford, Pa., wa9 seized with a nervous disorder which threatened to end her life. Eminent physicians agreed the trouble was from impoverished blood, but failed to give relief. Mr. Watrous heard Dr. Williams' Pink Pills for Pale People were highly recommended for nervous disorders and gave them a trial. Before the first box had been taken the girl's condition improved. After using six boxes her appetite returned, the pain in her head ceased and she was stronger than ever before. "My daughter's life was saved by Dr. Williams' Pink Pills for Pale People," said Mr9. Watrous. "Her condition was almost hopeless when she commenced taking them, but now she is strong and healthy. I cannot recommend these pills too highly." Bradford (Pa.) Lra. sixteen-year-ol-

61 Clarion

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Planting Nut Trees. them, as these old (Jennantown trees were There is no doubt that by a continual se- probably brought direct from Germany or raised from nuts brought from there. The lection of hardy sorts, saving and sowing thinks ho cannot wait for the nuts from the most northerly trees, lit- farmer of such a slow tree as the walnut, lie wants tle by little the hardiness would increase, something like the apple and the pear, carrying the northern limit further and which will give him fruit in quicker time. further along. This has occurred in the Those German settlers could wait ruse of the evergreen magnolia and the longer than their children can, as even here, sweet gum of the South, also of other in Pennsylvania, there are but few of the Southern trees. It has been found that trees planted There is many an

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culture has also been linked to a ‘neoliberal’ Cult of the Self. In modern psychological culture, individuals have been made responsible for managing their own mental health, and for making sure they function well and remain productive citizens. Various Foucauldian analyses of modern psychological society have emphasized the role of the ‘psy-professions’ in operations of power and in shaping and governing human conduct. 4 More recently, however, there has been increasing discontent with this kind of top-down analyses. They have been criticized for lending too little credit or attention to the human agency of the recipients of psychological theories, treatments, and psychopharmaceuticals. I share this discontent and feel that the rise of the therapeutic society cannot be analysed without taking on board the question: What did individuals stand to gain from adopting the language and concepts of the ‘psy-professions’? Using the ads for the Pink Pills as my data,5 I will argue that psychiatric labels and interpretations of human experience like ‘neurasthenia’ could have an emancipatory effect on individuals who actually struggled with feelings of despair. Several hundred commercials for Pink Pills have been analysed (mostly Dutch, but American ads have been used as well) that were published roughly between 1900 and 1920. These were the decades when the pills were advertised most frequently. The concept of the ‘imagined community’ will be used as an analytical tool, in order to speculate about the emotional impact of the Pink Pills advertisements. Although Anderson’s work focuses on the history of nationalism, it also relates to what is now called ‘the history of emotions’. Feelings are everywhere in Imagined Communities. As Anderson famously wrote, the nation is imagined as a community, a fraternity, supported by feelings of comradeship, even with people one will never know or meet.6 He also wrote about the universal human struggle with suffering and hardship

4 See, for instance, N. Rose, Governing the Soul: The Shaping of the Private Self (London, 1999). 5 The ads for Pink Pills were found mostly in the historical newspaper archives of the Dutch National Library, and for America I have used Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, which is a digital newspaper archive from the Library of Congress. The Dutch ads have been analysed systematically. For America only some relevant and telling examples of advertisements have been used. In the period studied (1898-1918), all Dutch advertisements for Pink Pills were viewed covering two years (1898 and 1908), even when they portrayed patients were suffering from rheumatism or back problems, in order to obtain an overall impression of the material. For the remaining eighteen years I have analysed only the most relevant ads, in which sufferers complained of nervous weakness or neurasthenia. 6 B. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, 3rd, rev. ed. (London/New York, 2006), 6-7.

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caused by ‘disease, mutilation, grief, age, and death’.7 Religion can serve as a means to cope with this suffering, he stated. But ‘with the ebbing of religious belief, the suffering which belief in part composed did not disappear’, Anderson continued, and the idea of the nation emerged as a secular coping mechanism, changing ‘fatality into continuity’, and ‘chance into destiny’.8 This notion of the imagined community functioning as some sort of fraternity, offering solace, support and comradeship to suffering people – even if it all just takes place in the mind – is useful outside the realm of the history of nationalism as well. For historians of psychiatry, it can help us to explain how individuals came to adopt psychiatric labels and explanations for their experiences, their feelings and behaviours. In the case of the Pink Pills and their advertisements, the imagined moral support from fellow sufferers, and the thought of them also ritually consuming their Pink Pills each morning to get through the day, may have actively stimulated people to adopt the new identity of the nervous patient. The imagined existence and support of comrades in suffering all around the world, may have encouraged people to interpret their own lives and social problems in psychiatric terms (‘neurasthenia’, ‘depression’), and to speak about their feelings of desperation and exhaustion more openly. Of course, entrepreneurs created these advertisements with one goal in mind, which was to sell as many pills and make as big a profit as possible. However, through their sophisticated advertising campaigns they offered recognition and comfort to those who were actually feeling anxious, tired, desperate, or chronically irritated. The new discourse on nervous weakness – which in the ads was presented as a completely normal affliction, and nothing to be ashamed of – presented them an opportunity to speak more openly about their struggles with life, modernity and social change.

For pale people The Canadian physician William Frederick Jackson patented the Pink Pills in 1886. It was his compatriot and pharmacist George Taylor Fulford, however, who secured the pill’s success. In 1890, Fulford bought the patent from Jackson. When epidemic spells of influenza hit Canada in 1891 and 1892, Fulford cleverly branded the Pink Pills as an effective cure for ‘after-flu 7 8

Ibid., 10. Ibid., 11-12.

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weakness’, with huge sales as a result. These profits Fulford then invested in the worldwide marketing of ‘Dr Williams’ Pink Pills for pale people’.9 He quickly sold the product in 82 countries and opened offices around the world, from South Africa to Bombay and Rio de Janeiro.10 Fulford advertised extensively in newspapers. Also, leaflets were spread by mail and through representatives who travelled by train or even by bike, in rural areas. In England, Fulford spent as much as 200,000 British pounds on advertising – which is about 18 million euros in today’s currency. Dr Williams’ Pink Pills were rather pricey. In the Netherlands, a box of Pink Pills cost 1.75 guilders. Converted to current prices one box of Pink Pills cost 21.75 euros. One box was probably enough to last a person for a few weeks, but still this was a lot of money at the time, a week’s wages for a person from the lower strata of society. Not surprisingly, the product was mainly put on the market for the middle and upper classes. The people in the commercials typically lead affluent lives, and sometimes the ads explicitly mentioned that they were ‘well to do’. Only very occasionally was a patient presented as a seamstress, ironer, field worker or a bricklayer. More often the ads targeted men working in independent professional or managerial positions, or women who were seemingly supported by their husband or father. Despite the high price, the Pink Pills probably did not contain anything special. At the time, it was not yet mandatory to make known the composition of medicines on the packaging but the Dutch Association against Quackery in 1916 analysed a handful of Pink Pills and found in them mostly zinc, a metal that is also found in meat, fish and brown bread. It promotes the build-up of proteins and contributes to tissue growth, healthy bones, hair and skin.11 The British Medical Association (BMA) reported in 1909 that the Pink Pills on the British market contained iron, which provides remediation of anaemia. In addition, they contained magnesium, potassium, and sugar. The BMA concluded that the pills were far too expensive. For much less money consumers could buy iron pills made by other brands.12

9 P.G. Homan et al., Popular Medicines: An Illustrated History (London, 2008), 139-141. 10 J. van der Putten and M. Kilcline Cody, Lost Times and Untold Tales from the Malay World (Singapore, 2009), 86-88. 11 E.J. Abrahams, De kwakzalversmiddelen: Hunne inhoud en de gevaren die bij het gebruik dreigen, volgens analyses gedurende 35 jaar gemaakt voor de Vereeniging tegen de kwakzalverij (Amsterdam, 1916), 92. 12 British Medical Association, Secret Remedies: What They Cost and What They Contain (London, 1909), 174.

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Implicit consumers The Pink Pills were produced in a period that is known in the history of medicine as the ‘Golden Age of self-medication’. In Western newspapers and magazines published around 1900 numerous drinks, ointments and pills for all kinds of ailments were extensively advertised. The manufacturers of Pink Pills were particularly active and successful because of their innovative advertising campaign. Advertisements for medicines such as those for Pink Pills are an interesting source for historians of medicine. To sell their products, the makers of the ads had to create ‘meaning’ and attach it to the illness their pills were supposed to cure, says the Dutch professor of medical history Frank Huisman.13 Today, in the Netherlands pharmaceutical drugs can only be advertised in medical journals, but in 1900 drug manufacturers could still address the public directly. In their advertisements, the manufacturers of Pink Pills spoke to the ‘implicit consumers’, as Huisman labels the supposed buyers of an advertised medical drug. One could argue that the commercials for Pink Pills only reveal to us how manufacturers of Pink Pills imagined the consumers of their product. But, as Huisman argues, these implicit consumers were not completely detached from reality. Pharmaceutical manufacturers did indeed receive some feedback from the public in the form of sales. An entrepreneur who did not know how to respond to the needs of the consumer, and who did not take into account the wishes of the public, would lose his business and go under. Therefore, ads for medicinal products, like the Pink Pills are also invaluable sources if one wants to research the patients’ perspective in the past. ‘Reading’ the Pink Pills commercials as an indication of the wishes and needs of the public, leads to the supposition that the manufacturers of Pink Pills successfully responded to a need among consumers to hear about the fortunes of fellow nervous sufferers. Because of the heavy emphasis in these commercials for Pink Pills on the stories of individual sufferers, readers were given the opportunity to feel part of a global community of people with weak nerves. They could identify with other people who regularly felt ‘listless’, ‘exhausted’, ‘nervous’ or ‘hunted’. The ads offered them a view on other people who through weakness or sadness sometimes stayed in bed for days or weeks on end, no longer able to work or to fulfil housekeeping duties. Apparently, there were others out there who also 13 F. Huisman, ‘Patiëntenbeelden in een moderniserende samenleving: Nederland, 1880-1920’, Gewina 25 (2012), 210-225, here at 212.

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sometimes were struggling to cope. For these ‘most miserable among men’, according to one advertisement, life was a burden. Sufferers from neurasthenia experienced no ‘joy or hope’, but rather ‘languished’ and were ‘unable to resist the decay of their forces’. They would benef it from the sensation effectuated by the Pink Pills, which was ‘a sense of wellbeing, of an internal warmth’. Obviously, it is doubtful whether the individuals in the advertisements for Pink Pills were actual patients or sufferers. Some ads claimed that a ‘reporter’ or ‘correspondent’ had visited and interviewed the patients who were portrayed; other ads presented the patients’ stories as letters they had sent to the newspaper. George Fulford naturally claimed that the testimonies in the ads were real.14 However, the stories are without exception very positive about the effects of the medication. Pink Pills miraculously cured all users. At the time, some people already found this suspicious. The manufacturers of Pink Pills defended themselves against this criticism by emphasizing in their ads that the recorded stories were verifiable. Both Dutch and American advertisements often identified sufferers by their full name and their address, sometimes alongside a picture portrait. One could enter into direct contact with these patients to check their stories, the ads claimed. All these people really existed and had given Dr Williams’ firm permission to make their story public. Although some Dutch ads mentioned at the end in rather small letters, that the ads cost ‘50 cents per line’, it seems likely that many newspaper readers did not realize that they were being confronted with advertising. The circulation of newspapers grew exponentially at that time and for many readers, the daily consumption of news was a new experience.15 In this context, the innovative commercials for Pink Pills may not have come across as ads, since they were presented as short newspaper articles. They had captions like ‘Interesting New Tidings’, ‘Submitted Announcements’ or ‘Nervous Troubles Cured by the Tonic Treatment: People from Kansas Recount How They Were Restored to Health and Strength after Other Remedies Failed’. The ads were placed among news items bearing domestic and foreign reports, and were relatively long. Furthermore, the commercials spoke of ‘reporters’ and ‘correspondents’, who supposedly went to visit users of Pink Pills throughout America and Europe. 14 J. van der Putten and Mary Kilcline Cody (eds), Lost Times and Untold Tales from the Malay World (Singapore, 2011), 86. 15 H. Wijfjes, Journalistiek in Nederland 1850-2000: Beroep, cultuur en organisatie (Amsterdam, 2004), 19.

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A respectable disease One of the main ailments the Pink Pills were supposed to cure was neurasthenia. The American George Beard introduced the diagnosis of neurasthenia in 1869. It was an amorphous concept that in terms of symptomatology is similar, to an extent, to later disease categories such as depression, chronic fatigue syndrome, or burnout. The designation neurasthenia could indicate a whole complex of physical and mental symptoms, including fatigue, irritability, headaches, digestive problems, impotence, weight loss, anxiety and insomnia. Certainly in the last quarter of the nineteenth century neurasthenia was considered to be an affliction among members of the well-educated, wealthy upper class. In many Western countries, a lucrative ‘neurasthenia business’ emerged around this new group of patients. Private sanatoria and university clinics offered surcharge treatment in a luxurious, relaxing environment. In the course of time, however, the diagnosis of neurasthenia became ‘democratized’.16 The implicit message in many ads for the Pink pills was that those suffering from neurasthenia should not at all feel ashamed about their problems. Particularly sensitive, gifted, intemperate people as well as those ‘consumed with ambition’ were at risk of developing neurasthenia. The commercials’ message was similar to the medical-psychiatric message at the time: neurasthenia was a disease grounded in what were essentially commendable character traits: ambition, talent, a willingness to work hard and aim high.17 Presenting Pink Pills users as decent, prosperous and hardworking people further encouraged the identification of readers with the patients in the commercials. For example, neurasthenic men in Dutch ads could include a director of a Rotterdam firm, or a ‘famous engineer from Milan’; both were presented as suffering from nervous exhaustion because of their hard work. Some ads suggested that people were talking about their nervous complaints amongst themselves, advising each other to take Pink Pills, conveying again the message that there was nothing shameful about it.18

16 See, for instance, M. Gijswijt-Hofstra and R. Porter et al., Cultures of Neurasthenia: From Beard to the First World War (Amsterdam/New York, 2001); J. Slijkhuis and H. Oosterhuis, ‘Door vrees en tobberijen bevangen. Neurasthenie als genderspecifieke beschavingsziekte’, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis 125 (2012): 20-33. 17 P. Blom, De duizelingwekkende jaren: Europa 1900-1914 (Amsterdam, 2009), 340-343. 18 ‘Ingezonden mededelingen. Een zieke die navolging verdient’, De Tijd. Godsdienstigstaatkundig Blad, 17-02-1909.

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The commercials also mentioned economic arguments. Poor (mental) health would be fatal for men who wanted to succeed in life, and who hankered after wealth and wanted to travel.19 For example, one advertisement stated that all working men suffering from nervous complaints should focus on healing as quickly as possible using Pink Pills in order to avoid losing valuable time, since ‘gaining more time means earning more money’.20 Women who were struck by nervous weakness were often reported as coming from an ‘honest’ or even ‘very honourable’ family. Sufferers were usually portrayed as attractive, fashionably dressed people. Manufacturers of Pink Pills thus presented nervous suffering as a respectable ailment, as in fact did doctors at the time. According to George Beard, the inventor of the concept, nervous weakness was a disease of civilization: the result of hard work, overexertion of the mind and over-stimulation of the nerves through technological inventions and urbanization. The hectic pace of modern life was the main cause of the new epidemic of neurasthenia. This message, coined by Beard, was brought to a larger audience through the advertisements for Pink Pills. The men and women in the ads seemingly felt no shame in talking about their nervous exhaustion. ‘Since I took those pills, I’m happy and healthy,’ said Miss Cornelia Steenweg from Delft, in a brochure about the Pink Pills made by Dr Williams.21 A renowned Milanese engineer spoke about ‘the great amount of work he was doing’, which had resulted in nervous exhaustion and neurasthenia.22 A lyrical artist suffered from nervous weakness as a result of a series of concerts and soirees in which he had participated.23 Finally, a news reporter stated that his work was so stressful and demanded such ‘a great effort from the brain’, that eventually he had suffered a nervous breakdown.24 Thus the advertisements for Pink Pills created an imagined community of nervous sufferers. The emotional bond between them was accomplished through the personal stories in the ads, making people feel they belonged to a global community of sensitive yet respectable people. Historian Thomas Laqueur has argued that details about suffering bodies in realistic novels, or in medical case studies, engender compassion in the 19 ‘Voor verzwakte mannen’, Tilburgsche Courant, 18-02-1906. 20 ‘Ingezonden mededeelingen’, Het Nieuws van den Dag: kleine courant, 08-04-1908. 21 ‘Sedert ik die pillen genomen heb, ben ik vroolijk en gezond’. International Institute for Social History (Amsterdam), Versterker der zenuwen, hernieuwer van het bloed. Pink Pillen voor bleeke personen van dr. Williams (Plaats en jaar van publicatie onbekend, waarschijnlijk tussen 1900-1924), 13. 22 ‘De vele werken die mij geheel in beslag namen’. ‘Een ingenieur, door de Pink Pillen genezen’, Nieuwe Tilburgsche Courant, 21-06-1911. 23 ‘Verklaring van een Artist’, Nieuwe Tilburgsche Courant, 18-09-1906. 24 ‘eene groote inspanning van de hersens’. ‘Een journalist in Indië’, De Sumatra Post, 20-11-1908.

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reader.25 Possibly, reading details about suffering bodies and minds can stimulate feelings of companionship between people as well. In present times as well, participants in psychiatric and other medical support groups want information about their condition, but many also want support and empathy from fellow sufferers. Individual suffering can be a strong uniting factor, as can also be seen in victim or veteran groups.26

Overworked men and weak women: A gendered imagined community According to the feminist British historian Elaine Showalter in her famous book The Female Malady (1987), it was mainly women who were diagnosed with neurasthenia. However, this it is nowadays questioned. Indeed, more recent research has shown that men were diagnosed with neurasthenia far more frequently.27 The ads for the Pink Pills also predominantly feature male neurasthenics. The manufacturers of Pink Pills probably welcomed this new psychiatric diagnosis, as many psychosomatic symptoms that previously had been ascribed mainly to women could now also be applied to men.28 Also, in the early twentieth century there was a shift from somatic to psychological diagnoses. This transition is clearly visible in the ads, although it is remarkable how long some ideas prevailed, for example about the power of healthy blood on the mind. The advertisements for Pink Pills more or less lumped neurasthenia with ‘older’ ailments like chlorosis and anaemia. In the same breath, they spoke of ‘those with poor blood, the weak, the overworked, and sufferers from neurasthenia’. Anaemia could cause neurasthenia and not just neurasthenics were ‘overworked’; sufferers of anaemia could also well be.29 The symptoms of chlorosis, which young

25 T. Laqueur, ‘Bodies, Details and the Humanitarian Narrative’, in: L. Hunt (ed.), The New Cultural History (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1989) 176-202. 26 M. Jimeno, ‘Emotions and Politics: The Victim and the Building of Emotional Communities’, Mana 16 (2010), 99-121; J. Preece, ‘Empathic Communities: Balancing Emotional and Factual Communication’, Interacting with Computers 12 (1999), 63-77. 27 M. Gijswijt-Hofstra, ‘Introduction: Cultures of Neurasthenia from Beard to the First World War’, in: M. Gijswijt-Hofstra and Roy Porter (eds), Cultures of Neurasthenia: From Beard to the First World War (Amsterdam/New York, 2001), 1-30, here 20-21, 23-24. 28 E. Shorter, From Paralysis to Fatigue: A History of Psychosomatic Illness in the Modern Era (New York, 1992), 226. 29 H.P. Schmiedebach, ‘The Public’s View of Neurasthenia in Germany’, in: Gijswijt-Hofstra and Porter (eds), Cultures of Neurasthenia, 219-239, here at 229.

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girls suffered from, in particular, were very similar to those of neurasthenia and anaemia as well.30 This link between ‘poor blood’ and nervous suffering probably made it more acceptable and less shameful to speak about psychological suffering, as the mental problems basically had a physical cause. As such, they could be described in great length and detail. According to one Pink Pills commercial, a young debutante at the English court had to neglect her social obligations because of her anaemia and nervous problems, ‘because I felt so sad and melancholy that I could not take part in events of great importance. My powers left me completely and the slightest effort exhausted me and made me faint. My nerves were so overcome that at the moment when I went to the Court, I felt terribly depressed and physically ill.’31 The commercials for Pink Pills reflect the gendered essentialism that was quite common at the time. In men, nervous exhaustion was ascribed mainly to external causes such as ‘overwork, excesses or a stay in an unhealthy environment’.32 Modern life meant that some men could not always cope well enough with the speed, the demands and the temptations of modern society. Women were more prone to nervous diseases since they were sensitive and weak by nature. Women were delicate and had to be continually supported because of their weakness. To underline this statement, the ads were often accompanied by images of tired-looking women and listless girls. As a man in one of the ads proclaimed: ‘All husbands should know that the Pink Pills are particularly good for women. They are good for men but for women they are indispensable.’33 Nervous diseases were more common in women because ‘the wife has a weaker orientation and her physical resistance is lower’. Still, these kinds of essentialist remarks in the ads about the ‘weak nature’ of women were combined with an explicit mentioning of sensitive and to a degree ‘taboo’ problems that probably struck a chord with some women readers, and might have led them to identify with the female members of the imagined community of women with nervous problems – such as the phenomenon of 30 K. Johannisson, Het Duistere continent: Dokters en vrouwen in het fin-de siècle (Amsterdam, 1996), 123-127. 31 ‘Zóó teneergedrukt en melancholisch was ik, dat ik zelfs geen werkzaam aandeel kon nemen aan belangrijke gebeurtenissen. Mijn lichaamskracht begaf mij geheel, de geringste inspanning deed mij van uitputting neerzijgen. Mijn zenuwen waren zóó aangedaan, dat ik bij het maken van mijne opwachting ten hove erg gedrukt en lichamelijk ziek was’. ‘Toen zij haar opwachting maakte bij den koning,’ Het Nieuws van den Dag voor Nederlands-Indië, 16-09-1909. 32 ‘Hebt gij ook dergelijke rugpijnen?’, De Sumatra Post, 17-07-1908. 33 ‘Alle echtgenooten moeten weten dat de Pink Pillen bijzonder goed zijn voor de vrouwen. Zij zijn goed voor de mannen, maar voor de vrouwen zijn zij onmisbaar.’ ‘Gelukkige echtgenooten! Hunne vrouwen door de Pink Pillen genezen’, Venloosche Courant, 23-09-1905.

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postnatal depression. When a woman became pregnant this brought all kinds of risks, as well as the very real possibility of actually dying during childbirth. Many women, according to Pink Pill ads, were depressed at the time they became pregnant or had just given birth. A Mrs Sproul from Los Angeles was quoted in an Oregon newspaper in 1910, where she told how following the birth of her child, she was in very poor health, being confined to her bed for more than a year. She was ‘very nervous and couldn’t bear the least noise of excitement’. Every few weeks she would go ‘insane from pains in her head’.34

‘Shock, grief and sorrow’: Attention to feelings The emphasis in the advertisements for Pink Pills was initially placed especially on the somatic. Whoever suffered from mental weakness, in fact suffered from ‘weakness of the blood’. Feelings of sadness stemmed from the physical symptoms that continuously haunted and harassed the patients. After 1910, however, the commercials for Pink Pills increasingly started to emphasize the personality characteristics of people suffering from nerves and their personal circumstances that could cause nerve pain. This increase of psychological interpretation of nerve weakness was seen across the West after 1900. The Pink Pills advertisements herein also followed the trend in the medical-psychiatric discourse and translated it to the general public. Since the ads constantly used varying terminology, it is difficult to speak of a singular uniform disease that is represented in them. At the turn of the century the sources mainly speak of ‘nerve overstimulation’, ‘overwrought nerves’, ‘nervous exhaustion’ and ‘neurasthenia’. As time passed, the ads increasingly began to mention ‘neurasthenia’. Moreover, the commercials were gradually becoming more psychological in tone. New terms were introduced in the description of the symptoms of nervous sufferers; words describing the feelings of the patients were stressed more and more, as well as the importance of life events as a background of psychological problems. The ad men started using phrases and terms like ‘worrying’, ‘depression’, ‘melancholy’, having ‘dark thoughts’, feeling ‘unhappy’ and suffering from an ‘emptiness in the brains’. Around 1910, the complaints also emphasize that people should not only pay attention to their physical health, but also to take care of their spiritual welfare. The nerves had to be properly ‘maintained’. Instead of complaining, people had to watch over and deal with their mental health. One might regard this as an early example of what British sociologist 34 ‘Try This Remedy for Nervousness’, Daily Capital Journal (Salem, OR), 08-04-1910.

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Nicholas Rose has described as the modern regime of the self: the notion that it is the moral duty of every citizen to take responsibility for his or her own psychological functioning, which is the basis for his further self-development, productivity and autonomy.35 Some of the warnings in the ads for Pink Pills radiated a gloomy atmosphere. In one ad, neurasthenia was compared with the plague of yesteryear, neurasthenia now being the ‘fear-inspiring’ epidemic disease the plague once was.36 Many ads present sufferers as struggling to keep up with their work, constantly irritable, suffering from sleeplessness. The ads urged people to self-observe and to treat themselves with Pink Pills as a form of prevention, in order to counter this ‘rampant evil’.37 Those who would not comply with this advice would fall victim ‘to the most terrible of all diseases: neurasthenia’. Clearly, the manufacturers of the Pink Pills were searching for more powerful ways in which to push people into buying their product. In doing so, however, they achieved a new level of emotional openness that might have been appealing to potential customers. A new level of identification with the imagined community of nervous sufferers was opened up, as descriptions of the mental symptoms became more abundant, explicit and detailed. A popular American ad for Pink Pills that ran in various newspapers in 1912, for instance, speaks of women who ‘always wear a worn, tired look’: the outward signs of ‘nervousness with its accompaniment of worry, headache and sleeplessness’. A Mrs John Utter of Puyalupp, Washington, was quoted in saying that she had only been able to work part time for over eight years and mostly would ‘just drag around’.38 Elaborate biographies of nervous sufferers filled the pages of many ads for Pink Pills. In 1910, a young man from Kansas, for instance, told his story of a ‘nervous breakdown’, which was the result of studying too hard at Medical School. He was in a ‘weak, nervous and rundown condition’, confined to his bed and unable to do anything.39 Neurasthenia could arise from life experiences that created ‘terror’, ‘grief’ and ‘sadness’. In a Dutch ad for Pink Pills, a Belgian soldier was quoted in saying that after his tour of duty, he suffered nightmares and was constantly feeling depressed, nervous and irritable. 40 35 N. Rose, Inventing our Selves: Psychology, Power and Personhood (Cambridge/New York, 1998). 36 ‘Een ziekte die schrik verspreidt’, De Tijd. Godsdienstig-staatkundig Dagblad, 28-02-1917. 37 ‘Wat door zorg en tobben veroorzaakt wordt’, De Sumatra Post, 24-04-1915. 38 ‘Women Who Look Tired’, Daily Gate City (Keokuk, IA), 23-04-1912. 39 ‘Nervous Troubles Cured by the Tonic Treatment’, Topeka State Journal (Topeka, KS), 13-01-1910. 40 ‘De zenuwen en de oorlog’, Tilburgsche Courant, 18-12-1915.

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Conclusion The intensive advertisement campaign for Pink Pills, as this article has attempted to show, helped to create an international imagined community of nervous sufferers: people with weak nerves, with whom readers could identify. Around 1900, the diagnosis of neurasthenia brought a lucrative new group of clients within the medical-psychiatric consulting rooms: overworked (business) men. The producers of Pink Pills benefited happily from this development and thus stimulated the increasing focus on both female and male ‘neurasthenics’. In the process, they promoted the social emancipation of people with mental health problems – all, however, within the safe parameters of traditional bourgeois family morals and accompanying ideas about the ‘nature’ of men and women. Although in reality it is doubtful whether the patients who were portrayed in the ads ever really existed, this is not relevant when examining the effect their stories may have had on the readers of the ads. The implicit message of the advertising campaign for Pink Pills was that having weak nerves was nothing to be ashamed of. The commercials propagated openness about mental health issues. This of course served their own commercial interests – but possibly this openness served the interests of consumers of Pink Pills as well. The historiography of the rise of the therapeutic society has not given much attention to the role of contacts between fellow sufferers. The focus has been on the interaction between individual patients and their psychotherapists, doctors, or institutions. However, contacts – real or imagined – with peers were probably quite important in spreading the narrative of mental health and in encouraging people to adopt the role of ‘nervous sufferer’. As social psychologists have argued, peers can be important agents of identity formation and group identification can be crucial in a process of reshaping the self. Before actual client organizations and group therapy came into being in the field of mental health after the Second World War, people suffering from mental distress could ‘meet’ fellow sufferers in their imagination, through reading novels for instance, or in the ads for Pink Pills. In many ways the intensive advertising campaign for Pink Pills contributed to the psychologizing of Western society (and beyond). The ads first made a wider audience familiar with the medical-psychiatric discourse about neurasthenia. They informed readers about the symptoms and causes of ‘nervous weakness’, and thus offered them the opportunity to involve themselves with the term and diagnosis. In addition, the commercials laid the responsibility with the citizens for taking care for their own mental well-being. In a therapeutic society its residents are actively engaged in

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their own mental health, determining for themselves how they feel and actively searching for information about diagnoses, pills and therapies. The medical information in the advertisements for Pink Pills stimulated such a ‘proto-professionalization’ of the citizen, to use a term coined by sociologist Abram de Swaan. With this term he indicated a process of patient empowerment in which people adopt the terminology of doctors and then confront their doctors with their own diagnoses. Moreover, the ads stimulated the ‘interaction’ between psychiatric discourse and the individuals who were now being classified as ‘neurasthenic’ because of their irritability, fatigue, headaches, and intense worrying, among other things. Headache and fatigue have been part of the Western ‘symptom pool’ for many centuries, historian Edward Shorter has argued.41 They are accepted and well-known physical experiences in the West, just as sadness and worry are well-known emotional experiences. Readers of the ads who identified with nervous weakness, recognizing (some) of the symptoms described, were now able to link their symptomatology to the strains of modern life or to their sensitive nature. The diagnosis of neurasthenia offered them a respectable way to present feelings of unease and incapacity to the outside world. Through the ads they may have become ‘self-aware as being of a kind’, to use a phrase of philosopher Ian Hacking – the neurasthenic kind – and may have started experiencing themselves in that way – morally supported in the process by the global imagined community of fellow nervous sufferers.42

About the author Gemma Blok is professor in Modern History at the Open University of the Netherlands. Her research concerns itself with the history of mental health care, addiction treatment, and the social and cultural history of alcohol and drug use. Her publications include Ziek of zwak. Geschiedenis van de verslavingszorg in Nederland (Uitgeverij Nieuwezijds, 2011); Achter de voordeur. Sociale geschiedenis vanuit de GGD Amsterdam in de twintigste eeuw (Amsterdam University Press, 2014); and ‘We the Avant-garde: A History from Below of Dutch Heroin Use in the 1970s’, BMGN – Low Countries Historical Review 132:1 (2017), 104-125.

41 E. Shorter, From Paralysis to Fatigue: A History of Psychosomatic Illness in the Modern Era (New York, 1992), 2. 42 I. Hacking, The Social Construction of What? (Cambridge, MA/London, 1999), 104.

6

‘From Heart to Heart’ Colonial Radio and the Dutch Imagined Community in the 1920s Vincent Kuitenbrouwer Abstract This contribution analyses the symbolic meaning of the first short-wave radio connection between the Netherlands and the Dutch East Indies, which was established in 1927, as a means to overcome the distance between the colonial centre and periphery. This chapter explores primary source material about colonial radio to reveal the transnational aspects of the Dutch imagined community. Contemporaries marvelled at the wonders of radio technology as they listened to voices from the other side of the world. Such experiences forged a stronger sense of unity between the Netherlands and the Dutch East Indies as distance seemed to fall away. Moreover, these first contacts triggered emotions on both sides of the line, feelings that were expressed in different media genres and became part of Dutch popular culture. Keywords: imagined communities, Dutch East Indies, colonialism, international radio broadcasting

The first half of the twentieth century stands out as a crucial phase in Dutch state-building, in various parts of the world. During this period the Netherlands became a strong national community with the different provinces bound together by a tight infrastructural grid and a range of invented traditions.1 At the same time the Dutch authorities also tightened their grip on the 1 H. Knippenberg and B. de Pater, De eenwording van Nederland: Schaalvergroting en integratie sinds 1800 (Nijmegen, 1988); H. te Velde, Gemeenschapszin en plichtsbesef: liberalism en nationalism in Nederland, 1870-1918 (Groningen, 1992).

Blok, Gemma, Kuitenbrouwer, Vincent and Weeda, Claire (eds): Imagining Communities. Historical Reflections on the Process of Community Formation. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018 doi: 10.5117/9789462980037_ch06

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overseas dependencies. The colony in the Indonesian archipelago in particular underwent some major transformations following territorial expansion, the creation of new political institutes and the development of (intercontinental) communication lines.2 These processes of state-building, in the metropole and the periphery, to a large extent depended on the development of modern technology. The interaction between these two variables, state-building and technology, is central to this contribution, which specially focuses on the development of radio as a medium connecting the Netherlands and the Indies. One important argument in Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities is that print-capitalism, in the form of the newspaper press, played a crucial role in state-building as it ‘represents the kind of imagined community that is the nation’.3 By emphasizing the power of the media on human society, Anderson to an extent followed the work of Marshall McLuhan, who coined the famous phrase that ‘the medium is the message’. McLuhan argued that in order to understand media one should not study the content, but rather the form. Technology, he asserted, ‘shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action’. 4 Over the years this strong emphasis on the ‘innate characteristics of media technology’ has justly been criticized by many scholars as a form of determinism.5 Nonetheless McLuhan’s aphorism echoes in this chapter, although in a different way than he probably intended it to. Dutch newspapers in the late 1920s regularly reported on the development of radio technology: this medium literally was part of the message of the national press. I will show that such reflections generated feelings of unity and pride and as a result strengthened the Dutch imagined community. A second issue is the geography of the Dutch imagined community, which transcended the borders of the Netherlands. In his initial work on community formation, Anderson treated nation-states as the main unit of analysis. In a later volume, The Spectre of Comparisons, he argued that national communities in the twentieth century were shaped by an emerging universal ‘grammar of representation’ and that ‘the late colonial environment is an especially apt site for appreciating this development’.6 Anderson speaks 2 W. van den Doel, Zo ver de wereld strekt: De geschiedenis van Nederland overzee vanaf 1800 (Amsterdam, 2011). 3 B. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism, 2nd ed. (London, 1991), 25. 4 M. McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (London, 1964), 9. 5 S. Potter, ‘Social Histories of the Media in Britain and Ireland’, Media History 18 (2012), 459-469, here 460-461. 6 B. Anderson, The Spectre of Comparisons: Nationalism, Southeast Asia and the World (London/ New York, 1998), 34.

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here of the formation of imagined communities in colonies in Asia and Africa, but the same went for European countries that were colonizers. The notion that empires were crucial for identity formation in the nineteenth and twentieth century is central to a recent trend in scholarship on the British Empire. Whereas traditional literature suggested that imperialism was a one-way process, scholars associated with New Imperial History argue that relations were more complex. They describe a reciprocal process in which the colonial experience affected the societies of both the colonizers in the metropole and the colonized in the periphery.7 In the Netherlands, this insight is gradually finding common ground, as researchers probe a ‘New Dutch Imperial History’.8 This contribution aims to further explore the connections between national and colonial history by asserting that in order to fully grasp the Dutch imagined community in the twentieth century, one must not only study the Netherlands, but also the colonial state in the Indonesian archipelago. One hotly debated issue surrounding the study of British imperial culture is the question to what extent the colonial experience affected public opinion in the metropole.9 This remains an open question in the Netherlands. As Remco Raben points out, no systematic study exists on the impact of the empire on Dutch metropolitan society.10 This chapter provides a new contribution to this emerging debate by showing that elitist reflections on the importance of colonial radio for the Dutch nation by high-ranking officials and journalists reached a wide audience. Although few people actually had access to the air waves, popular sentiments sprang forth about the radio connection between the Netherlands and the Indies, which resonate in Dutch society until today. By focusing on the colonial ‘home-culture’,11 this 7 For a historiographical analysis of the New Imperial History, see: A. Lester, ‘Imperial Circuits and Networks: Geographies of the British Empire’, History Compass 4 (2006), 124-141. 8 For a recent contribution see the special issue: ‘A New Dutch Imperial History’, M. Bloembergen and V. Kuitenbrouwer (eds), BMGN – Low Countries Historical Review 128 (2013). Important earlier contributions include: F. Gouda, Dutch Culture Overseas: Colonial Practice in the Netherlands Indies, 1900-1942 (Amsterdam, 1995); M. Bossenbroek, Holland op zijn breedst: Indië en Zuid-Afrika in de Nederlandse cultuur omstreeks 1900 (Amsterdam, 1996); S. Legêne, De bagage van Blomhoff en Van Breugel: Japan, Java, Tripoli en Suriname in de negentiende-eeuwse Nederlandse cultuur van het imperialisme (Amsterdam, 1998). 9 Compare, for example: B. Porter, ‘Further Thoughts on Imperial Absent-Mindedness’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 36 (2008), 101-117; and J.M. MacKenzie, ‘“Comfort and Conviction”: A Response to Bernard Porter’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 36 (2008), 659-668. 10 R. Raben, ‘A New Dutch Imperial History? Preambulations in a Prospective Field’, BMGN – Low Countries Historical Review 128 (2013), 5-30, here 22. 11 ‘thuiscultuur’. For this term see: S. Legêne, Spiegelreflex: Culturele sporen van de koloniale ervaring (Amsterdam, 2010).

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contribution conversely only touches on the formation of the Indonesian imagined community in the first half of the twentieth century, a topic that features prominently in the work of Benedict Anderson himself. Several authors have pointed out that radio played an important role in the Indonesian community-formation process as well.12 On the pages below, however, I will show how colonial radio reinforced the transnational ties between the Netherlands and the Indies in the 1920s, and thus strengthened the Dutch imagined community.

A colonial communication crisis, 1900-1920 During the first half of the twentieth century state-building in the Indonesian archipelago intensified under tutelage of the Dutch colonial regime. Governor-General J.B. van Heutsz (1904-1908) established Dutch control over the so-called ‘outer territories’ (the islands beyond the traditional colonial stronghold of Java).13 Alongside these wars of conquest a modernization process took place that changed the face of society in the archipelago. The official start of this colonial ‘project’ was the 1901 speech of Queen Wilhelmina, in which she announced the ‘ethical policy’, an ambitious plan to ‘develop’ the indigenous population of the Indies according to Western norms of civilization.14 Moreover, the Dutch presence in the archipelago grew significantly in the twentieth century, from roughly 44,000 people in 1860 to an estimated 208,000 in 1930. Although quantitatively the European presence was obscured by the indigenous population (which counted 66 million people in 1930), this small white elite dominated colonial society in the Indies.15 In the wake of this process, indigenous groups started to develop a sense of national consciousness, which contributed to the emergence of modern Indonesia. The colonial project also had an effect in the Netherlands. There the idea took shape that the colony in the East was essential for the wellbeing 12 See several contributions in: Jaarboek mediageschiedenis: Nederlands-Indië, vol. 4 (Amsterdam, 1992); R. Mrázek, Engineers of Happy Land: Technology and Nationalism in a Colony (Princeton, 2002), ch. 5. 13 M. Kuitenbrouwer, Nederland en de opkomst van het moderne imperialisme: Koloniën en buitenlandse politiek 1870-1902 (Amsterdam, 1985). 14 For the notion of a colonial ‘project’, see: J.A.A. van Doorn, De laatste eeuw van Indië: Ontwikkeling en ondergang van een koloniaal project (Amsterdam, 1994), 16; for the most comprehenseive study on ‘ethical policy’ see: E.B. Locher-Scholten, Ethiek in fragmenten: Vijf studies over koloniaal denken en doen van Nederlanders in de Indische archipel, 1877-1942 (Leiden, 1981). 15 Van Doorn, De laatste eeuw, 22-23.

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of the metropole, or, as the saying went: ‘Indies lost, calamity born.’ People believed that the Indies were the ‘cork’ that kept the Dutch economy afloat. Although several groups in Dutch society did have significant economic interests in retaining hold over the colony, historians agree that this claim was exaggerated. In fact, revenues from the Indies made up about 14 per cent of the GNP of the Netherlands during the 1920s and 1930s. In addition, some argued that maintaining possession of the Indies lent the Netherlands international prestige. Although overshadowed by the great powers on the European stage, it could still exert some influence on international relations because of its huge colony in Asia. Or, as it was also articulated, without the Indies, the Netherlands would slip to the ‘rank of Denmark’.16 Looking back, one can question the realism of these truisms, but it seems that in the early twentieth century they resonated amongst broad layers of public opinion in the Netherlands. At the time society was divided into four major political-ideological segments, known as ‘pillars’, representing the Protestant, Catholic, Social-Democratic and Liberal currents. Opinion makers from these various groups differed in their ideas on how to shape colonial policy, but the overall consensus was that for the time being Dutch rule in the archipelago was beneficial for both colonizer and colonized.17 In this way the Indies became an important symbol of pride in the Netherlands. Together with the monarchy, it provided a marker of national identity that many people could relate to.18 In other words: the Indies became an important part of the imagined community of the Netherlands. The notion that the Netherlands and the Indies were invariably linked to each other was not uncontested nor unproblematic, however, and the twentieth century also generated uncertainties for the colonial regime and its supporters. New ideologies such as Communism and political Islam fostered anti-colonial nationalism. Indonesian and Dutch activists set up organizations that published and distributed vocal and scorching critiques, tarnishing the reputation of the Dutch regime in the Indonesian 16 ‘Indië verloren, rampspoed geboren’; ‘kurk’; ‘rang van Denemarken’. H. Baudet, ‘Nederland en de rang van Denemarken’, BMGN – Low Countries Historical Review 90 (1975), 430-444. 17 Socialists were most ambivalent towards colonialism. Amongst this group there were many supporters of the ‘ethical policy’ who believed in the advancement and self-determination of the indigenous population of the Indies, but did not think they were ready for independence in the foreseeable future. J. Foray, ‘A Unified Empire of Equal Parts: Dutch Commonwealth Schemes of the 1920s-40s’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 41:2 (2013), 259-284, here 263. 18 N.C.F. van Sas, ‘Fin de siècle als nieuw begin. Nationalisme in Nederland rond 1900’, in: N.C.F. van Sas (ed.), De Metamorfose van Nederland (Amsterdam, 2004), 577-591; Bossenbroek, Holland op zijn breedst; J.Th.M. Bank and M. van Buuren, 1900: Hoogtij van burgerlijke cultuur (The Hague, 2000), ch. 2.

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archipelago. Moreover, the international status of the Netherlands as a small nation controlling a big empire made it difficult to manage the lines of communication running to and from the Indies. In this sense modern technology was both a blessing and a curse for the colonial regime; on the one hand it enabled the expansion of the Dutch presence in the archipelago, while on the other hand there was a constant fear that internal and external adversaries would use it to destroy the colonial project. Such ambivalence had existed since the late nineteenth century. The opening of the Suez Canal and the adoption of steam navigation greatly increased the volume and speed of ships sailing between the Netherlands and the Indies. The advent of intercontinental telegraph lines transformed the nature of information exchange, making direct communication possible. In this way, the presence of the Dutch in the archipelago grew significantly. Some pro-colonial authors even boasted that the distance to the Netherlands had evaporated.19 However, these increased means of communication also caused anxieties for the Dutch regime. One result of steam navigation was that a growing number of Indonesian Muslims were able to make the sacred pilgrimage to Mecca.20 Dutch authorities greatly feared that these hadjis would introduce radical ideas of pan-Islamism on their return to the archipelago, inciting anti-colonial sentiments. During the course of the twentieth century Muslim scares continued to haunt officials, leading to far-reaching measures to control the transport of pilgrims.21 Moreover, although anti-colonial groups did not use telegraph lines, they constituted an additional problem as the British controlled all the intercontinental cables running from the archipelago. Dutch colonial officials were thus wary of this telegraph connection, as they feared that news would be manipulated in order to serve British interests.22 Fears of internal and external threats to the colonial order in the Indies climaxed during the First World War. Although the Netherlands remained neutral, and was thus saved from the bloodshed on the European battlefields, the lines of communications with the colony in the East were greatly affected by the conflict. Britain imposed a naval blockade and heavily restricted the telegraph connection with Europe. As a result the Indies became almost 19 See, for example, several contributions to: W.H. Helsdingen and H. Hoogenberk (eds), Daar wèrd wat groots verricht…. Nederlandsch-Indië in de xxste eeuw (Amsterdam, 1941). 20 M.B. Muller, ‘Pelgrims’ Progress: The Business of the Hajj’, Past & Present 191 (2006), 189-228. 21 W. van den Doel, Zo ver de wereld strekt: De geschiedenis van Nederland overzee vanaf 1800 (Amsterdam, 2011), 210-211. 22 Bossenbroek, Holland op zijn breedst, 201; K. van Dijk, The Netherlands Indies and the Great War, 1914-1918 (Leiden, 2007), 13.

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completely cut off from the Netherlands by 1916.23 This situation was a painful reminder to the Dutch that the lines of communication with their prized dependency were vulnerable. During the period that the colony was isolated from the metropole, many parts of the archipelago witnessed large-scale uprisings and anti-colonial organizations grew significantly. An increasing number of people in the Indies were calling for more self-rule, and some even started to argue for complete independence. Lacking a good line of communication with the government in The Hague and startled by wild rumours about the fall-out of the Russian Revolution in Europe, Governor-General J.P. van Limburg-Stirum made promises for democratic reforms in November 1918.24 Although these promises were vague and remained largely unfulfilled, they illuminate the uncertainties that haunted the isolated colonial regime at the time. The situation around 1920 shows that colonial state-building in the Indonesian archipelago was a toilsome process and that the dominance of the regime had its limits.25 Nonetheless, the interwar years saw renewed efforts of the Dutch to strengthen their position in the Indies. These endeavours sprouted forth from the well-established idea in the Netherlands that the Dutch had a moral task to civilize the peoples of the Indonesian archipelago and that a close relation with the colony in Asia was important for the national wellbeing. In addition, these feelings were spurred by new technological developments that made the world seem to be a lot smaller. In contrast with previous periods, the Dutch pioneered the new media of the interwar years. Their innovative successes boosted national selfconfidence and many opinion makers hailed them, proclaiming that they would strengthen the Dutch Empire and, indeed, the position of Netherlands in the world.

‘From heart to heart’ Like other major conflicts, the First World War generated many technological developments that, although initially for military purposes, proved to be significant for civilian society. Despite the fact that the Netherlands had 23 Van Dijk, The Netherlands Indies, 353-380. 24 B. de Graaff and E. Locher-Scholten, J.P. Graaf van Limburg Stirum, 1873-1948: Tegendraads landvoogd en diplomaat (Zwolle, 2007), 207-216 25 See also: M. Bloembergen, Uit zorg en angst: De geschiedenis van de politie in Nederlands-Indië (Amsterdam/Leiden, 2009), 361-362.

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remained neutral, several Dutch engineers were pioneers in these developments. Anthony Fokker, for example, worked in the German wartime aviation industry, designing several innovative models. In 1919 Fokker returned to the Netherlands and set up a factory near Amsterdam. The airplane builder established close contacts with Royal Dutch Airlines (KLM), which was founded in the same year. With Fokker’s state-of-the-art planes the company was successful in its early days.26 Soon KLM started experimenting with long-distance flights to Southeast Asia and in 1924 the first plane arrived in the Indonesian archipelago after an adventurous journey, flying in stages across the Middle East and Asia, from one barren airstrip to another. By 1930 a regular service between Amsterdam and Batavia had been set up, flying once a week, which reached the Indies in five days. The number of travellers was limited in those days, as only a small group of businessmen and officials were able to afford to fly to the Indies. But KLM planes also provided services to a larger portion of the public by carrying mail.27 Wireless radio was another technology, spurred by the First World War, that had great impact on the Dutch colonial lines of communication in the 1920s.28 In the 1900s the Dutch engineer C.J. de Groot started experimenting with the wireless in Java. During the First World War, he spent some time in the Netherlands and completed a PhD thesis in which he argued that it was possible to establish a direct connection between the Netherlands and the Indies in order to bypass British censorship of the telegraph cables to the archipelago. Although the war had ended before he could complete the project, his experiments were so promising that the government in 1919 ordered the construction of two large stations to establish a long-wave radio connection between the Netherlands and the Indies. These stations were built in desolated places to avoid interference: Radio Kootwijk in the Dutch Veluwe national park and Radio Malabar in the highlands near Bandung in Java. The latter, designed by De Groot himself, had a huge antenna spanning two kilometres across a gorge in the middle of the jungle. In May 1923 first contact was established between these stations using Morse code via long-wave radio.

26 H.A. Somberg, ‘Fokker, Anthony Herman Gerard (1890-1939)’, in: Biografisch Woordenboek van Nederland, accessed at: http://www.historici.nl/Onderzoek/Projecten/BWN/lemmata/ bwn1/fokker on 01-08-2013. 27 Hans Martin, ‘Door de lucht’, in: W.H. Helsdingen and H. Hoogenberk (eds), Daar wèrd wat groots verricht…. Nederlandsch-Indië in de xxste eeuw (Amsterdam, 1941), 21-26. 28 The following three paragraphs are based on: H. Vles, Hallo Bandoeng. Nederlandse radiopioniers (1900-1945) (Zutphen, 2008).

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It was relatively easy to cross large distances with long-wave technology, but the connection was notoriously unreliable. Engineers at the Philips Company in Eindhoven therefore experimented with short-wave radio, a complex technology which was nonetheless more stable than long-wave and easier to use as it required far smaller devices. Engineers in the Netherlands successfully tested their new transmitters by exchanging telegraph messages with radio amateurs in the Indies. By 1925 this new technology had already been so developed that the monolithic long-wave antennas near Kootwijk and Bandung had become redundant. Still, these locations remained in use, supplemented with short-wave radio equipment, and became important pinnacles in the colonial radio connection. On 11 March 1927 a breakthrough came when engineers at the Philips factory played records and tried to transmit the music. To their great surprise they received messages from all across the world that amateurs had heard it loud and clear. This was the first time that sound had been transmitted across such distances, via short wave. Director Anton Philips immediately demanded more experiments with radio broadcasts to the Indies and in the months that followed a stable connection with Bandung was established. On 28 April Philips broadcasted Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (‘Ode an die Freude’), played by the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, which was clearly received in the Indies. The success of this experiment showed that the radio connection between the Netherlands and its colony in the East was stable enough to start with regular services. The official inauguration of radio broadcasting from the Netherlands to the Dutch colonies was a royal affair. On 31 May and 1 June 1927 Queen Wilhelmina and Princess Juliana gave live speeches to the inhabitants of the overseas parts of the Dutch Empire from the Philips factory.29 The Queen began her speech to the listeners in the Indies with a ‘salutation from heart to heart’, expressing her commitment to the ‘unity’ between the metropole and colony. She continued with a historical overview of the communication lines, arguing that the distance between the Netherlands and the archipelago had shrunk with the advent of radio, which would strengthen the unity even further. The speech ended with an eulogy of the colonial civilizing mission in the Indies and a homage to the Dutch people who had travelled to the archipelago to fulfil this task.30 Princess Juliana, 29 They gave their speeches twice, the f irst time for listeners in Suriname and the Dutch Caribbean and the second time for listeners in the Indies. 30 ‘een groet van hart to hart’, ‘saamhorigheid’. ‘De toespraak van H.M. de Koningin’, Het Vaderland, 2 June 1927.

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who had just turned eighteen and was speaking in public for the first time, thought it was a ‘nice idea’ that she was able to ‘speak with you all’. Although she had never visited the colonies, the princess said that the Indies was ‘no longer a complete stranger’, as she had learned about its constitutional bodies and ethnography at university. She ended by expressing the hope that radio technology would further increase harmony between metropole and colony.31 Soon another milestone was reached when it became possible for the general public to have a telephone conversation between the Netherlands and the Indies via the wireless. In 1928 extensive tests were conducted in which officials, journalists and ‘normal’ members of the public were invited to make short calls (four to six minutes) to people in the Indies for free.32 A regular telephone service was inaugurated on the 50th anniversary of the wedding day of the queen mother, Emma, 7 January 1929. She was granted the honour of making the first official call to the wife of the governor-general in Batavia. The latter congratulated the queen mother on her anniversary on behalf of all the women of the Indies and Emma expressed her warm gratitude.33 After this short conversation the ministers of Transport and Public Works and Colonial Affairs spoke with the governor-general. The men repeatedly emphasized that radiotelephony, along with radio broadcasting and aviation, would bridge the distance between the Netherlands and the Indies, forming ever-closer ties between the two parts of the Dutch realm.34 The royal inaugurations of 1927 and 1929 both breathed a mix of sentimentality about the ties between the Netherlands and the Indies and optimism about the possibilities of further strengthening the colonial relation with the help of radio technology that was pioneered by Dutch engineers. In general, the papers aligned with the major ‘pillars’ were positive about the successful radio broadcast and telephone conversation. But there were also dissonant opinions, particularly in the organs of the political left.35 Many reports on the broadcast of 1 June 1927 announced that the royal 31 ‘leuk denkbeeld’, ‘met U allen mag spreken’, ‘niet meer geheel een vreemde’. ‘H.M. de Koningin en Princes Juliana spreken tot de kolonien’, Nieuwe Tilburgse Courant, 2 June 1927. 32 ‘Inleiding’, in: F. Steijlen and E. Willems (eds), Met ons alles goed: Brieven en films uit Nederlands-Indië van de familie Kuyck (Zutphen/Leiden, 2008), 17. 33 ‘Het telefoongesprek der Koningin-moeder met mevr. De Graeff ’, Het Vaderland, 8 January 1929. 34 ‘Opening van het telefoon-verkeer met Nederl.-Indië’, Het Vaderland, 7 January 1929. 35 This assertion is based on key-word searches in Delpher, the newspaper databank of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, for material from 28 May to 3 June 1927, and 7 to 13 January 1929.

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speeches had been heard ‘word for word’ in the Indies, quoting a cable from De Groot from Bandung.36 The Communist newspaper De Tribune, known for its anti-colonial stance, mocked these elated reports in a satirical editorial entitled ‘Radio Interferences’. The article contained fictive excerpts from the Queen’s speech to the colonies in the West, which implied that the broadcast was inaudible at crucial passages.37 The same thing happened in January 1929, when the journalists of the papers of the major ‘pillars’ who were present in The Hague at the inauguration of the telephone connection described the event as a historical moment, despite the fact that parts of the speech of the governor-general had been impossible to hear. The reporter of the liberal Algemeen Handelsblad provided a poetic explanation for these interferences: ‘It was as if huge bells tolled, maybe to announce the triumph of the Dutch enterprising spirit and of the Dutch technique through the ether.’38 In contrast, De Tribune published a damning editorial. The remark of the governor-general that the Dutch communication lines from now on would be safe from external interference was countered as follows. ‘Now they can continue unhindered with the exploitation of brown bodies and the hanging of rebellious elements.’39 Considering the overall reactions in the Dutch press in the interwar years, however, such explicit anti-colonial remarks were exceptional at the time, issued by a relatively small group of leftists. 40 By publishing the official speeches given at the 1927 and 1929 inaugurations, the newspapers of the major pillars welcomed radio technology as an important reinforcement of the colonial bond between the Netherlands and the Indies, emphasizing the feelings of unity that this connection evoked amongst groups of Dutchmen in both the metropole and colony. The events also contributed to the Dutch imagined community in another way. Several editorials expressed great pride in the achievement of the engineers who beat their colleagues in other European countries in establishing a wireless connection with its overseas dependencies. In fact, the Dutch signal also reached many other places in the world. In June 1927 the British Broadcasting 36 ‘woord voor woord’. See for example: Algemeen Handelsblad, NRC and Het Vaderland, 2 June 1927. 37 ‘Radio Storingen’, De Tribune, 3 June 1927. 38 ‘Het was alsof geweldige klokken luidden, misschien wel om de zegepraal van den Ne­ derlandschen ondernemingsgeest en van de Nederlandsche techniek door het luchtruim te verkondigen’. Algemeen Handelsblad, 8 January 1929. 39 ‘Nu kan men ongestoord door gaan met het uitzuigen der bruine lichamen en het ophangen van oproerige elementen.’ ‘Holland-Indië per telefoon’, De Tribune, 10 January 1929. 40 See also: H. Blom, De muiterij op de Zeven Provinciën (Bussum, 1975), 278.

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Corporation asked Philips to transmit its broadcasts to far-flung territories in the British Empire, such as South Africa. The fact that the imperial broadcasts were not transmitted from London, but from Eindhoven, led to bouts of chauvinism in the press. As one correspondent from Cape Town reported: ‘It [the broadcast] was a great success and it has shown us again miraculously what little Holland is capable of.’41 As such the experiments of the late 1920s sparked great optimism about the Dutch global communication lines, which seemed stronger than ever, even surpassing British radio. At the time, various authors invoked the spirit of the ‘Golden Age’ of the seventeenth century, when Dutch ships ruled the waves; in the 1920s ‘the voice of the Netherlands rules the world’. 42

‘Hello Bandung!’ In addition to the pompous reflections of high-ranking members of government and opinion makers on the importance of aviation and radio for the prestige of the Dutch Empire, these technologies affected the daily experiences of many individuals overseas. In the Indies expatriates attached great value to maintaining contact with the family back home and the advent of new media facilitated matters. The KLM mail services were popular and the arrival of planes was publicly announced, allowing people to await letters from their loved ones. In addition to the increased speed of the mail delivery, there was also a notable increase in the amount of correspondence.43 Such documents provide rich sources when studying the daily life of Dutch expatriates in the colony. In recent years an increasing number of collections have been made available through the archives and some pioneering publications give a taste of this material, such as the publication of the letters of Rien Kuyck, the wife of an engineer of the Radio Holland broadcasting station. During the family’s stay in the Indies between 1924 and 1930 she wrote a large number of letters to her parents in The Hague. In 2008 a selection from this collection was published, accompanied by a DVD with a compilation of films shot by Rien’s husband. 41 ‘Het geheel was een groot succes en het heeft ons weer wonderlijk bewezen wat little Holland kan doen’. ‘Philips in Zuid-Afrika gehoord’, Het Vaderland, 14 June 1927. 42 ‘de stem van Nederland beheerscht de wereld’. Hallo Bandoeng! Hier Den Haag! Herinneringen aan de Eerste radiotelefoongesprekken tusschen Nederland & Nederlandsch-Indië in MCMXXVIII (The Hague, 1928), 46. 43 ‘Inleiding’: in Steijlen and Willems (eds), Met ons alles goed, 13-14.

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Through the work of her husband, Rien Kuyck experienced the new colonial media at first hand, which made a great impression on her. In June 1927 she and her husband were present on the premises of Radio Holland in Batavia (Priok) together with high-ranking guests from the colonial administration to listen to the royal speeches that were broadcasted from the Netherlands. She reported how the queen’s and the princess’ words made a great impression on all those present in the room: ‘it was truly moving, all those heads bowing, listening carefully’. 44 Although this occasion filled Rien with a sense of pride, talking to her family back home really was an emotive experience. In April 1928, the Kuycks were invited to make a free test telephone call to their relatives in The Hague. A few days later Rien described that moment in an ecstatic letter to her parents. What was it like for you, dears, we were so elated!! The voices were so clearly recognizable. […] Later we said to one another: We don’t really care about what was said. The sound of familiar voices was enough for us. The distance disappeared completely, we felt as if we were in The Hague. 45

On the other end of the line, in the Netherlands, people calling with their loved ones overseas expressed similar feelings. The national telephone company, PTT, which was to operate the service, published an anthology of newspaper articles as a ‘lasting testimony’ of the ‘memorable’ period of the test calls in 1928.46 The articles generally emphasized how radio technology bound people from the metropole and the colony with, as the title of one article summarized, ‘wireless ties’. 47 One recurring theme in the volume was the technological advancement that had made it all possible; many of the articles mentioned the magical 12,000 kilometres that had been bridged through the ether. Secondly, all of the articles contained vivid descriptions of the emotional scenes at the telephone booths. The authors in the volume sporadically mentioned the economic and political hegemony of Dutch colonial rule in the Indies, for example, by noting a ‘down-to-earth’ discussion 44 ‘het was echt ontroerend, al die gebogen hoofden met inspanning luisterende’. Rien Kuyck to family, 3 June 1927, in: Steijlen and Willems (eds), Met ons alles goed, 95. 45 ‘Hoe vonden jullie het toch, lieve menschen, wij waren zo opgetogen!! De stemmen waren zo duidelijk te herkennen. […] Wij zeiden later allemaal tegen elkaar: het kan ons eigenlijk heelemaal niets schelen wat er gezegd werd. Het geluid van de bekende stemmen was ons al genoeg. De afstand viel helemaal weg, we voelden ons als het ware in Den Haag’. Rien Kuyck to family, 1 May 1928, in: Steijlen and Willems (eds), Met ons alles goed, 108. 46 ‘blijvende getuigenis’. Hallo Bandoeng!, 90. 47 ‘draadlooze banden’. Ibid., 54.

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between two businessmen. 48 They also, however, reported extensively on normal conversations within normal families. All of the journalists noted how callers at first marvelled over the fact that they could hear their loved ones’ voices, whom they had missed for such a long time. After the initial emotional shock was over, reporters mentioned, ‘they [the people talking on the telephone] don’t know what to say, the words keep becoming trivial. […] How is Tom? – Which Tom? – The dog. – Oh, completely well again. – Is granny there? – No, granny did not come.’49 Such quotes give the impression that the telephone connection was being used by normal people for making normal calls. In fact, the telephone service which off icially started operating in January 1929 was very expensive: 11 guilders per minute, a substantial sum in those days.50 It is therefore unlikely that many people in the Netherlands could afford to make social calls to the Indies after the test period. Nonetheless, the image that was invoked in the 1928 volume of the PTT – of normal families talking to each other via the wireless – was strong in popular culture. In 1929 the entertainer Willy Derby released a song about an old lady calling her son in the Indies, which became a classic croon. Through the telephone the son introduces the old lady to her grandchild, a boy with a ‘brown’, Indonesian mother. Typically for Dutch croons, the song has a bittersweet end as the old lady perishes on the phone while her coloured grandson bids her farewell in Malay: ‘tabe’.51 Both the PPT volume from 1928 and Willy Derby’s song from 1929 carried the title ‘Hello Bandung’ (in Dutch: ‘Hallo Bandoeng’), which at the time were winged words denoting the colonial radio connection between the Netherlands and the Indies. The phrase referred to the Malabar radio station, the most important wireless communication hub of the Indies in the interwar years, where the signals from the Netherlands were picked up and sent to other stations in the archipelago. The complex, which was built in the middle of a wild jungle, was a powerful symbol of colonial radio and the site instantly became a tourist attraction.52 In later decades the location remained a place of memory, which up to today attracts people interested 48 ‘nuchter-zakelijke’. Ibid., 10. 49 ‘weten ze niet meer te zeggen, worden de woorden steeds banaal. […] Hoe gaat het met Tom? – Welke Tom? – De hond. – O, helemaal beter. – Is opoe er ook? – Nee, opoe is niet meegekomen.’ Ibid., 30. 50 Steijlen and Willems (eds), Met ons alles goed, 17. 51 ‘bruine’. The song is available on YouTube; accessed at: http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=0130cvtfaOU on 05-8-2013. 52 Mrázek, Engineers of Happy Land, 170.

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in the history of radio broadcasting, although Japanese soldiers destroyed the original structures at the end of the Second World War and only ruins remain. In 2011 radio amateurs from Indonesia and the Netherlands launched a website devoted to ‘The Malabar Project: A Digital Archeology of the Biggest Historical Transmitter in Indonesia’. The team visited the site of the old station and mapped the fundaments of the main structures in the highlands near Bandung. In May 2013, people in the Netherlands and Indonesia exchanged historic Morse code telegrams via long-wave radio, to commemorate the 90-year anniversary of the first connection between Malabar and Kootwijk.53 In the Netherlands the main heritage site of the colonial radio is well preserved. The station at Kootwijk was used for naval radio broadcasts until 2000, when the complex was handed over to the government. The site has been put on the national monument’s list and is open to the public. The iconic main building, which has been described by historians of architecture as a ‘cathedral’ and compared with the Taj Mahal, stands out in the desolate landscape of the Veluwe national park.54 Aside from incidental events and exhibitions, the site does not have a structural function yet. In 2009 the national Forestry Commission (Staatsbosbeheer) published a report about the redevelopment of Radio Kootwijk, a project that will be finished in 2015. There is a great deal of continuity with previous representations of the location, which is illustrated by the title of the report that contains the old phrase (in colonial spelling) ‘Hallo Bandoeng!…’.55 In a shortlist of ‘core terms’ the history of the site is mentioned as a ‘source of inspiration’. The plan does contain references to ‘connections between east and west’, but the word ‘colonial’ is conspicuously absent.56 Nonetheless the authors expect that future visitors will experience the same ‘poignancy and emotions’ as the people who pioneered the radio connection between the Netherlands and the Indies in the 1920s.57 Apparently, the winged words ‘Hello Bandung’ still resonate in the Netherlands and invoke a sentimental picture of colonial radio that contributes to the present Dutch imagined community.

53 Accessed at: http://radiomalabar.wordpress.com on 05-08-2013. 54 R. Dettingmeijer, W.Reinink and J. Roding, ‘Hallo Bandoeng. Een kathedraal van beton op de Veluwe’, Wonen-TA/BK 2 (1979), 7-23, 8. 55 ‘Hallo Bandoeng!…’ ‘Hier Radio Kootwijk!’ Visie en voorstellen van Staatsbosbeheer voor de herontwikkeling van Radio Kootwijk (The Hague, 2009). 56 ‘kernbegrippen’, ‘inspiratiebron’, ‘verbindingen tussen oost en west’. Ibid., 10-11. 57 ‘ontroering en emoties’. Ibid., 7.

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Conclusion In the twentieth century, the development of technology was intertwined with state formation in the Dutch Empire, both in the Netherlands and its colony in Southeast Asia. Modern infrastructure facilitated the expansion of the Dutch colonial state in the Indonesian archipelago. This process was contested and colonial officials feared that internal and external enemies would use the same technology to harm their regime in the Indies. During the First World War, when the Netherlands was isolated from the colony by the British and Indonesian nationalism emerged, these fears in many ways climaxed. These worries fostered renewed efforts to strengthen the ties between the metropole and the colony by developing new technologies. In the 1920s, Dutch engineers pioneered the fields of aviation and radio, and both technologies had a significant impact on the colonial communication lines, enabling a more voluminous and a faster exchange of information. This development strengthened the bonds of the Dutch Empire – a fact that, despite several dissident voices, was celebrated by many opinion makers in the Netherlands. These commentaries also show that colonial communication lines affected metropolitan society in the Netherlands. The idea that the colony in the East was important for the national well-being was widely prevalent in public opinion – that at the time was dominated by the newspapers of the four main ‘pillars’. The official inaugurations of the wireless connections in 1927 (radio broadcasting) and 1929 (telephone) were dressed as historical events with the royal house, a potent national symbol, taking centre stage. At these occasions high officials delivered speeches in which they emphasized how modern technology had nullified the great distance between the metropole and the colony, contributing to the unity of the various parts of the Dutch Empire. The majority of the newspapers copied these pompous reflections. The national pride was heightened even further by the fact that the Netherlands was outdoing its colonial rivals in radio technology. In the late 1920s it was as if Holland ruled the air waves. Such newspaper articles, in which the medium radio was the message, show that the development of modern radio technology strengthened the Dutch imagined community not only by connecting people in different parts of the world, but also by celebrating this achievement as a feat that bolstered the international prestige of the Netherlands. Moreover, the praise for colonial radio was not simply an elitist pastime. Although the access to radio telephony was limited because of the high tariffs, a popular image emerged during the test period in 1928 when members of the general

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public were invited to talk to their loved ones overseas for free. The reports on these experiments focused on the calls of normal families, who were overwhelmed with emotion when they heard familiar voices from afar. Such sentiments were captured in the popular phrase ‘Hello Bandung’. Until today this one-liner continues to pop up occasionally in public discourse in the Netherlands, and it is central to the recently launched plan to redevelop the heritage site of radio history at Kootwijk. The colonial air waves still reverberate in the present-day Dutch imagined community.

About the author Vincent Kuitenbrouwer is Assistant Professor in the History of International Relations at the University of Amsterdam. He specialized in nineteenth- and twentieth-century imperial history and has a special interest in colonial media. He is currently working on the history of Dutch international radio broadcasting. His publications include: ‘“A Newspaper War”? The Dutch Press and the South African War’, BMGN – Low Countries Historical Review 128:1 (2013), 127-150; ‘The First World War and the Birth of Dutch Colonial Radio’, World History Bulletin 31:1 (2015) 28-31; ‘Radio as a tool of empire. Colonial broadcasting from the Netherlands to the Dutch East Indies in the 1920s and 1930s’, Itinerario. International Journal on the History of European Expansion and Global Interaction, 40:1 (2016) 83-103.

7

Indonesian Nationalism in the Netherlands, 1920s-1930s Long-Distance Internationalism of Elite Pilgrims in Homogeneous, Empty Time Klaas Stutje

Abstract This chapter analyses the position of the Perhimpoenan Indonesia, an Indonesian students’ association in the Netherlands in the interwar era which has been widely recognized as a trailblazing organization within the Indonesian political landscape, in relation to concepts from the work of Benedict Anderson. There has been an evolution in the thinking of Anderson, in which he replaced the strictly comparative framework of Imagined Communities with a global conception of nationalism in Under Three Flags, in which travelling ideas and intellectuals were of central importance. In this sense, expatriate communities such as the Indonesian students in the Perhimpoenan Indonesia were repositioned from being eccentric to the Indonesian political landscape to being in the centre of the international stage. Keywords: Perhimpoenan Indonesia, Indonesian nationalism, student associations, long-distance nationalism, imagined community, homogeneous, empty time

In February 1922, the Indonesian students’ association in the Netherlands changed its name from Indische Vereeniging (Indies’ Association) to Indone­ sische Vereeniging (Indonesian Association, later translated in Perhimpoenan Indonesia). Two years later, it also renamed its journal Hindia Poetra (Sons of the Indies), which was now called Indonesia Merdeka (Indonesia Free). The new names signalized the advent of a new national imagined community

Blok, Gemma, Kuitenbrouwer, Vincent and Weeda, Claire (eds): Imagining Communities. Historical Reflections on the Process of Community Formation. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018 doi: 10.5117/9789462980037_ch07

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among Indonesians in the Netherlands, and symbolized the political transformation of the organization into the advanced post of the Indonesian national movement in Europe.1 This chapter will reposition the Indonesian Association in the Netherlands – which has been widely recognized as a trailblazing organization within the Indonesian political landscape – in its European and international context. It will also show how concepts in the work of the late Benedict Anderson, such as imagined communities, long-distance nationalism and homogeneous, empty time, have contributed to our understanding of the political value of expatriate organizations and communities such as the Indonesian Association in the Netherlands. The first Indonesian students arrived in the Netherlands around the turn of the twentieth century. These young elites had come to the Netherlands for an academic education in disciplines such as medicine, law and economics, and lived in university towns such as Leiden, Utrecht and Amsterdam. The community grew from a few dozen people in the first two decades of the twentieth century, to up to around 175 people in the peak years before the Great Depression.2 In 1908, a few students established the Indische Vereeni­ ging. Initially, it was a loyalist social club, comprising almost all Indonesian students in the Netherlands and organizing informative lectures, tourist excursions, and musical performances. In practical terms, the organization facilitated communal dining, finding accommodation, and providing a social environment for its members. After the First World War an explosive cocktail of disillusionment with Dutch colonial policy, the influx of politically experienced activists and students from the Dutch Indies, and a relatively free political environment in the Netherlands, culminated in the development of critical and anti-colonial ideas within the association. With the name change of Indische Vereeniging to Indonesische Vereeniging, the students rejected the imposed name of ‘the Dutch Indies’ and demeaning terms such as ‘inlander’ and ‘inheems’ (‘native’ or ‘indigenous’). The slogan ‘merdeka’, or ‘freedom’, indicated that the 1 See also: K. Stutje, Behind the Banner of Unity: Nationalism and Anticolonialism among Indonesian Students in Europe, 1917-1931 (PhD thesis, University of Amsterdam, 2006); K. Stutje, ‘Indonesian Identities Abroad: International Engagement of Colonial Students in the Netherlands, 1908-1931’ BMGN – Low Countries Historical Review 128 (2013), 151-172; K. Stutje, ‘To Maintain an Independent Course: Interwar Indonesian Nationalism and International Communism on a Dutch-European Stage’, Dutch Crossing 39 (2015), 198-214. 2 These numbers do not include Peranakan Chinese, Dutch and Eurasian students coming to the Netherlands: H. Poeze, In het land van de overheerser, Vol. 1: Indonesiërs in Nederland 1600-1950 (Dordrecht, 1986), 223 and 278; Stutje, ‘Indonesian Identities Abroad’; Stutje, ‘To Maintain an Independent Course’.

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students were no longer hoping for reforms within the colonial system, and only had confidence in complete independence.3 In 1925, the board issued a new set of nationalist principles, emphasizing that colonial oppression could only be confronted with self-conscious and unified mass action. 4 The organization, now comprising around 50 members, no longer relied on collaboration and good relations with benevolent Dutchmen, and loyalist ideas on assimilation and modernization under Western guidance. In 1925, the political transformation was symbolically completed with a second name change from the Indonesische Vereeniging to its Malay translation, the Perhimpoenan Indonesia (Indonesian Association, PI), and it was under this name that the organization acquired prominence. The students of the Perhimpoenan Indonesia have received considerable scholarly attention. Many of the Indonesians who once studied in the Netherlands – Mohammad Hatta, Soetan Sjahrir, and Ali Sastroamidjojo to name but a few – would play a crucial role as politicians upon returning to the colony. During the Japanese occupation and in the early post-colonial period, former PI students occupied important positions, of whom the first vice-president Mohammad Hatta again is a good example. Furthermore, Indonesia scholars have consistently recognized the ideological influence of the Perhimpoenan Indonesia on the emerging Indonesian movement for independence. As early as 1931, Petrus Blumberger, a government official and author of the first handbook on Indonesian nationalism, regarded the post1922 Indonesian association ‘as the precursor of the Indonesian nationalist movement’.5 This was acknowledged in Kahin’s 1952 classic on Indonesian nationalism, in which the PI was characterized as ‘of greatest importance in determining the character of the Indonesian nationalist movement’.6 More recently Elson remarked that ‘the Netherlands was the major site for the development and refining of new ideas about the nature and trajectory of the strange new concept of Indonesia’, while Ingleson even started his work on the Indonesian nationalist movement between 1927 and 1934 with a preceding chapter on student activism in the Netherlands from 1922 onwards.7 Despite this generally recognized importance of the Perhimpoenan Indonesia in Indonesian political history, scholars refrained from theorizing on its expatriate location and international field of action. Why were these 3 ‘Voorwoord’ Indonesia Merdeka 2 (March 1924), 1. 4 ‘Bestuurswisseling’ Indonesia Merdeka 3 (February 1925), 3. 5 P. Blumberger, De nationalistische beweging in Nederlandsch-Indië (Haarlem, 1931), 187. 6 G. Kahin, Nationalism and Revolution in Indonesia (Ithaca, 1952), 88-89. 7 R.E. Elson, The Idea of Indonesia: A History (Cambridge, 2009), 45; J. Ingleson, Road to Exile: The Indonesian Nationalist Movement, 1927-1934 (Singapore, 1980), 1-18.

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important steps in the genesis of the Indonesian national movement taken in Europe? Some scholars have focused on the political talent of individual students, while others explained the advent of the PI in structural terms.8 The students in the Netherlands, for instance, were shielded from the quarrelsome and divisive Indonesian political landscape, and enjoyed relative freedom from colonial state repression.9 Scholars also mentioned that the Indonesian students in the Netherlands received ‘Western’ ideas, either through their Dutch university curriculum or through contact with Dutch political activists and movements.10 Many of these factors indeed played a role, but they share an ‘internalist’ approach in which the radicalization of the PI is either interpreted in an Indonesian, or in a Dutch-Imperial framework. It is important, however, to recognize that the Perhimpoenan Indonesia was not only relevant for the Indonesian political landscape, but also bore significance in relation to the wider world of anti-colonial resistance. The PI was uniquely positioned on the European stage, which facilitated direct relations with inspiring anti-colonial movements abroad, and stimulated the self-conception of the students to be ambassadors of the yet-to-beindependent state of Indonesia. ‘Foreign relations’ with movements such as the Indian National Congress or the Chinese Guomindang Party engendered the students of the Perhimpoenan Indonesia’s reputation in the Dutch Indies, and propelled their political careers. It provided a direct stimulus for organizations back home to elevate the small student organization to an advanced post of the Indonesian national movement on the international stage. A scholar who at an early stage provided the theoretical basis for understanding the ideological evolution and political prominence of the PI – in the Indonesian political context and in a wider global context – was Benedict Anderson. With terms such as ‘imagined communities’, ‘print-capitalism’ and ‘long-distance nationalism’, he coined concepts that gained huge traction, although he was well aware that fame risked to overshadow their original theoretical depth.11 In the next pages, a few concepts from the work of Anderson will be critically discussed in relation to the history of Indonesian nationalism on an international stage. It will be argued that 8 Ingleson, Road to Exile, 3; J. Ingelson, Perhimpunan Indonesia and the Indonesian Nationalist Movement, 1923-1928 (Victoria, 1975), 4; R. van Niel, The Emergence of the Modern Indonesian Elite (The Hague, 1960), 224. 9 Ingleson, Road to Exile, 2-4; Van Niel, The Emergence, 223. 10 Elson, The Idea of Indonesia, 45, 51 and 58. 11 For example, in the 1991 preface of Imagined Communities and its afterword of 2006: B. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, 3rd, rev. ed. (London/New York, 2006), xi, xii, 207 note 1.

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Imagined Communities, more than three decades after its publication, still contains valuable elements to see the Perhimpoenan Indonesia as at both a nationalist and an internationalist organization.

Long-distance nationalism: A problematic concept Despite his scholarly background in Indonesian history and a lifelong dedication to the history of nationalism, Benedict Anderson did not devote much attention to the Perhimpoenan Indonesia. In fact, he mentioned the Perhimpoenan Indonesia only once, in a published lecture paper on ‘longdistance nationalism’ in 1992.12 In this paper Anderson took the emergence of Indonesian nationalist thought in the Netherlands as an example of ‘nationality arising from exile’. From a safe distance from repression and political competition in the country of origin, exiled communities such as Tamils in Britain, Croats in Australia or Kurds in Germany agitated fanatically for the liberation of their motherland, lobbied with foreign governments and even sent money and guns to their compatriots back home. These communities did not participate substantially in the political life and future of their host countries, and remained largely focused on their ‘imagined heimat’: hence ‘long-distance nationalism’ (LDN).13 It remains unclear to what extent Anderson delimited the term as a recent phenomenon, related to innovations in transportation and telecommunication, or as a term that can also be applied to older cases. Either way, LDN is an invitation to scholars – historians and political scientists alike – to theorize about the effects of extraterritoriality, migration and exile on national thinking. At f irst glance, the Indonesian students in the Netherlands indeed engaged in what could be called long-distance nationalism. Their relative isolation from events in their country of origin did not prevent them from passionately supporting the emerging Indonesian national movement and condemning Dutch colonialism. Their participation in political debates was facilitated by the establishment of numerous Indonesian political newspapers and journals in the colony, and by improved communication lines between both parts of the Dutch Empire. But if we follow Anderson’s conceptualization of LDN, it is difficult to apply the term in relation to 12 B. Anderson, Long-Distance Nationalism: World Capitalism and the Rise of Identity Politics (Amsterdam, 1992), 3. 13 Ibid., 11-12. See also: B. Anderson, ‘Exodus’, Critical Inquiry 20 (1994), 314-327, here 327.

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the PI. Anderson gave the concept LDN a remarkably negative charge. He seems to condemn absentee nationalists, conducting politics ‘without responsibility or accountability’.14 The participant rarely pays taxes in the country in which he does his politics; he is not answerable to its judicial system; he probably does not cast even an absentee ballot in its elections because he is a citizen in a different place; he need not fear prison, torture or death, nor need his immediate family. But, well and safely positioned in the First World, he can send money and guns, circulate propaganda, and build intercontinental computer circuits, all of which can have incalculable consequences in zones of their ultimate destinations.15

In the revision of the article in 1998 Anderson even describes LDN as a ‘probably menacing portent for the future’.16 For our assessment of the PI, this negative framing is unproductive. When using qualifications such as irresponsibility and unaccountability, we need to take into account that these qualifications disproportionately affect oppositional groups above institutionalized groups. Were Dutch parishioners irresponsible, when they donated money for missionary activities in the colony, or Dutch patriotic groups, when they supported military expeditions in Aceh and Bali? Were Dutch parliamentary parties less unaccountable, when they supported repressive measures in the Dutch Indies, than the Perhimpoenan Indonesia, when it argued against them? Instead of condemning the passionate campaigns of nationalist activists it is more interesting to reflect on the particular circumstances, isolated from the country of origin but within a global constellation of anti-colonial struggles, in which these campaigns gained traction. Moreover, Anderson’s notion of LDN was mainly designed to describe the obsessive unidirectional relation of expatriate communities with their country of origin as a consequence of their embattled metropolitan ethnic identity. However, we should not forget that Croat nationalists in Australia engaged with their country of origin on the World Wide Web, and were aware that the success of their political campaign was dependent on contemporary international power relations in the larger Balkans and beyond. In a similar way, Indonesians in the Netherlands developed a distinctly internationalist 14 Anderson, Long-Distance Nationalism, 11. 15 B. Anderson, The Spectre of Comparisons: Nationalism, Southeast Asia and the World (London/ New York, 1998), 74. 16 Ibid.

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worldview as part of their new nationalist self-consciousness. Concurrently with the emergence of a nationalist leaning among Indonesians in the Netherlands, they started to engage with the world beyond the confines of the Dutch Empire. In their publications they wrote about developments in China, Syria and Morocco, and in the capitals of Europe they established connections with Chinese nationalists, Indian communists, and Vietnamese anti-colonial activists. It is more interesting to see how these communities engaged with their immediate political environment and the world beyond, than to focus on the relation with their country of origin alone. The effect of ‘distance’ in long-distance nationalism can thus be assessed in multiple ways. The term LDN is well received and has been applied to numerous case studies.17 Anderson himself, however, appears to have refrained from using the concept LDN in the remainder of his extensive oeuvre. Even in his 2005 book Under Three Flags, in which he wrote about ‘emigré nationalism’ of three expatriate Filipino nationalists in the end of the nineteenth century, and in his posthumously published memoirs, the term is not used.18

Imagined communities: The internationalism of nationalism To understand the rationale behind the prominence of the Perhimpoenan Indonesia within the Indonesian political landscape, long-distance nationalism may not be an adequate term. However, Anderson’s oeuvre as a whole offers many other starting points to theorize on the distinct international character of the Perhimpoenan Indonesia. In fact, he consistently interpreted the emergence of national thought and nationalist movements in an internationalist light. This is clearly so in Imagined Communities, the book published in 1983 that brought Anderson world fame, and best applied in the more recently published Under Three Flags. Imagined Communities, which was published a decade before the paper on long-distance nationalism, contains many observations that help to understand the nationalist politics of Indonesian students in the Netherlands. 17 To name just a few recent examples: U. Ziemer, ‘Belonging and Longing: Armenian Youth and Diasporic Long-Distance Nationalism in Contemporary Russia’, Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism 10 (2010), 290-303; C. Baeza, ‘Palestinians in Latin America: Between Assimilation and Long-Distance Nationalism’, Journal of Palestine Studies 43 (2014), 59-72; S. Thiranagama, ‘Making Tigers from Tamils: Long-Distance Nationalism and Sri Lankan Tamils in Toronto’, American Anthropologist 116 (2014), 265-278. 18 B. Anderson, Under Three Flags: Anarchism and the Anti-Colonial Imagination (London, 2005); B. Anderson, A Life Beyond Boudaries: A Memoir (London, 2016).

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The universities in Leiden, Delft and Amsterdam can be regarded as the final destinations of the ‘colonial educational pyramid’ that drew hundreds of elite youngsters from regional centres to the colonial capitals, and ultimately to the imperial metropoles. These elite ‘pilgrimages’ brought about a sense of commonality and unity among the various colonial subjects, a sense of all being ‘Indonesians’ under the rule of the Dutch.19 As one student, the future ambassador Arnold Mononutu, wrote in his memoirs: [T]he Indonesian students in the Netherlands, coming from various ethnic groups [suku] such as the Javanese, Sundanese, Minangkabau, Tapanuli, Minahasans, Amboinese and Timorese, realized that they all descended from the same Malayan family [rumpun Melayu], and were in the same colonial boat.20

Anderson aptly described that this educational system also created frustrated indigenous elites, which were trapped by the illusion that their European education would imply equality before the law.21 Whereas the first cohorts of Indonesian students generally recognized colonial rule, which after all allowed them to pursue a career in the colonial administration, students who arrived after the First World War grew increasingly pessimistic. Administrative restrictions and fierce commercial competition made a future in the world of business, trade and administration less secure than anticipated. An official government survey in 1928 showed that 25 per cent of the Western-educated Indonesians were unable to find jobs at their level of education, and this percentage rose dramatically with the economic turmoil of the 1930s. Frustrated students came to the conclusion that development of the colony and its population was impossible unless full independence would be achieved.22 Apart from these insightful observations, Imagined Communities also established the fundaments to think about nationalism and internationalism as integrated phenomena, although, as we will see, it was Under Three Flags which was most convincing in demonstrating it. After having published several works on Indonesian nationalism, it was an explicit aim 19 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 121-131. 20 R. Nalenan, Arnold Mononutu: Potret seorang patriot (Jakarta, 1981), 34: ‘Mahasiswamahasiswa Indonesia di negeri Belanda yang datang dari berbagai suku seperti: Jawa, Sunda, Minangkabau, Tapanuli, Minahasa, Ambon, Timor, merasa bahwa mereka semuanya berasal dari rumpun Melayu, yang kini senasib dalam keadaan terjajah.’ 21 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 92-93. 22 Kahin, Nationalism and Revolution, 33.

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of Anderson to demonstrate in Imagined Communities that the history of nationalism as an ideology was much broader than the nineteenth-century European ethno-linguistic manifestations of it. In his memoirs he stated: ‘The first target [of Imagined Communities] was the Eurocentrism I saw in the assumption that nationalism was born in Europe and then spread out in imitated forms to the rest of the world.’23 Indeed, there were differences between nationalist movements in various parts of the world, but these were related to particular forms of government and administration, to the social position of nationalist elites in various countries, and to developments in the sphere of communication and print-capitalism. In a 2001 article, he made it abundantly clear that there was no fundamental difference between ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ forms of nationalism.24 Instead, Anderson started his exploration of political nationalism in Imagined Communities not with Europe, but with the ‘creole’ movements for independence in the Americas in the eighteenth century, to ‘stress the New World origins of nationalism’.25 This emphasis on the extra-European articulations of nationalism is maintained in the remainder of the book. At least four chapters have a focus on colonial empires, non-western nationalisms and the making of an indigenous national bureaucratic elite in the colonies. Within a few sentences, Anderson draws parallels between colonial functionaries in Mexico and young pupils in West-African schools, and between Meiji Japan and the Habsburg Empire, making Imagined Communities remarkably wide in geographic scope and ambitious in effort. Despite this distinctly global approach, Anderson seemed to struggle in Imagined Communities with the global interconnection between various ‘local’ manifestations of nationalism. Were they to be seen as more or less simultaneous local reactions to – indeed – international phenomena such as colonization, mass migration and print-capitalism, or as part of an integrated transnational and even global political ideology? Despite the fact that Anderson described nationalism as ‘modular’, and capable of being ‘transplanted’ to a great variety of terrains, Imagined Communities remained predominantly a comparative work, going from case to case to disclose their common roots and mechanism.26 He does not make explicit how 23 B. Anderson, ‘Frameworks of Comparison: Benedict Anderson Reflects on his Intellectual Formation’, London Review of Books 38 (January 2016), 15-18, 18; Anderson, A Life Beyond Boundaries, 126 and 155. 24 B. Anderson, ‘Western Nationalism and Eastern Nationalism: Is There a Difference That Matters?’, New Left Review 9 (May-June 2001), 31-42. 25 Anderson, Imagined Communities, xiii. 26 Ibid., 4, 81, 135.

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national models were transformed in the process of transplantation, and by whom exactly. In the context of independence movements in the Americas, Anderson uses the term ‘piracy’, suggesting that foreign national models were actively appropriated by nationalists and adjusted to new circumstances, but in the remainder of the book the relation between ‘external’ inspiration or imitation, and ‘internal’ imagination remains somewhat unclear.27

Homogeneous, empty time: Developing a synchronic global historical consciousness Yet, Anderson’s observations with regards to changing apprehensions of time and space provide the key to surpass these notions of ‘internality’ and ‘externality’ and to replace them with an interpretation of nationalism and internationalism as integrated phenomena. In the second chapter of Imagined Communities, Anderson introduced a term of Walter Benjamin, ‘homogeneous, empty time’, to characterize modern conceptions of time that consist of measurable timescales of minutes, days and years. The fact that we are able to imagine our own position on a timeline not only provides us with a notion of (a perceived national) past and (a desired nationalist) future, but also with a sense of simultaneity of events; of being a member of a nationally imagined community, moving steadily towards the future with other members of this community.28 This important observation paved the way for a characterisation of the nation as a disembodied but nonetheless ‘imagined community’, and it is this aspect that has been most applied by other scholars. However, this notion of ‘homogeneous, empty time’ binding communities together can also be extended to international imaginations. Discussing the emergence of newspapers, Anderson asks:

27 Ibid., 81. The Indian historian Partha Chatterjee similarly attacked the concept of ‘modularity’ because it reduced national movements in Asia and Africa to being ‘derivatives’ of European and American models. I believe that this objection is not fully justified. ‘America’ in Anderson’s work is clearly not confined to the United States and includes eighteenth-century colonial South America. In Anderson’s definition, these colonized societies provided the models for European nationalisms, rather than the other way around: P. Chatterjee, ‘Whose Imagined Community?’, in: G. Balakrishnan (ed.), Mapping the Nation (London, 2012), 214-225, here 216. For an elaborate discussion of both Anderson’s and Chatterjee’s work, see: R. Karl, Staging the World: Chinese Nationalism at the Turn of the Twentieth Century (Durham, 2002), 7-8. 28 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 22-26.

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What is the essential literary convention of the newspaper? If we were to look at a sample front page of, say, The New York Times, we might find there stories about Soviet dissidents, famine in Mali, [and] a coup in Iraq. […] Why are these events so juxtaposed? What connects them to each other? […] [It is] calendrical coincidence. The date at the top of the newspaper, the single most important emblem on it, provides the essential connection – the steady onward clocking of homogeneous, empty time.29

This assertion helps us to understand how print-capitalism not only stimulated Indonesians in the early twentieth century to imagine themselves being part of 60 million other Indonesians, but also made them aware of being Indonesians in a world full of other peoples. This perceived global synchronicity of events – more than the modular character of their nationalist ideas – was a crucial precondition for the development of anti-colonial thought among the students in the Netherlands. Around the year that the Indonesian student association changed the name of its journal from Hindia Poetra to Indonesia Merdeka, the international stage took on a new and much more prominent role in the imagination of the students. With regards to foreign news, Indonesia Merdeka was no longer a journal primarily focused on the position of the Dutch Indies within the colonial realm. It became a nationalist propaganda journal with a characteristic interest in nationalist struggles elsewhere. One of the articles read: The bombshell has dropped. The fuse has been smouldering already for quite a while. In the hearts of the so-called uncultivated the bitter hatred against whites, which has long been dormant, has ignited. Yonder in Morocco, yonder the cannons roar. Blood-stained bayonets flash brightly in the moonlight. […] Yonder in Cairo, yonder passionate nationalists are sent to the gallows. […] Yonder in China murderous British bullets pierce the bodies of Chinese students. […] And yonder in Indonesia? In our Fatherland? ‘Inaudible the rice fields grow.’30 29 Ibid., 33. 30 ‘Ginds…,’ Indonesia Merdeka 3 (August-September 1925), 85-89: ‘De bom is gebarsten. Lang reeds heeft de lont gesmeuld. In de harten der z.g. van oncultuur bevangenen ontwaakt de blankenhaat, die jaren gesluimerd heeft. Ginds in Marokko. Ginds dreunt het kanongebulder. Met menschenbloed bezoedelde bajonetten flikkeren fel in het maanlicht. […] Ginds in Cairo. Ginds bengelen vurige nationalisten aan den strop. […] Ginds in China drongen moordende Engelsche kogels in de lichamen van Chineesche studenten. […] En ginds in Indonesia? In ons Vaderland? “Onhoorbaar groeit (er), de padi.”’

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At the end of 1925, the association issued a manifesto ‘to the Indonesian nation’, in which it urged the various political forces in the Dutch Indies to come together and unite. As an encouragement, the manifesto read: ‘Look at Egypt, look at Morocco, look at Syria! [Look at the] indomitable and unbreakable will of the nation. Look at China, which doesn’t allow the foreigners humiliate her.’31 In other words, the emergence of a national self-consciousness within the PI went hand in hand with an expanding synchronic global imagined community of anti-colonial peoples: a ‘rising tide of colour’. The examples set by other nationalist movements, and the professionalism displayed in anti-colonial politics worldwide, made the students aware of a reality beyond that of everyday politics in the Dutch Indies. In April 1924 the editors wrote in an anniversary issue of Indonesia Merdeka: ‘The arising country of Indonesia consciously tries to evaluate the position it occupies within the international community. It feels that it constitutes an independent link in the great world chain.’32 The international context gave them a reason to criticise the Dutch colonial authorities when they did not comply with the tendency for democratization that seemed to push boundaries worldwide. It could even make sacrifices more bearable against the backdrop of those made by colonized peoples around the world. The international articles in Indonesia Merdeka intended to inform the readers about the commonalities and differences of the Indonesian struggle for independence with other movements in the colonized world. Interestingly, some of these articles both expressed a notion of simultaneity and backwardness. In March 1924, for example, the political atmosphere in the Dutch Indies and the gradual alienation of the ‘moderate’ Indonesian party Sarekat Islam from the Volksraad (People’s Council, the representative body in the Dutch East Indies) was related to contemporary radicalization in British India. ‘It is curious, how political developments in these two colonized countries correspond, although our big neighbour turned to action far more early.’33 In another article, the burgeoning desire for higher education in the Dutch 31 ‘Ziet naar Egypte, ziet naar Marokka [sic], ziet naar Syrië! Daar is een onverzettelijke en onvernietigbare wil der natie. Ziet naar China, die zich niet vernederen laat door de willekeur der buitenlanders.’ Nationaal Archief, Den Haag (NL-HaNa), Ministerie van Koloniën: Geheim Archief [periode 1901-1940], nummer toegang 2.10.36.51, inv. nr. 280, 2 July 1926 S10, Manifest van de Perhimpoenan Indonesia aan de Indonesische natie!, d.d. 25 December 1925. 32 ‘Ons lustrumnummer’ Indonesia Merdeka 2 (April 1924), 17: ‘Bewust tracht het opkomende Indonesië zich hier rekenschap te geven van de plaats, die Indonesië inneemt in de internationale gemeenschap. Men voelt, dat men een zelfstandigen schakel vormt in de groote wereldketen.’ 33 ‘De situatie in Indonesië’ Indonesia Merdeka 2 (March 1924), 7-10: ‘merkwaardig, hoe de politieke ontwikkeling van deze twee overheerschte landen elkaar dekt, zij het ook, dat onze groote buurman de actie veel eerder heeft ingezet’.

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Indies was compared with the already existing and successful education systems in Japan and the Philippines. Implicitly and explicitly, the message was conveyed that the Indonesian nationalists were part of a broader international movement but were also being held back by their own colonial masters.34

Long-distance internationalism The emergence of a synchronic global historical consciousness – a term borrowed from Sinologue Rebecca Karl in relation to the Anderson-Chatterjee debate35 – was of course not the exclusive preserve of Indonesian students in the Netherlands. A similar awareness was visible among political organizations and journals in the Dutch Indies. However, what made the PI unique was the fact that the students were well positioned in Europe to establish contacts with other anti-colonial activists and to represent the Indonesian movement abroad. From around the nationalist turn of the Indonesian association, the students began to undertake journeys to imperial capitals in Europe and to attend international conferences and meetings. They actively tried to embody the imagined community of anti-colonial activists. The principle aim of the students was to introduce their country to the foreign public and to draw the world’s attention to their national claims. How literally this task should be understood, can be derived from a speech that PI student Hatta gave in 1926 at an international congress in Bierville, near Paris. In fluent French, he said: It is without a doubt for the first time that you hear speak of Indonesia, and I hope it won’t be the last. Indonesia is the name of the Sunda Archipelago, composed of Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Celebes and other islands, with a population of more than 50 million inhabitants, situated between the Asian continent and Australia, neighbour of the Philippines.36 34 ‘Onderwijsproblemen’ Indonesia Merdeka 2 (1924), 24-27. 35 Karl, Staging the World, 7-8; R. Karl, ‘Staging the World in Late-Qing China: Globe, Nation, and Race in a 1904 Beijing Opera’, Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 6 (2000), 551-606, here 553; S. Conrad, What Is Global History? (Princeton, 2016), 81-88. 36 Mohammad Hatta, ‘L’Indonesie et la Paix’, in: M. Hatta, Verspreide Geschriften, ed. Arnold Mononutu et al. (Jakarta, 1952), 154-155: ‘C’est sans doute pour la première fois que vous entendez de parler de l’Indonésie, j’espère que ce ne sera pas la dernière. L’Indonésie est le nom de l’Archipel de la Sonde, composé de Sumatra, Java, Bornéo, Célébes et autres îles, avec une population de plus de cinquante millions d’habitants, se trouvant entre le continent de l’Asie et l’Australie, voisin des Philippines.’

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By sketching the contours of the archipelago island by island, Hatta literally placed Indonesia on the world map. The fact that the name ‘Indonesia’ was officially adopted at the congress, was deemed the most important result for the Indonesians so far.37 In order to establish a permanent base abroad, the PI sent a permanent representative to Paris, which had famously become ‘the capital of the men without a country’.38 In January 1925 the vice-president of the association, the aforementioned Arnold Mononutu, arrived in the French capital to seek contact with Asian groups living there and to present himself as an ambassador of the yet-to-be-independent state of Indonesia. He spoke to Indian, Vietnamese and Chinese activists, enrolled in cultural and semipolitical student organizations and tried to introduce the Indonesian cause to the Parisian public by approaching prominent periodicals.39 It was a costly business, but money was unimportant. In February 1925, he wrote to a friend in the Netherlands: ‘You know that I have to spend quite some money in return for the various invitations of Asian brothers. The sums are some sort of representation costs, that are necessary, not in my quality of Mononutu, but in my quality of Mononutu the Indonesian.’40 Between 1927 and 1931, the students of the PI were affiliated with the League against Imperialism and Colonial Oppression. This large umbrella organization was established by the German communist organizer Willi Münzenberg, and was to a large extent under control of communists loyal to the Soviet Union. However, it attracted many non-communist organizations from the leftist and colonized world as well, such as Jawaharlal Nehru from the Indian National Congress, Chinese nationalists from the Guomindang Party, and the Algerian Messali Hadj from the Étoile Nord-Africaine. As such, the Indonesian students had ample opportunity to meet other anti-colonial and nationalist activists from the colonized world in side meetings and corridors. Hatta was even elected to take place in the executive committee of the League against Imperialism. In this capacity he had to stay in regular contact with other members and had to be present at the board meetings that were organized every few months, each time in different European city. As 37 ‘Onze buitenlandse propaganda’, Indonesia Merdeka 4 (October-November 1926), 67-72, here 72. 38 Roger N. Baldwin, ‘The Capital of the Men without a Country’, The Survey, 1 August 1927, 460-467. 39 NL-HaNA, Ministerie van Koloniën: Geheim Archief, 1901-1940 (toeg.nr. 2.10.36.51), inv. nr. 301, 9 August 1927, G13, Cb. 40 ‘Je weet zelf wel dat ik nogal wat geld moet uitgeven als tegenprestatie van verschillende uitnoodigingen van Aziatische broeders. Een soort representatie-kosten, die noodzakelijk zijn, in de eerste plaats in mijn kwaliteit niet van Mononutu, maar van Mononutu de Indonesier.’ Ibid.

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such, the Indonesians in the Netherlands became involved in an extensive network of activists from the colonial world and the European left. 41 Moreover via their journal Indonesia Merdeka, these international adventures and news reports also reached audiences in the Dutch Indies. The journal, which appeared almost every month from 1923 onwards but after 1926 more irregularly, was printed in a Dutch and a Malay edition of around 300 copies each. It was not only distributed among Indonesian students in the Netherlands, and Dutch academic and political elites, but was also sent, and after 1927 smuggled, to around 250 subscribers in the Dutch Indies, among whom many former students and political activists. Within the small elite section of the Indonesian population Indonesia Merdeka became an important political voice. The integration of Indonesian nationalist students in an international network of anti-colonial nationalists, socialists and communists – centred around the capital cities of Paris and Berlin and with links to anti-colonial organizations from South Africa to India, and from China to Nicaragua – strongly resembles the adventures of the Filipino intellectuals that Benedict Anderson described in Under Three Flags. Whereas Imagined Communities remained implicit in describing the workings of transnational imagination and inspiration, Under Three Flags demonstrates how a globally perceived imagined community of anti-colonial movements came about. In the book, Anderson follows the global trajectories of people, inspirations and ideas, by tracing the voyages of three Filipino intellectuals in the second half of the nineteenth century: Isabelo de los Reyes, José Rizal and Mariano Ponce. In a way resembling the international engagements of Indonesian students in Europe, Anderson mentions: The near-simultaneity of the last nationalist insurrection in the New World (Cuba, 1895) and the first in Asia (Philippines, 1896) was no serendipity. Natives of the last important remnants of the fabled Spanish global empire, Cubans (as well as Puerto Ricans and Dominicans) and Filipinos did not merely read about each other, but had crucial personal connections and, up to a point, coordinated their actions. […] [T]he coordination did not take place directly between [the Cuban province of] Oriente and [the Filipino province of] Cavite, but was mediated through ‘representatives’, above all in Paris, and secondarily in Hong Kong, London and New York.42 41 Mohammad Hatta, ‘Het Brusselsche Congres tegen Imperialisme en Koloniale Onderdrukking en Onze Buitenlandsche Propaganda’, Indonesia Merdeka 5 (March-April 1927), 14-29. See also: Stutje, ‘To Maintain an Independent Course’, 208. 42 Anderson, Under Three Flags, 2.

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Under Three Flags used and refined concepts from earlier work of Benedict Anderson in two ways. First of all, the book acknowledged the importance of travelling intermediaries as carriers of new ideas and translators of foreign concepts. Thus, the focus shifted from the ‘modular’ forms of nationalism that were ‘transplanted’ to new national terrains, to the intellectuals, activists, journals and migrants that made this transplantation imaginable. Living in an era of ‘early globalization’, these people were highly mobile and crossed the borders of nations, empires and imaginations. 43 Secondly, as Anderson mentioned himself in his memoirs, Under Three Flags recognized that nations and nation-states as basic units of analysis were in reality ‘tied together and crosscut by global political-intellectual currents such as liberalism, fascism, communism and socialism’. 44 As has been remarked in critiques of long-distance nationalism, expatriate communities of ‘exiled’ nationalists could imagine diverse political futures for their heimat, and were often influenced by other ideologies and worldviews as well. 45 For the Indonesians, this implied that their newly defined ideology of unitary nationalism was tested in diverse foreign environments and in encounters with movements abroad. While the students hardened their convictions in confrontation with Dutch students and authorities, their ideological tenets were refined among allies and friends from other colonized countries. In Paris, they discovered that the PI model of nationalism, with a strong rejection of cooperation with the colonial authorities, was not completely in line with Francophile attitudes of Vietnamese nationalists. In the context of the League against Imperialism, moreover, they were facilitated as well as frustrated by the structures provided by the Communist International and by attempts of Stalinist factions to bring the League under their control. 46 In other words, the international stage proved to be an invaluable experience for the Indonesian students within the Perhimpoenan Indonesia, which helps to explain their prominence within the Indonesian political landscape.

43 Ibid., 3. 44 B. Anderson, ‘Frameworks of Comparison: Benedict Anderson Reflects on His Intellectual Formation’, London Review of Books 38 (2016), 15-18, here 8; Anderson, A Life Beyond Boundaries, 128. 45 Th. Sasson et al., ‘Does Taglit-Birthright Israel Foster Long-Distance Nationalism?’, National­ ism and Ethnic Politics 20 (2014), 441-442. 46 See also: Stutje, Behind the Banner of Unity, 105-109 and 142-144.

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Concluding remarks It seems that Anderson saw the popularization of terms such as imagined communities with a mixture of pride and regret. In an interview in Norway in 2011, he compared his relationship with Imagined Communities to a father seeing his daughter grow up and run off with a bus driver: ‘I see her occasionally but, really, she has gone her own merry way.’47 However, even when we go beyond iconized terms such as imagined communities, we can see that the oeuvre of Anderson contains many valuable insights that maintained their worth over three decades of scholarship. There is an evolution in the thinking of Anderson himself from Imagined Communities, to his paper on ‘long-distance nationalism’ and Under Three Flags, in which expatriate communities such as the Indonesian students in the Perhimpoenan Indonesia were repositioned from being eccentric to the Indonesian political landscape to being in the centre of the international stage. Crucial, in this respect is that Anderson replaced the strictly comparative framework of Imagined Communities, in which ‘modular’ nationalism was transplanted to new national terrains, with a global conception of nationalism in which travelling ideas and intellectuals were of central importance. Therefore, with the example of Under Three Flags in the back of our minds, we have to understand the unique position of the PI within the Indonesian political landscape as part of its function in Europe as an ‘advanced post of the national movement in the cold north’.48 Traditionally, Indonesia scholars explained the prominence of the Perhimpoenan Indonesia by concentrating at its embattled position in the Netherlands and its eccentric position in the Indonesian political landscape. However, we have to be aware that the students’ stay in the Netherlands not only stimulated them to create a new ‘Indonesian’ identity, but also provided them with the possibility to meet fellow-activists from other parts of the colonized world. The political activities in Paris and Brussels and the distinctly international gaze in Indonesia Merdeka indicate that we have to pay closer attention to the international network and imagined community of anti-colonial nationalists in Europe of which the students were part. In turn, this international embedding also enhanced their political position within the Indonesian political landscape. 47 Accessed at: https://www.uio.no/english/research/interfaculty-research-areas/culcom/ news/2005/anderson.html on 28-01-2016. See also: Anderson, Imagined Communities, 228-229. 48 ‘de vooruitgeschoven post van de nationale beweging in het koude noorden.’ Mohammad Hatta, ‘Het Brusselsche Congres tegen Imperialisme en Koloniale Onderdrukking en Onze Buitenlandsche Propaganda’, Indonesia Merdeka 5 (1927), 20.

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About the author Klaas Stutje is a post-doctoral researcher at the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam. He is involved in the research program called ‘Four Centuries of Labor Camps: War, Rehabilitation, Ethnicity’, which is financed by the Dutch Organization for Scientific Research and carried out by IISH and the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies. His particular focus is on the history of forced labour, often conducted by convicts, in the Dutch Indies in the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. Previous projects include his PhD project on the international dimension of Indonesian nationalism in the 1920s, studied through the international engagements of students within the Perhimpoenan Indonesia in Europe. He has also written about Indonesian Islamic networks in Europe, about Peranakan Chinese identity formation and about Indonesian communism.

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Time, Rhythm and Ritual Imagined Communities in L’espoir (1937) and Les sept couleurs (1939) Marleen Rensen Abstract This chapter explores the temporal aspects of communities shaped in and through literature. The comparative reading of Malraux’ novel L’espoir (1937) and Brasillach’s Les sept couleurs (1939) lays bare a similar recourse to rhythmic communities that rival and overcome the ‘terror’ of time in the modern age. Even though Malraux represents an international group of Republican fighters in the Spanish Civil War, whereas Brasillach depicts a collective unity of fascists, they both articulate a similar longing for a communal time experience, close to the bodily pulses and the grand eternal rhythms of nature, attuning to a sacred sense of time. They also employ comparable literary devices to bring out feelings of unity in mythic scenes, in which the individual engages in the synchronized rhythmic movements of collective singing and marching related to ritualized performances. Keywords: literature, time, rhythm, interwar France, communism, fascism

André Malraux (1901-1976) and Robert Brasillach (1909-1945) were engaged French novelists who held radically different positions on the ideological spectrum of the 1930s and 1940s. While Malraux sympathized with communism and joined the French Resistance in the Second World War, Brasillach promoted fascism and collaborated with the German occupier. Despite their obviously different backgrounds, both writers presented types of imagined communities in their novels, two of which will be under scrutiny here: respectively L’espoir (1937) and Les sept couleurs (1939). The novels are sufficiently different from each other to illustrate communities of diverse sorts, Les sept couleurs showcasing images of the nation in fascist Italy, Nazi

Blok, Gemma, Kuitenbrouwer, Vincent and Weeda, Claire (eds): Imagining Communities. Historical Reflections on the Process of Community Formation. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018 doi: 10.5117/9789462980037_ch08

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Germany and Franco’s Spain, L’espoir picturing a group of international activists defending the Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War. Yet they are similar enough to be compared and to lay bare the ways in which communities are conceptualized in and through literature. Both literary works can be considered romans à these which portray contemporary events through an ideological lens, anti-fascist or fascist. Interestingly, in both L’espoir and Les sept couleurs, time takes on a crucial meaning and function in the shaping of communities. Beneath the surface of political ideology, at a deeper level, time is a leitmotif connected to a wide range of themes that touch, directly or indirectly, on temporal aspects of imagined communities: the acceleration of history, the idea of decadence and the process of aging and death. Time is, moreover, related to the narrative structure of the novels that construct representations of communal pasts and futures.1 In his book Imagined Communities Benedict Anderson emphasized the vital importance of time for understanding imagined communities. Looking primarily at national communities, Anderson argued that the radical transformation of temporality in the Enlightenment era brought forth a new form of interrelationships. A new temporal configuration began to develop alongside the decline of the religious worldview ‘in which history and cosmology were indistinguishable’.2 Prior to the eighteenth century, time gave meaning to human lives and events as deeply embedded in a sacred and natural order. Simultaneity, Anderson emphasizes, was understood across time, or, in the words of Walter Benjamin, as ‘a fusion of past and future in an instantaneous present’.3 The Enlightenment period saw the rise of the modern concept of secular time as a linear, continuous progression into an open and unpredictable future. By implication, simultaneity came to be seen as a temporal coincidence of events in different places at the same clock-time. This changing idea of simultaneity is fundamental to Anderson’s argument that the nation is an imagined community shaped by what he calls ‘deep, horizontal comradeship’. People conceive of the nation as a collectivity which moves through ‘homogeneous, empty time’, an expression frequently used by Anderson, again borrowed from Benjamin. 4 1 I have elsewhere presented a more detailed comparative analysis of time in the novels of Robert Brasillach and Andre Malraux, as well as Drieu la Rochelle and Paul Nizan: M. Rensen, Lijden aan de tijd. Franse intellectuelen in het interbellum (Soesterberg, 2009). 2 B. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism, 2nd ed. (London/New York, 1991), 36. 3 Ibid., 24. 4 Ibid.

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According to Anderson, imaginations of the nation as a horizontal comradeship are produced by the synchronizing effect of the modern medium of print-capitalism: newspapers and novels. Performing the daily ritual of reading the same newspaper on the same day of publication generates a sense of fellowship among people who will never know or meet all members of the nation, but nonetheless have an image of the national community in their minds. The novel works differently but similarly articulates a sense of simultaneity. The characters in a story may not be aware of one another but still live in the same (novelistic) world. The omniscient reader, who has an overview of the coincidence of narrated events, is stimulated to imagine the whole. Readers thus become involved in the process of imagining a horizontal group of people who share a ‘similar sense of time’ and move onward collectively through history. This article explores to what extent we can apply Anderson’s idea of steady, solid ‘simultaneity through time’ to the communities in L’espoir and Les sept couleurs. It will add the concept of rhythm in order to provide another window on the representation of collectivities that amplifies the view of the relevance of time for imagined communities. For, as will be shown, the two novels bear testimony to a similar preoccupation with the rhythm of communities. Rhythm is a rather complex concept that can be related to different kinds of temporalities. As Michael Golston writes: ‘In its pulsing, rhythm stimulates movement and a sense of tempo; in its regularity it promotes sense of stasis and timelessness, recurrence and repetition.’5 Rhythm’s various temporalities are all relevant to communities, both horizontally and vertically. Malraux and Brasillach alike depict rhythmic movements in marching and singing that engender a strong affective bond. The sensation of being one and moving harmoniously together further expresses a yearning for a rhythmic experience of time that is directly related to a communal group held together by a shared past and a common destiny. A closer inspection of the rhythmic aspects of communities will hence provide insight into the imagination and affective experience of belonging to a collectivity. Following the insights of a number of studies on nationalism, fascism, modernism and time, this article will argue that the representations of communities in L’espoir and Les sept couleurs express a comparable longing 5 M. Golston, ‘“Im Amfang War der Rhythmus”. Rhythmic Incubations in Discourses of Mind, Body, and Race from 1850-1944’, Stanford Humanities Review 5, Supplement: Cultural and Technological Incubations of Fascism (1996), accessed at: http://web.stanford.edu/group/ SHR/5-supp/text/golston.html.

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to transform homogenous, empty time into a more rhythmic experience of time that is natural and sacred at the same time. The term ‘sacred time’ is used here as it is understood by Mircea Eliade, a scholar of early religions and myths, who distinguished between profane and sacred time. While profane is the ordinary clock-time of irreversible history, sacred time is cyclical, tied to rhythms of eternal return. Although Eliade’s concept of sacred time is slightly different from the premodern time concept described by Anderson, it is similar in the sense of being a meaningful ‘sort of eternal mythical present’ that is neither linear nor irreversible.6 L’espoir and Les sept couleurs show a similar recourse to rhythmic communities that rival and overcome the ‘terror’ of time in the modern age.7 As such, they fit within a broader pattern in Western culture in the period from 1880 to 1940, when various political, artistic and popular movements expressed a yearning for a mythic or sacred sense of time.8 The novels highlight a distinct role of literature with regard to the temporal dimension of imagined communities, exemplifying Eliade’s observation that ‘we feel in literature a revolt against historical time, the desire to attain to other temporal rhythms than that in which we are condemned to live and work’.9

The terror of time In L’espoir and Les sept couleurs time is prominent in both content and form. Both narratives are clearly set in what Anderson referred to as ‘homogenous, empty time’.10 Temporal markers like calendar and clocks are abundant. L’espoir and Les sept couleurs alike record events in a documentary style and often mention dates, hours, sometimes even minutes. Moreover, the characters in the stories are preoccupied by the terror of time; they ruminate on the passage of time and struggle with issues of temporality, most particularly with existential concerns of aging and death. 6 M. Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion (Orlando, 1987 [1957]), 70. 7 I have borrowed the term partly from Eliade, who frequently uses the expression ‘terror of history’ to describe the terrifying modern experience of the linear progression of historical time, desacralized and empty of meaning. 8 M. Golston, Rhythm and Race in Modernist Poetry and Science (New York, 2008); R.-J. Adriaansen, The Rhythm of Eternity: The German Youth Movement and the Experience of the Past, 1900-1933 (New York/Oxford, 2015). 9 M. Eliade, Myth and Reality (Long Grove, 1998 [1963]), 192. 10 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 33.

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The existential dimension comes most explicitly to the fore in L’espoir, that is set in wartime Spain. Between the acts, the characters discuss the absurdity of the human condition in the modern world that is dominated by clock-time, devoid of all value and meaning. Many dialogues centre around the mortality of man. Readdressing an idea developed in La condition humaine, Malraux shows the imprisoning linearity of time in individual lives. The war in Spain, as he describes it, lays bare the more fundamental tragedy of human fate: ‘Death comes to all.’11 His characters experience time as an essentially meaningless and oppressive force that unstoppably moves toward death. L’espoir thus exemplifies the crisis that Malraux had already emphasized in his essays of the 1920s: Western civilization has been robbed of its spiritual goals. Like many intellectuals in post-war Europe who felt that the loss of faith in progress was definite, Malraux argued that the decadence of the West became palpable in the increase of materialism and individualism. The fear of decadence implicitly exposes time as a destructive force that makes cultures and civilizations disappear and breaks up the continuity with the past. The experience of historical discontinuity makes the terror of time all the more acutely felt at the individual level. Despite all differences, the feeling of being subjected to time is as much foregrounded in Les sept couleurs. The chapter called ‘Reflections’ illustrates perfectly a treatment of time common to both novels: the existential struggle with temporality is all the more pressing because of the rush of history that is so prominent in the stories. Patrice, who features as the protagonist, meditates amply on the ephemeral, fleeting nature of time. Patrice first describes the process of aging on the occasion of his 30th birthday. Making an inventory of the life-changes that come with the fading of youth, he mentions the symptoms of physical decline – the wrinkles and crow’s feet – which reveal the destructive character of time. Again, time is vicious. His sensitivity to temporality also comes to light in a later part of the chapter where he refers to the First World War as a historical rupture that profoundly affected his generation, born between 1900 and 1910. The temporal form and structure of the narratives clearly reflect the onward march of linear, historical time. Both novels are set in contemporary times and describe real political events. Malraux focuses on the first phase of the Spanish Civil War, from July 1936 until March 1937, while Brasillach’s story covers a longer period, from the mid-1920s to the late 1930s, ending with the war in Spain. Both authors display events in which they were more 11 André Malraux, Days of Hope (London, 1970), 232.

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or less involved themselves. As a journalist affiliated to Je Suis Partout and other pro-fascist journals, Brasillach travelled widely and reported on fascist movements in various parts of Europe. Extracts of these writings are inserted in the fictional story Les sept couleurs. Personal eye-witness descriptions are also included in L’espoir. The story is partly based on Malraux’ experiences as a volunteer for the International Brigade of the Republican Air Force in Spain. As L’espoir and Les sept couleurs both end in the middle of the Spanish conflict that was still in progress when the novels were published, they narrate history in the making. The time span may differ, but both works highlight the progression of time, starting in medias res and unfolding in chronological order. Although these are not simple linear narratives, the inexorable march of history dominates the stories. Les sept couleurs is composed of seven chapters, each of which is written in a different style: prose, letters, a journal, reflections, dialogue, documents and discourse. Even if this interrupts the flow of temporal continuum, the straightforward linearity is clearly manifest in the coming-of-age story of Patrice, François and Catherine, who discover fascism, each in their own way. Whereas Patrice acts as the protagonist in the first parts of the novel, François ‘comes to supplant’ him as the novel’s ‘fascist hero’ who turns to action in the Spanish Civil War.12 A similar type of plot can be identified in L’espoir, in which Manuel, who features as the main character, evolves from an inexperienced young man to a mature political leader at the Spanish front. The complexity of the novel, which is structured around the alternation of battle scenes with dialogues of reflection, resides partly in the presentation of multiple voices and viewpoints. Careful to avoid communist propaganda, while also defending the Spanish Republic, Malraux shows his pragmatic attitude toward politics. His novel balances praise of the military efficiency of communists with scepticism about the party orthodoxy and the Marxist utopia. The characters in the novels face the turbulence of events that contemporaries came to describe as the ‘acceleration of history’. L’espoir features war at the front in Spain, where shootings and bombardments are daily business. Malraux’ activists, who desperately want to act, become aware of the fact that timing is everything in war and revolution. Garcia, a typical intellectual, points out the importance of the hour of trial: ‘The hardest thing […] is not to hesitate. It’s a question of seconds.’13 The crucial importance of speed is also 12 M. Hurcombe, France and the Spanish Civil War: Cultural Representations of the War Next Door, 1936-1945 (Farnham, 2011), 88-89. 13 Malraux, Days of Hope, 126.

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noticeable when the air force of the Spanish Republicans appears to be too slow to compete with the airplanes from Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany. Les sept couleurs depicts the rapidly changing political order in Europe partly through the eyes of Patrice, who feels the urge to unchain a national revolution, similar to the fascist turnover in Italy and Germany. Like Brasillach himself, he is convinced that France is a paralyzed, decadent democracy that is running behind other countries in Europe, where new revolutionary orders had already been established. Quoting from one of his own articles on fascism, Brasillach makes Patrice cry out remorsefully: ‘Why not us?’14 He can only hope that it is not too late. Even if the idea of decadence is more specifically related to the supposed decline of the French nation here, Brasillach, like Malraux, shows the destructive side of time by insisting on the loss of France’s glorious past. However much historical change is foregrounded, the narratives of L’espoir and Les sept couleurs also articulate a sense of continuity by giving shape to a community that makes the terror of time more bearable. The protagonists of both novels become engaged in the collective battle for change, thereby abandoning their self-interest and personal concerns. Whether they align to a fraternal fascist union or become part of a group that defines itself in opposition to the fascists, both novels display the transformation of ‘meaningless individual time’ into communal time that is charged with meaning.

The rhythmic experience of contemporary community By highlighting simultaneous events in Spain, L’espoir provides a sense of a ‘contemporaneous community’, to use Anderson’s term.15 In the opening scene, the narrator switches between different locations, from Madrid to Toledo, thus showing that the revolt is taking place in various parts of the nation. The synchronicity of events is powerfully expressed in the opening scene where Manuel and Ramos try to trace the progression of Franco’s troops by frenetically calling up railway stations in Teruel, Oviedo, Valladolid and Segovia in order to find out who is in control. The simultaneity emerges even more clearly when the collective singing in Madrid fuses with the singing elsewhere that came through the phone.16 The effect is ‘unisonance’, to borrow another term from Anderson. Singing 14 Robert Brasillach, Les sept couleurs (Paris, 1939), 154. 15 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 149. 16 Malraux, Days of Hope, 17.

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is of crucial importance for the imagination of a community, he argued: ‘If we are aware that others are singing these songs precisely when and where we are, we have an idea who they may be, or even where, out of earshot, they are singing. Nothing connects us all but imagined sound.’17 This argument relates to the singing of a national anthem on a day of national celebration and is thus different from Malraux’ account, where activists all over Spain spontaneously chant the ‘Internationale’, sometimes even in ten different languages.18 The scene in L’espoir nevertheless caters to the imagination of a horizontal community, thereby crafting and consolidating sentiments of union. Images of singing and saluting soldiers permeate the novel as powerful symbols of solidarity and comradeship. It is clear that this is not just the cognitive imagination of a larger whole, it is also a bodily experience. Albeit implicitly, L’espoir shows the ‘muscular bonding’ described by William H. McNeill in his book Keeping Together in Time (1995). McNeill argues that moving rhythmically together in singing or marching can arouse powerful sensations of unity. When Magnin listens to the revolutionary excitement in the streets in the early weeks of the conflict, Garcia comments: ‘As to those sounds coming in through the window, […] I might define them as an Apocalypse of fraternity.’19 The enthusiasm of Republican fighters in L’espoir is so euphoric, however, that Garcia foresees chaos and insists that practical organization is needed to carry out the revolutionary tasks. Even if Malraux displays the frictions between anarchists and communists, he foremost emphasized the fraternal bonds of common struggle against fascism. This unity is perfectly exemplified in the scene where the brigade of Poles, Germans, Algerians, Italians, Englishmen and French start to sing: ‘For the first time in history, the strains of the “International” were rising from men of every nation united to do battle together.’20 Les sept couleurs, by contrast, portrays fascists in Europe, but offers similar images of rhythmic crowds. These figure most visibly in the chapter on Nazi Germany, where Patrice reports from the party rally held at Nuremberg in 1937. This account, that is taken from Brasillach’s own article ‘Cent heures chez Hitler’,21 strongly supports McNeill’s observation that the Nazi movement generated and sustained a sense of community by organizing ‘marches 17 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 145. 18 Malraux, Days of Hope, Nls 428. 19 Ibid., 111. 20 Ibid., 253-254. 21 Robert Brasillach, ‘Cent heures chez Hitler’, La Revue Universelle 71:1 (October 1937).

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and other muscular manifestations’.22 The description of the reunion at the Zeppelinfeld, as documented in Patrice’s diary, brings to light effectively the rhythmic speech of Hitler, the pulse of the drum and the huge crowd singing ‘Deutschland über alles’ and the ‘Horst Wessel Song’. The experience of rhythm is crucial for the absorption into the collectivity described here. Brasillach, who was fascinated by the ‘musical enchantment’ of the Third Reich, shows the emotion of being one, produced by the staging of the masses when he writes: ‘They sing, the drum beats, the dead are evoked, the soul of the party is fused with the soul of the nation, and ultimately, the master gathers the huge crowd and makes it into a single whole.’23 As scholars of fascism have emphasized, such public spectacles created an ‘arena of political emotion, a community of feeling’ that constituted an immediate experience of nationhood.24 David Carroll, for instance, argues that ‘the feeling of unity’ is an essential part of the fascist aesthetic experience: ‘the feeling of being at one with one’s immediate group and, by projection, with the entire nation’.25 This political style was by no means restricted to fascist movements alone. It is telling, as McNeill remarks, that the May Day parades of the communists inspired Hitler.26 There is a tension at the heart of Brasillach’s writings about Nazi Germany. He offered a favourable view of the youthful radiance and élan of comradeship, yet he had great reservations over the emotive character of the ceremony, which he considered to be essentially ‘foreign’ and ‘oriental’.27 To be sure, as a French fascist, he primarily aimed to inspire readers in France with his accounts of the national awakening in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. Rather than imitating German National Socialism, France would have to establish a genuinely French fascist order. Fascism was a panEuropean force with distinct variations in all nations, Brasillach believed.28 As Les sept couleurs presents a panorama of different fascist movements 22 W.H. McNeill, Keeping Together in Time: Dance and Drill in Human History (Cambridge, MA 1995), 148. 23 ‘Ils chantent, le tambour roule, on évoque les morts, l’âme du parti et de la nation est confondue, et enfin le maître achève de brasser cette foule énorme et d’en faire un seul être et il parle.’ Brasillach, Les sept couleurs, 112. 24 M. Berezin, Making the Fascist Self: The Political Culture of Interwar Italy (Ithaca/London, 1997), 27. 25 D. Carroll, French Literary Fascism: Nationalism, Anti-Semitism and the Ideology of Culture (Princeton, 1995), 119. 26 McNeill, Keeping Together in Time, 148. 27 Carroll, French Literary Fascism, 115. 28 I have elsewhere discussed this in more detail: M. Rensen, ‘Fascist Poetry for Europe: Transnational Fascism and the Case of Robert Brasillach’, in: A. Bauerkämper and G. Rossoliński-Liebe

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who emerged simultaneously across the continent, the omniscient reader is able to see the whole composition and imagine a fellowship that is not solely confined to the nation. Enabling French readers to think or imagine fascism as a pan-European force was a way to fuel their imagination and mobilize them to establish a fascist order in France, too. It is well known that Brasillach understood fascism less as a political or economic doctrine than as a ‘spirit’ and a form of ‘poetry’.29 Speaking of his political views, Roger Eatwell rightly observed: ‘It was about feeling rhythm and spirit, rather than rational thought’.30 Among the different fascist movements in Europe, Brasillach identified a generic uomo fascista and a ‘fascist joy’ that ‘expanded minds through feeling and reason’.31 In the following lines of an article he reproduced in Les sept couleurs, he relates the joyful spirit to the rhythmic experience of being at one with comrades: They often delighted in living together in those vast congregations of men where the rhythmic movements of army and crowd resemble the throbbing of a huge heart. […] The young fascist, supported by his race and his nation, proud of his vigorous body and his lucid mind, scornful of the abundant goods of the world, the young fascist in his camp, with his comrades in peace who can become his comrades in war, the young fascist who sings, who marches, who works, who dreams […] he is above all a joyous being.32

The rhythmic community of the uomo fascista, as portrayed in the novel, seems to be primarily male and masculine. The communal singing, marching and working are related to discipline, willpower and other characteristics that were traditionally associated with masculinity. This is very much in line with Ute Frevert’s observation with regard to the ‘gendered’ emotional (eds), Fascism without Borders: Transnational Connections and Cooperations between Movements and Regimes in Europe (Oxford/New York, 2017). 29 R. Griffiths, Fascism (London/New York, 2005), 186. 30 R. Eatwell, Fascism: A History (London, 1995), 166. 31 Cited in: Carroll, French Literary Fascism, 120. 32 ‘Ils aiment souvent à vivre ensemble, dans les immenses reunions d’hommes où les mouvements rythmés des armées et des foules semblent les pulsations d’un vaste Coeur.’ […] ‘Le jeune fasciste, appuyé sur sa race et sur sa nation, fier de son corps vigoureux, de son esprit lucide, méprisant les biens épais de ce monde, le jeune fasciste dans son camp, au milieu des camarades de la paix qui peuvent être les camarades de la guerre, le jeune fasciste qui chante, qui marche, qui travaille, qui rêve, il est tout d’abord un être joyeux.’ Brasillach, Les sept couleurs, 157. The translation is from P. Tame, Notre Avant-Guerre (Lewiston, 2002), 304. See also: P. Tame, The Ideological Hero in the Novels of Robert Brasillach, Roger Vailland & André Malraux (New York, 1998).

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politics of the Nazi regime. She argued that the staged spectacles, meant to arouse collective emotions, emphasized traditional gender norms: while women were cast as shouting and crying out loud, becoming hysterically wild, the singing and marching men showed control.33 Rhythm, thus seen, is a sign of ritualized and regulated emotions shared by a male group. Even if the communities of Brasillach and Malraux have rhythmic elements that articulate identifications larger than the nation, they still mark a horizontal comradeship in the sense that they share a similar sense of time. Rhythm, however, represents a vertical relationship, too, as the repetition of movement brings about the suggestion of continuity through time. Malraux and Brasillach alike adopt stylistic devices to include the rhythmic communities within a larger narrative, emphasizing historical continuities and shaping a mythic dimension of timelessness. In their very different ways, they create aesthetic spectacles of rhythmic movements – tied to the grand cosmic rhythms of the seasonal cycles or the eternal renewal of nature – that arouse exalted feelings of belonging, attuning to an epic or sacred time.

Rhythm and ritual of the eternal nation Les sept couleurs seems to confirm Griffin’s thesis that fascists aimed to ‘recapture a magic or sacred sense of time’.34 This desire is closely related to the myth of national regeneration that Griffin considers to be the core of fascist ideology. Regeneration, which roots in the cyclical time of the eternal nation, is a recurrent topos in Brasillach’s novel. An effective illustration is the portrait of the Hitler youth camp. Patrice’s diary describes a singing lesson of a group of young Germans who sit under the grand trees and form a picture of ‘eternal Germany’.35 For Brasillach, this image captured the essence of Germany as a musical nation. In line with Anderson’s observation that language is an essential marker of the nation that goes back to the origins of time and connects a people affectively to the dead, Patrice notes ‘that language of the sounds and the choir […] is the true maternal language of Germany’.36 The young singing Germans represent the vitality and rejuvenation of the nation, just as the trees serve as symbols of eternal renewal. 33 U. Frevert, Emotions in History – Lost and Found (Budapest/New York, 2011), 132-136. 34 R. Griffin, A Fascist Century: Essays by Roger Griffin, ed. Matthew Feldman (New York, 2008), 6-7. 35 ‘L’Allemagne éternelle’, Brasilach, Les sept couleurs, 115. 36 ‘cette langue des sons et du choeur qui est la vraie langue maternelle de l’Allemand’. Ibid. See also: A. Kaplan, Reproductions of Banality: Fascism, Literature and French Intellectual Life (Minneapolis, 1986), 10.

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The sacred time of the national community is elaborated in more depth in the report of the Nuremberg rallies. That the party reunion in the Zeppelin stadium stood outside of ordinary time is most obvious in the nocturnal ceremony, when soldiers salute the Führer rhythmically when he enters before he appears in the Lichtdom. This cathedral, formed by thousands of bundles of blue spotlights, marks ‘the sacred site of the national mystery’.37 The ‘mysterious’ character of the ceremony is further intensified by the ‘supranational silence’ in the stadium. In spite of critical notes about the ‘intoxication’ of the crowd, Patrice, like Brasillach himself, was receptive to the magic of the Third Reich.38 Les sept couleurs perfectly exemplifies the argument that fascism is a ‘political religion’ that sacralizes the national community. The sacred time becomes especially manifest in the scenes that describe the enactment of rituals, like the fertilization of the earth and the consecration of flags. To Patrice it is evident that Hitler’s sanctification of national flags by touching them with the ‘flag of blood’ from the putsch of 1923, was no less than a ‘mystical transfusion’, analogue to a holy sacrament. As Griffin observed, the staged rituals of commemorating fallen soldiers, which belonged to the standard repertoire of fascist regimes, ‘create a collective sense of sacred time’. The martyred dead are honoured as heroes who pass on the essence of the ‘eternal nation’ to present and future generations. Their sacrifice is made meaningful; their death is inserted into the grand cycle of the nation that eternally renews itself.39 So those who take part in the ceremony or witness it, can grasp the essence of the nation that transcends time and history. As Brasillach had argued earlier in journalist writings, the publicly staged spectacle was characteristic of the totally new style of fascist politics. Full of admiration, he called Mussolini, Hitler and other fascist leaders mythmakers and ‘poets of actions’ who captivated the audience with compelling images of the native land that appealed to emotions and feelings. Comparable to Mussolini’s cult of aeterna Roma, Brasillach observed, Hitler created a secular ‘religion’ around the eternal German nation, abound with symbols from the romantic and pagan tradition. Rhythm was key to the quasi-religious imagination inherent to this new style of politics. In the novel, Patrice recalls the musical enchantment of Hitler’s election campaign of 1933. As he remembered ‘from radio or film’, the Führer held a ‘rhythmic speech’ in

37 ‘le lieu sacré du mystère national’. Brasillach, Les sept couleurs, 112-113. 38 Ibid., 112. See also: L. Rasson, Littérature et fascisme: Les romans de Robert Brasillach (Paris, 1991). 39 G. Mosse, Masses and Man: Nationalist and Fascist Perceptions of Reality (Detroit, 1987), 74-75.

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which the word ‘Deutschland’ was repeated every 20 seconds, ‘like a sacred incantation’. 40 Rhythm was fundamental to the fascist experience of community. As Roger Griffin and Mabel Berezin have demonstrated in independent studies, fascist regimes were eager to impose a new rhythmic structure onto the daily lives of people. Replacing the Gregorian calendar by national calendars of fascist ceremonies, the authorities established a rhythm of annually repeated parades, festivals, commemorations and inaugurations. 41 From this perspective, the calendar does not represent empty time, as Anderson postulated, but days and months charged with meaning. The temporal rhythms of fascist celebrations and commemorations socialized people into the grand cycles of the fascist community. This was to fundamentally alter the experience of time, as Griffin argues with reference to the Third Reich: ‘The core experiences which the Nazi manipulation of society, in all its aspects, sought to induce was that of being reborn from meaningless individual time into the epic communal time of the Volksgemeinschaft.’42 Although Brasillach’s description of affective bonding at staged fascist spectacles focuses primarily on Nazi Germany, the ‘epic communal time’ is also manifest in the chapter on Spain. This chapter takes the form of a ‘dossier’, composed by François, who collected letters, newspaper reports and extracts from Histoire de la guerre d’Espagne, written by Brasillach and Maurice Bardèche. As a whole, these pieces offer a picture of the Catholic fascism of the Spanish Falangists and Carlists who align themselves to the holy tradition of God, fatherland and king. Although this branch of fascism is quite different from German nationalist socialism, it is grounded in a comparable cyclical time and, as such, envisions a national regeneration to come. This is illustrated by the Falangist song that expresses the determinacy to combat fraternally for the ‘coming spring’ and ‘the new dawn’ of Spain. 43 The singing Carlists further add to the conception of a grand cycle of the nation by realigning themselves to their ‘dead fathers’ who fought for Spain, too: ‘We will fight, like they have fought.’44 Other passages, displaying the singing and saluting crowds, express the desire to renew the nation and resume the thread of national history from 40 ‘comme une incantation sacrée’. Brasillach, Les sept couleurs, 121. 41 Berezin, Making the Fascist Self, 149; Griffin, A Fascist Century, 10-11. 42 Griffin, A Fascist Century, 17. 43 ‘Reviendra rire le printemps. […] Sur l’Espagne pointe une aube nouvelle’. Brasillach, Les sept couleurs, 202. 44 ‘Pour Dieu, pour la Patrie et pour le Roi, nos pères sont morts. Pour Dieu, pour la Patrie et pour le Roi, nous mourrons aussi’. Ibid., 217.

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the Renaissance, the golden age of Charles V and the conquistadores (‘the renaissance of a grand destiny’).45 In such images, ‘contemporary Spain fuses with eternal Spain’, to use the words of the French journalist Pierre Raynaud, of whom an extract from the fictitious Revue grise is reproduced in the novel.46 Interestingly, the mythic past of Spain and the Spanish earth, ‘one of the noblest of Europe’, serves to present the cause of international fascism.47 The utopia of a fascist Europe is represented by the extract from Mussolini’s declaration of ‘universal fascism’ and by accompanying documents about the Italian and German contribution to the war effort in Spain. The character François, who fights alongside the Spanish fascists as a ‘soldier of the heroic Legion’, represents commitment to a fascist Europe, even if his motivation is initially more personal than ideological. His story is inserted into a wider historical narrative which equally epitomizes a collective sense of mythic or sacred time. For instance, the references to the myth of the heroes of the Alcázar suggest that Spanish fascists were defending European civilization against foreign invasions, just as Charles V had once stopped a Turkish invasion. Thus, Brasillach casts Spain as an ancient battleground of spiritual struggle in Europe. Typical for the inherent contradiction in transnational fascism, Brasillach alludes to a common European history while emphasizing that fascists share a feeling of belonging to a national past. The fascists he describes, whether in Italy, Spain or Germany, first and foremost identify with the nation as a community that precedes the existence of the individual and that will continue to exist in the future. Quoting from his report on fascism in Europe, Brasillach stressed that young fascists are strongly aware of the historical destiny of their nation: ‘They know what their nation is, its past, they believe in its future.’48 Brasillach appears to confirm Griffin’s thesis: ‘As a palingenetic creed, generic fascism is always future-oriented.’49 However much fascists valued the past, they had revolutionary hopes and did not seek to return to the time of premodern communities. In accordance, Les sept couleurs presents fascism as a dynamic ideology that promises regeneration. The novel ends with the image of a riding train, transporting Catherine to François, who is wounded and recovering in a hospital in San Sebastian. The train heading 45 ‘la naissance ou plutôt la renaissance d’un grand destin’. Ibid., 232. 46 ‘L’Espagne éternelle et l’Espagne du moment, confondues.’ Ibid., 230. See also: Hurcombe, France and the Spanish Civil War, 95. 47 ‘l’une des plus nobles terres de l’Europe’. Brasillach, Les sept couleurs, 208-209. 48 ‘Ils savent ce qu’est leur nation, son passé, ils veulent croire à son avenir.’ Ibid., 157. 49 Griffin, A Fascist Century, 37

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for Spain, symbolizing the onward march of history, projects the ideal of national regeneration into the future. The cycle of national renewal is echoed in the message of François’ convalescence and subsequent return to France. Explicating his objective to incite passion for international fascism, Brasillach calls attention to the importance of political myths. Citing Georges Sorel and appropriating his theory of myth for the fascist revolution, he argues that powerful images of revolutionary struggle can fuel people in the present as such images instinctively evoke sentiments and offer an intuitive understanding of a shared past and future promises. The conflict in Spain was crucial for the imagination of the fascist revolution, as Brasillach explains: ‘The flames of the Spanish civil war have given to these images their full expansive power, their religious coloration.’50 Brasillach himself once declared that he sought to compete with the powerful images of Spain in Soviet and left-wing propaganda. In his novel, he alludes to the rivalling myths of Malraux, whom he repeatedly criticized for stylistic and obvious ideological reasons. Albeit implicitly, the reference to the ‘Apocalypse of fraternity’ in Les sept couleurs is an acknowledgement of Malraux’ poignant myths of fraternal combat on the Republican side in L’espoir.51

Rhythm, ritual and human fraternity Comparable to Brasillach, Malraux presents mythic images of a communal group in which rhythms attune to a higher or sacred time. Unlike his fascist opponent, however, he is cautious to idealize the glorious past of Spain and he appears to be reluctant to align to traditions from the past. Through the voice of his characters, Malraux, for instance, criticizes the Republican pilots who imitate the revolutionaries from the past and baptize their planes ‘Marat’ or ‘Commune’. Nevertheless, his images of the rhythmic community in Spain establish continuity with the past and tap into the primal origins of life. An outstanding example is the famous epic scene in which Magnin helps the wounded pilots of a crashed airplane ascend the top of a mountain. This climactic scene near the end of the novel is typical for the myths of origins, as Eliade described it: the rocky mountain path, leading to the top, is symbolic for the holy middle, the highest place that comes closest to the origin of the world. 50 ‘Les f lammes de la guerre espagnole ont achevé de donner à ces images leur pouvoir d’expansion, leur coloration religieuse’. Brasillach, Les sept couleurs, 210. 51 Ibid., 203. See Brasillach’s review of L’espoir in L’Action française, 5 januari 1938, in Oeuvres Complètes vol. XII (Parijs 1963-1966), p.135-138.

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Prior to the plane crash, the narrator had already pointed at ‘the primordial peace of that high world’, referring to the mountains round Teruel.52 When Magnin sets out for Linares, the mountain village nearest the crash, the mythic atmosphere is palpable from the very beginning. While having checked his watch frantically in the battle scene just beforehand, he now enters a different time flow: ‘From now on he is in contact with the very soul of Spain.’53 Ordinary, profane time is further juxtaposed to sacred time when he arrives in Linares. Although the year 1614 was engraved on one of the doorways, the town represents timelessness. It is symptomatic that the peasants from Linares, who are sitting in a circle, eating from an iron pot that is an enormous clock, upside down, join Magnin. They climb the mountain with him, bringing mules and bearing self-made stretchers to carry the dead and wounded pilots. The scene culminates with the descent from the mountain. The decor of ‘ageless ravines’ and the intense silence of the mountains contributes to the suggestion that this ‘solemn and primitive march’ rises above historical reality.54 As the narrator suggests, the march attunes to the grand rhythm of life and death, the cycle of regeneration and renewal. This is evident when they pass the apple tree, surrounded by a ring of rotten fruit, ‘that seemed to typify the passage from life to death that was not only the doom of men but was an immutable law of the universe’. The sound of the ‘steady rhythm’ of the ritual procession, progressing slowly and regularly, step by step, ‘seemed to fill the vast ravine down […] with a solemn beat like a funeral drum’. Although they were carrying a dead pilot, ‘it was not death which haunted the mountains at that moment; it was triumphant human will’, the narrator comments.55 This picture of human solidarity in suffering illustrates the fraternal support for the Republican fighters, but it also refers to the shared revolt against the human condition. Although the scene takes place in a recognizable Spanish setting, replete with national symbols of ‘ancient Spain’ – painted houses, orange trees and bulls in green meadows – the march transcends this location. As the dead and wounded pilots of the plane crash are Belgian, French, Italian and Arabic, they symbolize international brotherhood. Moreover, the narrator addresses the universal within the particular by the mourning black veiled peasant women in the procession who evidently serve to represent eternal motherhood.56 At a deeper level, the people are 52 Malraux, Days of Hope, 417. 53 Ibid., 428. 54 Ibid., 438. 55 Ibid., 439. 56 Ibid.

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unified in the communality of their suffering of the human condition. Group membership makes it easier to face the absurdities of life, maybe even make peace with mortality. As one critic concluded: ‘The death of one of Magnin’s aviators is therefore no longer an individual tragedy but integrated into a wider notion of human community, a community that travels through time.’57 Towards the end of the novel, rhythm recurs forcefully. Manuel realizes that he may have found his ‘form of life’; he is an adult man now, different from the young, carefree musician he was before the war. His relation to music is illustrative for his trajectory of self-(re)discovery. On the battlefield, music no longer spoke to him, but in the final episode, when he hears someone playing the piano in a half-ruined house, his artistic sensibility is reawakened. The melody, that fuses with the steps of prisoners and the sounds of the running water, makes him aware of the expression of human suffering in art. The fusion of sounds recurs in the closing episode, when he is back in the barracks and listens to a record of Beethoven, while thinking of his rediscovery of life. Here, the temporality of contemporary Spain coincides with the permanence of art and nature in the rhythmic sounds and movements of the collective: Some day there would be peace. And he, Manuel, would become another man, someone he could not visualize as yet; just as the soldier he had become could no more visualize the Manuel who once bought a ‘little bus’ to go skiing in the Sierra. […] Spain, too, was growing conscious of herself – as in the hour of death, suddenly, a man takes stock all his life. As the strands of melody took form, interwoven with his past, they conveyed to him the self-same message that the dim sky, those ageless fields, and that town which had stopped the Moors might, too, have given him. For the first time Manuel was hearing the voice of that which is more awe-inspiring even than the blood of men, more enigmatic even than their presence on the earth – the infinite possibilities of their destiny. And he felt that this new consciousness within him was linked up with the sounds of running water in the street and the footfalls of the prisoners, profound and permanent as the beating of his heart.58

57 M. Hurcombe, ‘Down to Earth: André Malraux’s Political Itinerary and the Natural World’, in: Louis Lyle and David McCallam (eds), Histoires de la Terre: Earth Sciences and French Culture (Amsterdam/New York, 2008), 257. 58 Malraux, Days of Hope, 462-463.

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This closure expresses newborn hope. For Manuel, it was the closure of a trajectory that led to a redefinition of his relationship to other people.59 Although he is ultimately alone in his room and not immersed in the crowd, he has found comfort and dignity in the fraternity of collective action. For Spain, too, there is hope. The message of L’espoir is neither a revolutionary utopia, nor a prophecy about the triumph of the Republican Army, but the novel can nonetheless be called optimistic. Manuel represents a community of hope, held together by fraternal human values and a sense of purpose. Moreover, the narrative is a progression from a ‘disorder and chaos to unity and singleness of purpose’.60 And surely, hope resides in the fact that the battle in Guadalajara is won by the Republicans. Significantly, the closing chapter, in which Manuel becomes conscious of his new ‘form of life’, shows the image of accelerating trucks, heading towards an open future. The single voices that exclaim their speed, 88 … 92 … 93 … 94 kilometres fuse in the final phase: ‘Kilometre 95! Kilometre 95! Men were shouting in all parts of town, always with the same intonation.’61 The duality of images, of this progression of history on the one hand, and Manuel’s rediscovery of music on the other, fuses the temporalities of linear advancement and cyclical regeneration. The ambiguity of this picture perfectly illustrates Malraux’ conception of art’s creative potential for enabling readers to grasp an alternative sense of time, that can compete with reality.

The role of literature and the arts By now, it will be clear that Malraux and Brasillach not merely represent communities they witnessed, they actively want to contribute to the process of community building. Literature is employed as a means to envisage a communal past, present and future, thereby arousing a sense of collective, cyclic time. This aesthetic procedure is partly achieved through the intertextuality that invokes particular elements of a shared cultural heritage, whether national or European. As remains from the past, art represents tradition and permanence. In L’espoir, the meaning of art is explicitly discussed and the novel is replete with references to art works. The sceptical thoughts about the 59 Cf. J.B. Romeiser, ‘His Master’s Voice: Leadership Lessons in L’ESPOIR’, in: G.T. Harris (ed.), André Malraux across Boundaries (Amsterdam/Atlanta, 2000), 118. 60 Ibid., 132. Romeiser paraphrases the words of Jean Carduner here. 61 Malraux, Days of Hope, 462.

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significance of art works in wartime, as formulated by Leclerc and art historian Scali, are contrasted with ample evidence of its everlasting value. Manuel’s renewed appreciation of music in the final episode suggests that art works from the past can be rediscovered all the time. The emphasis on rediscovery is further underlined in his declaration ‘I am a Spaniard of the sixteenth century’, alluding to the period of the Renaissance.62 Art eternally renews itself – the credo in the novel – is related to a cyclic sense of time, close to the grand rhythms of nature. The visual arts in L’espoir are as important as music to express a sense of community. The narrator, for example, refers to the prints in Francisco Goya’s series Los desastres de la guerra (The disasters of war, 1810-1820) to reveal historical parallels and recall the shared cultural heritage. Critics have further noticed that many scenes conjure up famous Spanish paintings, as, for instance, when Magnin exclaims ‘What a picture!’ while looking at the ritual procession on the mountain.63 The image calls to mind El entierro del Conde de Orgaz (The burial of the Count of Orgaz, 1586) by El Greco. Although Magnin’s lyrical outcry is countered by sceptical remarks about the force of art, there is no doubt that the depiction of common human suffering is timeless. By highlighting the aesthetic value of the funeral cortege, Malraux ultimately illustrates the artist’s ability to transfigure reality in the imagined universe of art.64 Art, as he sees it, is a ‘rectification of the world, an escape from the human condition’.65 The captivating images that bring to mind paintings are more clearly marked in Sierra de Teruel, the f ilm adaptation of L’espoir produced in 1938. Malraux, who was very much aware of the imaginative power of the film medium, used various cinematic techniques to give the epic scenes their full force and show the fraternity in Spain in larger than life images. It is evident that Malraux employed this pictorial style to the effect of concretizing an idea of community and win the hearts and minds for the defence of the Republic of Spain. Similar to Malraux, Brasillach used a pictorial style. He wanted to express fascism visually, as he was convinced that ‘politics cannot exist without its share of images, politics cannot exist without being visible’.66 And like Malraux, he was fully aware of film’s inherent potential to reach the masses. 62 63 64 65 66

Ibid., 452. Ibid., 437 G.T. Harris, André Malraux: A Reassesment (Houndmills, 1996), 138. André Malraux, Les noyers de l’Altenburg (Paris, 1997), 191. See Brasillach’s memoires, Notre Avant-Guerre, in Brasillach, Oeuvres Complètes, vol. 5, p. 58

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Figure 8.1  Reichsparteitag (Nazi Party rally) 1937 in Nürnberg.

Source: www.flickr.com

As a film critic and author of one of the earliest studies of international film history, Brasillach had, for instance, applauded Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin (1925) for envisioning the rhythmic movement of a people.67 Fascist cinema, he suggested, had taken lessons from the productions of Soviet cinema. While Brasillach was not full of praise for Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph des Willens (Triumph of the will, 1935) (a ‘film de foules et de défilés’ that is ‘monotone and parfois magnifique’), he expresses admiration for certain images.68 These images have, no doubt, inspired his own portrayal of the rhythmic crowd in his writings about Nazi Germany. It is, of course, striking that the rhythmic community of France is absent in Les sept couleurs. Yet Brasillach’s novel was clearly in line with the compulsion he repeated over and over again since the 1930s: ‘To succeed the French must have their poetry, their myths, their French images, as well as confidence in themselves and in a national ideal.’69 Les sept couleurs testified to the wish to realign modern France with the ‘poetry’ of the past, 67 Robert Brasillach, Oeuvres Complètes (Paris, 1963-1966), vol. 10, 301-302. 68 Maurice Bardèche and Robert Brasillach, Histoire du cinéma (Paris, 1935), in: Robert Brasillach, Oeuvres Complètes, vol. 10, 397. 69 Cited in: A. Kaplan, The Collaborator: The Trial and Execution of Robert Brasillach (Chicago/ London, 2000), 13.

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thereby suggesting a cycle of national regeneration. Rather than imitating foreign counterparts, which Brasillach carefully evaded, he sought to shape a genuinely French form of fascism, rooted in the traditions of France. He only took over the method he considered essential to fascist aesthetics: creating continuity with the vitality of the past by renewing national traditions. The supposed loss of rhythm was a common theme in the discourse of French fascists, who were, like Brasillach, frustrated by France’s inability to establish a unified fascist movement. Drieu la Rochelle, for whom national regeneration was the greatest concern, urged the French people ‘to retrieve its rhythm’.70 Referring to the Cartesian tradition, he suggested that the French people had become so rational that they had lost contact with the grand natural rhythms and thereby missed its poetic essence and sense of the sacred. Similar, but more characteristically anti-Semitic, is Céline’s suggestion to ‘rediscover a confidence, a rhythm, a music for this people, a lyricism that takes it out of Jewish gibberish’.71 Céline’s statement clearly reflects rhythm’s various dimensions, linking up language and race. Unlike other French nationalists and fascists in his day, Brasillach never theorized about the distinct rhythm of France in relationship to the rhythms of Italy and Germany.72 It is nonetheless significant that, as a literary and film critic, Brasillach insisted on the importance of the poetic rhythm of French language and occasionally referred to ‘the rhythm of Latin verse’. Whatever his conception of French rhythm was, he tried to bring to light the specific character of France in Les sept couleurs as the opposite of the supposedly ‘musical’ and ‘romantic’ character of the German nation. To a certain extent, it can be considered a Latin version, close to what Brasillach describes in the case of fascism in Spain. Seeking to reintegrate France in a larger historical narrative, Brasillach draws on the classical tradition by providing each chapter of Les sept couleurs with a motto taken from Corneille’s tragedy Polyeucte (1642), which was set in ancient Rome. His appropriation of Corneille goes so far as to suggest that the French poet was a fascist avant la lettre, representing order, authority and the alliance of politics and literature in the time of Louis XIV. As Brasillach had claimed in an earlier study of Corneille’s theatre, Polyeucte was an outstanding example of the way the French poet ‘transfigured’ reality in a 70 Pierre Drieu la Rochelle, Avec Doriot (Paris, 1937), 43. 71 Carroll, French Literary Fascism, 187. 72 See, for example, A. Mammone, Transnational Neofascism in France and Italy (Cambridge, 2015), xii; K. Fiss, Grand Illusion: The Third Reich, the Paris Exposition and the Cultural Seduction of France (Chicago/London, 2009), 177.

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synthetic work of art, fusing the themes of love, sacrifice and heroism in a portrayal of Christian faith. Les sept couleurs can be considered an attempt to revitalize this literary tradition in a new modern form. The ‘seven colours’ in the title refer to the synthesis of literary styles that together aim to produce a transfiguration of reality.73 Les sept couleurs re-connects France to its history prior to 1789, fashioning both continuity and a return to the age of beginnings. Hence, in accordance with his own understanding of fascist aesthetics, Brasillach inaugurated a national ‘regeneration’ and thus creates a collectivity with shared traditions, relating to a higher, cyclical time. As such, the novel can be apprehended as the converse of the emotional and ‘ephemeral’ aesthetics of the Third Reich. Different from the ceremonies in Nuremberg, which fashioned single eternal moments, this literary art work is supposed to be more permanent and enduring.

Conclusion The novels of Malraux and Brasillach represent rival communities in the 1930s: L’espoir shows the common bonds of republicans in the Spanish Civil War; Les sept couleurs pictures fascists who fight fraternally for the national revolution in various parts of Europe, including Spain. In spite of all the differences, both novels employ literary devices to skilfully construct political myths in order to provide people with a sense of belonging. What they further have in common is a concern for time that is key to their conception of community. Sharing a similar sense of time, as Anderson formulated it, plays a crucial role in the collectivities that are portrayed in L’espoir and Les sept couleurs While the novels confirm several arguments of Anderson, they bring to light, in addition, other aspects of the interrelation between time and community and the role of the novel. Most importantly, they expose the pivotal importance of rhythm for both the imagination and experience of communal bonds. Although the narratives are set in a seemingly historical present, progressing linearly to the future, they actually fashion alternative temporalities in order to oppose the dominance of linear time. Rhythm, so prominent in the novels, links up the various temporalities: the pulse of bodily processes, the cyclical time of natural life, and the permanence of art. 73 For a detailed discussion of the transfiguration in Les sept couleurs, see: Rassson, Littérature et fascisme.

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The representations of communities in the two novels testify to a similar longing to recapture a rhythmic time experience that seems to be a (quasi-) sacred and collective sense of time, opposite to the modern experience of homogenous, empty or secular time. Its protagonists, who live under constant time pressure, find comfort in group membership. Integrated into the larger collectivity with a shared past and a common future destiny, they seem better able to face the modern human condition where there is no redemption for the death of an individual. Time is more bearable and meaningful when being part of a collectivity that ‘protects against the rush of time’, to quote Mosse.74 The rhythmic elements of the respective communities relate to the horizontal, as well as the vertical time level. The communal groups of Malraux and Brasillach have similar rhythmic elements that can be connected to the experience of temporal coincidence. In a way more obvious than Anderson suggested, the novels articulate a sense of simultaneity that enables readers to think and imagine the community as a horizontal comradeship. Yet both works portray larger identifications that go beyond the confines of the nation. Through the story of the Republican Army in Spain, Malraux portrays a fraternity as large as mankind, whereas Brasillach offers a vista of different national communities, showing fellowship among fascists in Europe. Another divergence from Anderson’s theory is the emphasis on the fraternal feelings that are generated and sustained by the embodied synchronization in collective singing and marching. The images of rhythmic moving crowds and collectivities suggest that affective and visceral senses are powerful forces of bonding, as important as cognition and imagination. The shared feeling of rhythm, as Malraux and Brasillach picture it, is highly gendered. Women play a merely symbolic role in their novels, they do not take part in the collective marching and singing that marks the horizontal comradeship. Rhythm further relates to the vertical relationship with ancestors from the past. By the design of epic scenes, representing communities close to the eternal rhythms of nature, the novels establish a sense of continuity between past, present and future. Whatever group they represent, they give shape to vertical relations of genealogy, inheritance and tradition. Both Malraux and Brasillach showcase a rhythmic group in the act of performing rituals of mourning and commemorating which re-actualize the mythical time of the past. Symbols and references to significant events in the past serve to further include the community within the respective wider narratives of man’s eternal struggle and the regeneration of the nation. 74 Mosse, Masses and Man, 1.

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Ultimately, rhythm is associated with the permanence of art. The consis­ tent use of intertextuality adds to the idea of a shared cultural tradition that can be a source of eternal renewal. Akin in the ambition to provide the reader with an intuitive awareness of community, L’espoir and Les sept couleurs illustrate Anderson’s suggestion that novels facilitate the imagination of readers, producing a sense of belonging. However, as romans à these that actively pursue ideological ends, they do this more explicitly than he suggested. Inspired by the medium of film, Malraux and Brasillach alike employ a pictorial style to fashion powerful images of a mythically charged momentum in which all rhythms of community merge: the experience of simultaneity, the affective feeling of comradeship, a purpose for the future and a sense of continuity and permanence. This aesthetics is the essential link that binds the two novels together; they enable readers to glimpse the community’s promise of a higher, collective time, imbued with meaning.

About the author Marleen Rensen is Assistant Professor of Modern European Literature at the University of Amsterdam. She wrote a dissertation about the representation of time in French literature from the 1930s, comparing novels of left-wing and right-wing writers (Lijden aan de tijd. Franse intellectuelen in het interbellum (Aspekt, 2009). Her current research focuses on the relations between French and German writers in the interwar period. Selected publications: ‘Fascist Poetry for Europe: Transnational Fascism and the Case of Robert Brasillach’, in: A. Bauerkämper and G. Rossolinski-Liebe (eds), Fascism without Borders: Transnational Connections and Cooperation between Movements and Regimes in Europe from 1918 to 1945 (Berghahn, 2017); ‘Restoring the Republic of Letters: Romain Rolland, Stefan Zweig and Transnational Community Building in Europe, 1914-1934’, in: S. Couperus and H. Kaal (eds), (Re)Constructing Communities in Europe, 1918-1968: Senses of Belonging Below, Beyond and Within the Nation-State (Routledge, 2017).

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Stamverwantschapand the Imagination of a White, Transnational Community The 1952 Celebrations of the Jan van Riebeeck Tercentenary in the Netherlands and South Africa Barbara Henkes

Abstract This case study focuses on the 1952 celebration of the 300th anniversary of the landing of the Dutchman Jan van Riebeeck in the Cape. It shows how several families who had emigrated from the Netherlands to the town of Upington in the Western Cape presented themselves as Dutch South Africans who felt connected to the white population of South Africa. Photos and memories of their contribution to the local festivities will be contextualized in a broader frame of national celebrations (and the protests against it) of the Van Riebeeck Tercentenary in both South Africa and the Netherlands. This chapter explores the meaning of Van Riebeeck as a historical persona around whom the image of South Africa as a ‘white man’s nation’ was constructed, and how that image was taken up in the Netherlands. Additionally, this chapter examines how Dutch migrants in South Africa used the local Van Riebeeck celebrations to simultaneously perform and display their shared Dutchness – through their white skins in Dutch costumes and the design of their common floats – within the local community and their transnational belonging to both the Netherlands and South Africa. The concept of ‘imagined communities’ provides a basis to analyse the in- and exclusion of groups of people from the modern nation state of South Africa, and to expand the concept to the imagining of transnational communities – in this specific case the so-called ‘stamverwantschap’ (kinship ties) connecting Dutchness and the Netherlands with white Afrikaners in South Africa.

Blok, Gemma, Kuitenbrouwer, Vincent and Weeda, Claire (eds): Imagining Communities. Historical Reflections on the Process of Community Formation. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018 doi: 10.5117/9789462980037_ch09

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Keywords: Dutch immigrants in South Africa, (post)colonial celebrations of whiteness, Jan van Riebeeck, stamverwantschap, transnational communities

‘Power to the imagination’, was the motto of the Dutch Provo movement in the mid-1960s that provoked Dutch authorities with playful, ludic actions. Benedict Anderson enjoyed encountering one of these actions during a visit to Amsterdam. It was one of those moments that inspired him to incorporate the force of the imaginative into the core of his work.1 His concept of the nation as an ‘imagined political community’ stimulated new research on nationalism from a cultural-political perspective.2 In response to contemporaries who derided nationalism as a ‘fabrication’,3 Anderson took individual and collective identifications with ‘the nation’ seriously. The question why individuals identify so deeply with something unknowable as a ‘nation’ or a ‘people’ (folk) was his starting point. Anderson wanted ‘to explain the attachment that people feel for the inventions of their imaginations […] or why people are ready to die for these inventions’.4 The results of this search was presented in his path-breaking book Imagined Communities, which in turn has inspired many scholars all over the world to this day. My research too is indebted to the work of Anderson. In this contribution I want to explore the meaning of nation-ness and national identifications (in the plural and as an activity) for those who imagine and experience a commitment to more than one nation. More specifically: I shall look at Dutch migrants who left the Netherlands for South Africa; I want to explore how in the 1950s they were led to negotiate their Dutchness as part of their white South Africanness. How did they imagine and live a transnational community at the intersection of both nations and both continents? My choice for South Africa is not random. Although the overseas emigration to other settler societies such as Canada, Australia and the United States exerted more appeal, South Africa was presented by several institutions as a destination of choice for Dutch emigrants due to the Dutch colonial heritage that was noticeably present.5 Dutch emigration to that country 1 In Dutch: ‘De verbeelding aan de macht’. Informal conversation with Benedict Anderson during a meeting in Amsterdam, September 2013. 2 B. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, 3rd, rev. ed. (London/New York, 2006), 6. 3 See, for example, E. Gellner, Thought and Change (London, 1964), 169; E. Hobsbawm, ‘Some Reflections on “The Break-up of Britain”’, New Left Review 105 (1977), 3-24, here 10. 4 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 141 5 B. Henkes, ‘Een warm welkom voor blanke nieuwkomers? Nederlandse emigratie en Zuid-Afrikaanse natievorming (1902-1961)’, Tijdschrift voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis 10 (2013), 2-39.

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was framed in terms of stamverwantschap, which has been translated into the natural vocabulary of ‘kinship ties’.6 This family-related terminology suggests that Dutch migrants, due to their Dutch-ness, were expected to ‘automatically’ affiliate themselves with ‘the’ South African society. That is to say, with the Afrikaans-speaking, ‘white’ part of the South African population, which was presented as descendants of seventeenth-century Dutch settlers. Through the notion of stamverwantschap, which emerged at a time of escalating nationalism in the late nineteenth century,7 an appeal was made to a shared cultural and genealogical (biological) ‘origin’. Although stamverwantschap was and still is also used to indicate a communality between the Netherlands and Flemish Belgium or between the Netherlands and Germany,8 I shall confine myself below to the articulation of stamverwantschap between ‘the’ Dutch and a group of South Africans who are categorized as white, and described as Afrikaners. Stamverwantschap in this case is traced back to the colonial presence of the Netherlands in South Africa. The similarities between both ‘mother’ tongues (Dutch and Afrikaans), between religious practices or between place names and surnames of inhabitants of the two countries, called for feelings of recognition and affection, in which – as Anderson mentions – ‘there is always an element of fond imagining’.9 This fed into a nationalist movement of solidarity of the Dutch with Afrikaners in South Africa at the end of the nineteenth century. Half a century later this memory of nationalist solidarity would have a substantial impact on Dutch emigration to South Africa. Although the passionate identification with the heroic fight of the Boers against the almighty Britons did lessen after their surrender in 1902, the idea of stamverwantschap as an organic bond between the Dutch and Afrikaners remained alive – and

6 For example, V. Kuitenbrouwer, Wars of Words: Dutch Pro-Boer Propaganda and the South African Wars (1899-1902) (Amsterdam, 2012), 300. 7 M. Bossenbroek, Holland op zijn breedst: Indië en Zuid-Afrika in de Nederlandse cultuur omstreeks 1900 (Amsterdam, 1996); M. Kuitenbrouwer, The Netherlands and the Rise of Modern Imperialism: Colonies and Foreign Policy, 1870-1902 (Oxford, 1992), a translation of: Nederland en de opkomst van het modern imperialisme: koloniën en buitenlandse politiek 1870-1902 (Amsterdam, 1985); H. te Velde, Gemeenschapszin en plichtsbesef: Liberalisme en Nationalisme in Nederland, 1870-1918 (The Hague, 1992). 8 For example, B. Dietz, H. Gabel und G. Mölich (eds), Griff nach dem Westen: Die ‘Westforschung’ der völkisch-nationalen Wissenschaften zum nordwesteuropäischen Raum (1919-1960) (Münster, 2003); B. Henkes, Uit liefde voor het volk: Volkskundigen op zoek naar de Nederlandse identiteit, 1918-1948 (Amsterdam, 2005). 9 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 154.

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manifests itself to this day.10 A revival of stamverwantschap as a topos in post-war emigration discourse went hand in hand with the expectation that Dutch migrants in South Africa would identify themselves primarily with white Afrikaner-ness. An essentialist approach to stamverwantschap as a natural fact of life returns in the work of historians who explored the relations between the Netherlands and South Africa. In the Netherlands B.J.H. de Graaff presented ‘the African-Dutch stamverwantschap’ in his PhD thesis De mythe van de stamverwantschap (1993) as ‘an irrefutable historical and cultural fact’. The author stresses that ‘the myth’ in the title of his book does not refer to the falsity of the concept, nor to the ‘invention’ or construction of a Dutch-Afrikaner community. Instead, ‘the myth’ stands for the idea that the (real existing) kinship ties led to a steady and continuous sympathy between the Dutch from the Netherlands and the Afrikaners from the seventeenth century onwards, while their daily encounters in South Africa actually were characterized by the employment of mutual negative stereotypes.11 A similar approach to the notion of stamverwantschap can be found in the works of De Graaf’s supervisor, Gerrit Schutte, a leading expert on Dutch-Afrikaner relations. Schutte too emphasizes the unquestionable fact of kinship ties in combination with a so-called ‘Dutchman hate’ (Hollanderhaat) in Kruger’s Republic.12 Others tried to politicize the notion of stamverwantschap by – in the heat of the anti-Apartheid struggle – claiming that the bond between the Dutch with the white Afrikaner ‘brother nation’ in South Africa had been replaced by a new bond: ‘a bond that is felt with the liberation movement of the oppressed in that country of Apartheid. Even now one can speak of “blood ties”; an identification with the blood that flows as a result of violent repression by our ‘stamverwanten’ [kinsmen].’13 From this perspective, the Netherlands and South Africa were 10 ‘Stamverwantschap’ is a favourite theme of the populist politician Martin Bosma of the Partij van de Vrede (PVV), when it comes to the necessary support for an Afrikaner culture in post-Apartheid South Africa. See also note 21. 11 B.J.H. de Graaff, De mythe van de stamverwantschap: Nederland en de Afrikaners 1902-1930 (Amsterdam, 1993), cover text. 12 For example: G.J. Schutte, Nederland en de Afrikaners: Adhesie en aversie (Franeker, 1986), 101-142; G. Schutte, Stamverwantschap onder druk: De betrekkingen tussen Nederland en ZuidAfrika, 1940-1947 (Amsterdam, 2011). 13 S. Bosgra, ‘Voorwoord’, in: R. Rozenburg, De bloedband Den Haag-Pretoria: Het Nederlandse Zuid-Afrikabeleid sinds 1945 (Amsterdam, 1986). See also: S. de Boer, Van Sharpeville tot Soweto: Nederlands regeringsbeleid ten aanzien van apartheid, 1960-1977 (The Hague, 1999), 370-371; and G. Schutte, ‘Stamverwantschap als imperialisme. Geschiedenis van de Nederland-Zuid-Afrikaanse betrekkingen’, in: S.W. Couwenberg (ed.), Apartheid, Anti-apartheid, Post-apartheid: Terugblik en evaluatie. Civis Mundi jaarboek, 2008 (Budel, 2008), 11-19, here 19.

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inseparably linked together, although political struggles and new identifications radically changed the nature of this bond. More recently, the Dutch historian Vincent Kuitenbrouwer attempted to de-naturalize stamverwantschap by arguing that it is an idea that circulated in a particular knowledge network. But still the question remains: What came first, the idea or the network? His struggle with the concept of stamverwantschap is illustrated by the different ways in which he defines it throughout his book: on the one hand he refers to ‘feelings’ or ‘ideas’ or ‘the ideal’ of ‘(racial) (and cultural) stamverwantschap’, while on the other hand he mentions ‘the ties’ or ‘the network of stamverwantschap’.14 From the foregoing it will be clear that stamverwantschap, however much it may appear as a matter of fact, cannot be approached as such. What is important to me is the meaning and impact of stamverwantschap as an ‘imagined political and cultural community’ for Dutch migrants in post-war South Africa.15 Did it offer Dutch immigrants a handhold to bring their Dutchness in accordance with their South African-ness – and, if so, how? In search of an answer to these questions, I will focus on the (trans)national celebrations of the 1952 Jan van Riebeeck Tercentenary. Both in South Africa and the Netherlands festivities were organized in order to commemorate the arrival of the Dutch colonial administrator Jan van Riebeeck 300 years earlier at Cape of Good Hope. The preparations and actual celebrations of the Van Riebeeck Tercentenary in both countries offer an opportunity to explore the significance of these festivities for the articulation of a (trans) national bond at the intersection of South Africa and the Netherlands. At the same time I will address the meaning of stamverwantschap for mobilizing Dutch participation in these festivities – and how this might have attributed to the transformation of Dutch immigrants into white South Africans. The concise and astute study by the South African historian Leslie Witz of the celebration of the 1952 Van Riebeeck Tercentenary in South Africa offers a starting point. His focus on the wide range of activities and the protests against the ‘Apartheid festival’ in South Africa shows how the nationalist government with these nationwide festivities aimed at strengthening the construction of a ‘white man’s country’ and subsequently marginalizing the majority of the people.16 From the Dutch perspective, the historian Willem-Peter van Ledden published Jan van Riebeeck tussen wal en schip about the changing image of Jan van Riebeeck in the Netherlands and South

14 Kuitenbrouwer, War of words. 15 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 6. 16 L. Witz, Apartheid’s Festival: Contesting South Africa’s National Past (Bloomington, 2003).

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Figure 9.1  ‘The Dutch arrive: Jan van Riebeeck arrives at the Cape in the Drommedaris, with his family, staff and military personnel’, caption at one of the pictures in The festival in Pictures/Die Fees in Beeld that documented the many floats in the parade with which the Van Riebeeck festival opened on the 3th of April 1952.

Figure 9.2  A group of newly arrived Dutch immigrants in Volendammer costume on their replica ship ‘De Toekomst’ (The Future), celebrating the landing of Jan van Riebeeck three centuries earlier in the city of Upington (Western Cape).

Photographer: Fred Stolper, April 1952. Source: Private collection.

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Africa during the twentieth century.17 He too looked at the 1952 Van Riebeeck festivities, focusing on the efforts to articulate the bond between both ‘white’ nations. However, none of these authors paid attention to the experiences of the newly arrived immigrants from the Netherlands and the significance of their participation in the celebrations. Inspired by Anderson’s Imagined Communities and building on the information and analyses of Witz and Van Ledden, supplemented by reports from the monthly South Africa of the Netherlands South African Society (NZAV), Dutch newspaper reports,18 and personal documents (letters, photographs and memories) of former migrants, I will analyse the significance of these celebrations for the (trans) national orientations and nation-ness of Dutch immigrants in South Africa.

Colonial presence of the Netherlands in South Africa The images of South Africa in the Netherlands are defined to a great extent by the Dutch colonial presence in the southern tip of Africa, although they have changed over time. In Dutch and South African historiography Jan van Riebeeck is allocated a prominent, though ambivalent position.19 The authors agree that Van Riebeeck and his crew, commissioned by the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, VOC) arrived in 1652 and installed a revictualing station on the Cape coast. This was to become a permanent settlement in cooperation and confrontation with the local population. Crewmembers, foremost of Dutch and German decent, had relationships and offspring with local Khoisan women; their population was later expanded to include French Huguenot refugees, Scottish ministers, and other immigrants from all over Europe and enslaved who were brought with VOC ships on their way to or from ‘the East’. After the Cape Colony was taken over by the British in 1806, substantial groups of white settlers (so-called Voortrekkers) turned their backs on the Cape to escape British rule and wandered around, colluding with both British constabulary and local Africans, until they founded the Boer Republics of Transvaal (1852) and the Orange Free State (1854). In the Netherlands the 17 W.P. van Ledden, Jan van Riebeeck tussen wal en schip: Een onderzoek naar de beeldvorming over Jan van Riebeeck in Nederland en Zuid-Afrika omstreeks 1900, 1950 en 2000 (Hilversum, 2005). ‘Tussen wal en schip’ (‘between the quay and the ship’), is the Dutch equivalent of the English expression ‘between two stools’. 18 I rely here on newspapers that are made digitally searchable in the Delpher databank of the Royal Library in The Hague. 19 Witz, Apartheids’s Festival, 30-83; Van Ledden, Jan van Riebeeck tussen wal en schip, 81-89.

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news of these developments was noticed without any further action. Only at the end of the nineteenth century, after the discovery of diamonds and gold contributed to a confrontation between the independent Boer Republics and the British colonial authorities, did the Netherlands rediscover their ‘distant cousins’ in South Africa.20 The romantic image of the Boers that arose at the time emphasized their tough-spiritedness, authentic simplicity and Protestant Christian piety. In the Netherlands a broad-based support for their struggle against the perfidious Albion arose. In 1881, the Netherlands South African Society (NZAV) was founded to help promote a nationalist movement of solidarity with the Boers, which in turn gave rise to strong feelings of stamverwantschap. The South African War (1899-1902) ended with the surrender of the Boers and the unif ication in 1910 of the Boer Republics with the British colonies of Natal and the Cape into the Union of South Africa. After the victory of the British (though one may question this victory as the Boer leaders succeeded in taking the reins), the Dutch involvement in South Africa and their distant ‘family’ waned. However, the notion of stamverwantschap between the Boers, who were known thereafter as Afrikaners, and the Dutch would not disappear entirely during the twentieth century.21 On the contrary, a ‘cultural’ nationalism – besides and sometimes in contrast with a ‘political’ nationalism – remained intact and fuelled the idea of a ‘Greater Netherlands’ (Groot Nederland), in line with the nationalists in Flanders and South Africa.22 It was not only 20 Several Dutch authors mention this sudden and intense identification of the Dutch across a broad political spectrum with their ‘kinsmen’ in South Africa. See: Ch. A.J. van Koppen, Geuzen van de negentiende eeuw. Abraham Kuyper en Zuid-Afrika (Utrecht, 1992); E.H. Kossmann, De Lage Landen 1780/1980, part I: 1780-1914 (Amsterdam/Brussels, 1986), 350-351, and also the above-mentioned works of Bossenbroek, Holland op zijn breedst; M. Kuitenbrouwer, The Netherlands and the Rise of Modern Imperialism; Schutte, Nederland en de Afrikaners, 9-44; and Te Velde, Gemeenschapszin. 21 H.W. von der Dunk, ‘De grootnederlandse gedachte geen tic van excentrieke heren’, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis 97 (1984), 207-213. See also: De Graaff, De mythe van Stamverwantschap; P. van Hees and H. de schepper, Tussen cultuur en politiek: Het Algemeen-Nederlands Verbond 1895-1995 (Hilversum, 1995); Henkes, Uit liefde voor het volk; Kuitenbrouwer, War of Words, 285-300. Since Afrikaans begins to lose its dominant position within the multilanguage democratic South Africa, there has been a revival of the idea of ‘stamverwantschap’ amongst Afrikaners in South Africa and in Flanders and the Netherlands. The populist member of parliament from the Party for Freedom (PVV), Martin Bosma, is trying to revitalise this idea; a position that can also be recognized in the bilingual documentary Navelstreng/Naelstring (2016), on the history of the renovated South Africa House in Amsterdam. See also note 49. 22 In Germany, too, the notion of ‘Stammverwantschaft’ was used to express common bonds with the Dutch and the people of Flanders. The idea of cultural and racial common grounds with Germanic peoples in- and outside the state borders was used to underlay the aspiration for a Greater Germanic or Third Reich. See: Dietz et al., Griff nach dem Westen.

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the idea of a cultural (which meant ‘white’ as well) bond that promoted the notion of stamverwantschap between the Dutch and the Afrikaners. In the 1930s stamverwantschap was also articulated when the rapid economic recovery in South Africa from the 1929 world crisis offered opportunities for the unemployed in the Netherlands. In the first years of the 1930s there were not more then 113 Dutch immigrants a year who made the passage overseas; since 1935 their number multiplied to 2,058 in 1936 until the restrictive Immigration Act of 1937 brought their arrival virtually to a halt.23 South Africa, led by the former Boer general and Prime Minister Jan Smuts, joined the allied forces in 1940, drawing South Africa and the Netherlands close together. At the same time, within South Africa the tensions flared up between the Smuts government and the Afrikaner nationalists who sympathized with Nazi Germany. The inconvenience the Nazi sympathies of the Afrikaner nationalists caused among the friends of the Boers in the Netherlands after the war was downplayed by stressing that the identification of the Afrikaner nationalists with Nazi Germany was not so much determined by a pro-German stance as by an anti-British (respectively, anti-imperialist) demeanour.24 Only a few years later, in 1948, the narrow election defeat of (the highly esteemed in the Western world) Prime Minister Smuts once more created a backlash for the notion of stamverwantschap in the Netherlands. The Afrikaner Nationalist Party won elections with a political program of racial Apartheid, which would increase and strengthen the already existing ‘colour line’ that split the South African population, in favour of the white minority. Despite fierce condemnations throughout the whole range of the Dutch media, there were other interests in the realm of migration policies leading to a strengthening of the ties between the two nations and a change of the public image of South Africa for the best.25 The 1950s, which are characterized as ‘the years of rapprochement’ between the Netherlands and South Africa,26 went hand in hand with a return of the notion of stamverwantschap in the discourse on Dutch-South African relations. This development was confirmed by the signing in 1951 of a cultural treaty between the Netherlands and South Africa with repeated references to ‘stamverwantschap’ between the two nations.27 The calvinist philosopher of 23 Peberdy, Selecting Immigrants, 263-264. See also Henkes, ‘Warm welkom’. 24 For example, Schutte, Stamverwantschap onder druk. 25 Henkes, ‘Warm welkom’. 26 W.G. Hendrickse, Die betrekkinge tussen Nederland en Suid-Afrika, 1946-1961 (PhD thesis, University of the Western Cape, 1984), 127. 27 Speech by the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs, D. Sticker, in 1951 on the occasion of the signing of the cultural treaty with South Africa, and the response by the diplomatic representative

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law professor Herman Dooyeweerd too emphasized in December 1951 on his return from South Africa how closely intertwined the ‘magnificent’ history of South Africa was with that of the Netherlands. According to him, the ‘core element’ (kernbestanddeel) of the South African people was ‘stamverwant’ to the Dutch and wore the same ‘character’ (geestesmerk). Dooyeweerd referred to a specific group, namely white, Protestant Afrikaans speakers. Although the experience of World War Two unfortunately had alienated this group of the South African population from the Dutch, he claimed that this ‘temporary estrangement [was] unnatural’. The Netherlands therefore could consider itself fortunate with the Dutch diplomatic representative Van den Berg in Pretoria, who had proven to be ‘a true propagandist for the fraternization idea’. At the end of his travel account Dooyeweerd expressed the hope that the 1952 Van Riebeeck Commemoration events may be ‘a grand testimony of the close brotherhood between the two peoples, both because of their shared history and on the basis of their common interests in the present’.28 The revival of the notion of stamverwantschap was closely linked with the population policies in both countries. While in post-war Netherlands the government wanted to reduce unemployment and the alleged overpopulation by an active emigration policy, the nationalist government in South Africa was – after her initial reluctance – around 1950 ready to promote the immigration of a specific group of white Europeans. That is to say, immigrants who were supposed to strengthen nationalist Afrikaner-ness.29 The ‘kindred’ Dutch would therefore qualify very well for emigration to South Africa, according to the authorities in both countries. But there was more to this imagining of a Dutch-Afrikaner community. Like many Dutch politicians of his time, the Social Democrat Prime Minister Willem Drees (1886-1988) had personally experienced the strong identification of the Dutch with the struggle for independence of the Boers against Britons around the turn of the century.30 Along with the political objective to promote emigraof South Africa, D.B. Bosman. On that occasion the status of the diplomatic representatives of both countries was also elevated from envoy (gezant), to ambassador. Both refer in their speeches to the ‘bonds of friendship and “stamverwantschap”’ between the two countries. Polygoon Dutch News, 31 May 1951: ‘Bijzondere Uniedag viering in Den Haag’ [Special Union Day celebration in The Hague], accessed at: http://www.npogeschiedenis.nl/speler.WO_VPRO_032928.html. 28 Monthly Zuid-Afrika (henceforth: MZA), 28 (December 1951), 161-162. Emphasis added by B. Henkes. 29 Henkes, ‘Warm welkom’. 30 When Drees made an official visit to South Africa in October 1952, he commemorated how his political interest had been roused at the occasion of the arrival of the Transvaal president, Kruger, in 1900, refered to by Hendriks, Die betrekkinge, 175. See also: http://www.npogeschiedenis.

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tion in order to reduce unemployment, the memory of that passionately professed solidarity with the brave ‘cousins’ in South Africa at the end of the nineteenth century contributed to the publicly professed sympathy for the Afrikaner nationalists by Drees and other Dutch authorities at the time. The same was true for politicians of the nationalist South African government who could remember the Dutch support for their struggle in earlier days. Their aim, with references to that same stamverwantschap, was to bind Dutch immigrants to the nationalist Afrikaner community and its political project of Apartheid. That is expressed by Prime Minister D.F. Malan in his 1950 New Year’s message when he stressed the special relationship between South Africa and the Netherlands as ‘the country which was the motherland of our settlement’ (‘die land wat die moederland van ons volksplanting was’) and between the Afrikaner and the Dutch people as they are predominantly ‘stamverwant’.31 A few months later, Minister J.G. Strydom followed in Malan’s footsteps with a statement that immigrants from Europe were needed for ‘the advancement and strengthening of the white population’ and that this could best be realized by bringing immigrants ‘out of our homeland, the Netherlands’: ‘There are of course no other people like the Dutch, who as immigrants can easily identify with us and become one of us.’32 They could expect a warm welcome in a sunny country, where they could make themselves understood in their own mother tongue.

‘We built a (white) nation’ Upon arrival in large cities like Cape Town or Johannesburg in the 1950s, Dutch newcomers were regularly greeted by helpful compatriots or by representatives of the Afrikaner Liaison Committee (Afrikaner Skakelkomitee) or the Society for European Immigration (Maatskappy fir Europese Immigrasie, MEI).33 But once having arrived at their destination, life rarely matched nl/nieuws/2010/juli/Paul-Kruger-in-Nederland.html. Many years later, in the 1960s, Willem Drees held a talk about ‘De Boerenoorlog’ (Boer War), on the radio in which he remembered how he, as a young lad had closely/carefully followed the news about that war. Accessed at: http:// www.npogeschiedenis.nl/ovt/afleveringen/1999/Ovt-10-01-1999/Column-van-Willem-DreesDe-Boerenoorlog-in-Zuid-Afrika.html. 31 MZA 27 (February 1950), 21. 32 MZA 27 (June 1950), 95. 33 R. Slater, Die Maatskappy vir Europese Immigrasie: Cultural Assimilation and Naturalisation of European Immigrants to South Africa 1949-1994 (MA thesis, University of Stellenbosch, 2005). See also: ‘Emigranten met de ‘Zuiderkruis’, MZA 29 (February 1952), 15.

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the sunny images and favourable impressions with which they had left the Netherlands. Soon the immigrants realized that they had entered a highly divided society. In addition to the segregation between ‘white’ and ‘black’, they had to face the painful legacy of the South African War. The violent struggle between ‘Brit’ and ‘Boer’ at the end of the nineteenth century, that in fact involved the entire population of South Africa, was still tangible within the white community half a century later. The mutual opposition between the white settlers transformed into a strong animosity between those (including Afrikaners) who envisioned the future of a ‘civilized’ and modern South Africa within the British Commonwealth (the so-called Unionists) and those who were in favour of an independent national Republic apart from the Commonwealth (the so-called Nationalists). These opposing political perspectives featured alongside a different conception of the position of people of colour within the Union of South Africa, although both parties had a shared axioma that European culture was superior and that the safeguarding of Western civilization required a leading position of the white minority.34 After the Nationalists came to power in 1948, their priority was the implementation of absolute dividing lines between a white population and those who were classified as black, coloured or Asian. South Africa had to become and remain an exclusive ‘white man’s country’,35 while the black population was allocated to their ‘home countries’ (thuislanden), from where they, as temporary cheap labour, could be guests in the Union and find refuge in separate townships. The success of this policy of Apartheid depended on unity among the white population. Joint celebrations could enhance this kind of unification. A national commemoration of the arrival of Jan van Riebeeck and his European crew 300 years earlier provided an opportunity in 1952 to celebrate the beginning of ‘Western civilization’ in Africa and hence unite all whites, leaving the animosities of the past behind. The Dutchman was framed as the pioneer who introduced a Christian, Western civilization on the African continent. That made him suitable as an icon that could function at the centre of local and national festivities to unify different sections of the white, European-South African population.36 Under the bilingual motto ‘Ons bou �n nasie/We Built a Nation’, a tribute was to be organized to ‘our colonists’ (volksplanters), as well as to those ‘who had contributed after them to the material and mental development of the South African nation’, as Prime 34 Henkes, ‘Warm welkom’. 35 For example, Bill Schwarz, Memories of Empire, Volume I: The White Man’s World (Oxford, 2011). 36 Se also Witz, Apartheid’s Festival, 49-52.

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Minister Malan announced in 1951. He called for a shared effort in order to face the 6 April 1952 commemoration ‘with an unshakable determination to […] secure Western civilization’ and with it ‘our national existence for the future’ (‘met ’n onwrikbare vasberadenheid om […] die Westerse beska­ wing en saam daarmee ons volksbestaan vir die toekoms te beveilig’).37 The announcement that a number of immigrants ‘from the stamlanden [countries of origin], the Netherlands, France, Germany and England’ would be invited to participate in the reenactment of Van Riebeeck’s landing on a replica ship in a bay near Cape Town, indicated that the concept of stamverwantschap could be extended to other national groups of white settlers for the benefit of national unification in South Africa. Outside the Van Riebeeck festivities however, stamverwantschap continued to be primarily reserved for the Protestant Dutch, with an occasional extension to Dutch-speaking Flemings, Germans and Protestant Huguenots.38 Not everyone agreed with a national celebration that would focus on the bringing together of all (also British-oriented) whites in South Africa. In the former Boer Republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State an influential group wanted to celebrate the Van Riebeeck Tercentenary as a feast for the Afrikaner nationalists and their church, as had happened before in 1938 and 1949 at the occasion of the laying of the foundation stone, respectively the unveiling of the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria.39 When this wish was not given due honour, the city of Pretoria refused to participate in the national Van Riebeeck-exhibition in Cape Town. 40 Amongst the inhabitants of the ‘Boer capital’ there was not much enthusiasm for the Van

37 Radiospeech by D.F. Malan on 6 April 1951, refered to in MZA 28 (June 1951), 85. Italics are mine. 38 MZA 28 (January 1951), 7. However, parallel to the preparations for the Van Riebeeck Tercentanary the definition of ‘stamverwantschap’ in South Africa was going to expand. Following the reports in the MZA the vocabulary changed from ‘stam’ countries (stamlanden), to nations (volkeren), which had been involved in the history of South Africa – either because of their official status as colonial power, or as the land of origin of many European settlers. Apart from the Netherlands and England, France, Germany and Flanders (not Belgium), were mentioned as well. MZA 28 (September 1951), 120-121. 39 On the protests from the Nationalist side on the design of the festivities, see: Witz, Apartheid’s Festival, 111-119, in particular. In the final celebrations the Afrikaner NG Church was presented with several floats depicting ‘the great Church reformation in Europe’, ‘the Synod of Dordrecht’, ‘the flight of Huguenots’ and the arrival of Scottish ministers and teachers in 1822 ‘to strengthen the Calvinist element in the Cape’. With two more floats representing heroic scene from the Great Trek, one may conclude that the Afrikaner nationalists and their church got plenty of space in this national celebration. 40 MZA 28 (October 1951), 138.

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Riebeeck celebration, as one of the Dutch immigrants in Pretoria remarked.41 That was quite different for those who had established themselves around Cape Town. There the national celebrations found their culmination in the re-enactment of the landing of Van Riebeeck and his crew, the days- long pageants of floats and groups showing milestones both from South African history and from ‘modern developments in the life of the nation’ and many other attractions at the festival site. 42 In addition to the criticism of the ultra-Nationalists, particularly in the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, other objections towards the Van Riebeeck festivities manifested itself from a very different perspective. The growing resistance to the Apartheid policy among the people of colour and a small group of whites sparked resistance against this celebration of ‘unity and exclusion’ around ‘an icon of whiteness’. 43 The South African authorities for their part, did everything to prevent the celebration of national unity turning into a debacle of racial division. News about the protests was kept from the public. For the carefully observant, however, the festivities themselves showed that it was as much a celebration of national inclusion, as an expression of racial exclusion. There was, for instance, a separate procession for the participating floats with ‘Cape Maleiers’ and ‘Griqua’, while Africans were assigned to a special corner on the festival grounds. Following the nineteenth- and earlytwentieth-century’s world fairs there was a group of twelve ‘Bushmen’ (San) who, under the supervision of a professor of anthropology, served as a human showcase. They were presented, as Leslie Witz noticed, ‘in vivid contrast to the “triumphs” of “civilisation” and “industrial progress”’. 44 While not uncontroversial, this part of the exposition ‘proved an immense attraction’, 41 In a letter to her parents in Amsterdam, a newly arrived Dutch immigrant in Pretoria mentioned a conversation with another Dutch woman who had told her about the Van Riebeeck celebrations in the capital. (Letter, Mrs Beusekom, 12 February, 1953, private collection, copy owned by the author). Only a small message in the regional Nieuwsblad van het Noorden, 10 March 1952, referred to ‘a large crowd’ watching a pageant in the streets of Pretoria. 42 Witz, Apartheid’s Festival. See also: The Festival in Pictures/Die fees in beeld. Van Riebeeck Festival-fees 1952: A Pictorial Report with Bilingual Captions of the Van Riebeeck Festival, 1952 (Cape Town, 1952). 43 In his Apartheid’s Festival Witz gives careful consideration to the ‘counter-histories’, which accompanied Van Riebeeck festivities. See also C. Rassool in L. Witz, ‘The 1952 Jan van Riebeeck Tercentury Festival: Constructing and Contesting Public National History of South Africa’, Journal of African History 34 (1993), 447-468; L. Witz, ‘“’n Fees Vir Die Oog”: Looking in on the 1952 Jan van Riebeeck Tercentenary Festival Fair in Cape Town’, South African Historical Journal 29 (1993), 5-27. 44 Witz, Apartheid’s Festival, 191.

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according to The Festival in Pictures/Die Fees in Beeld, a pictorial record with bilingual captions of the Van Riebeeck festival that was published soon afterwards. Dutch newspapers too reported enthusiastically about this ‘native village’. 45 Most of the approximately 895,000 participants and spectators enjoyed the entertainment that was offered to them without dwelling on this display of racial inequality, which was experienced as a ‘natural’ part of their daily lives anyway. 46 The shared festive experience was prominent, just as the organizers had in mind.

Van Riebeeck celebrations in the Netherlands Soon after the preparations for the Van Riebeeck Tercentenary in South Africa had begun, the Van Riebeeck fire was lit in the Netherlands too. The Netherlands South African Society (NZAV), which was directly involved in providing information to and mediation on behalf of Dutch emigrants to South Africa, took the lead in 1949. A broad-based Van Riebeeck Committee was established to launch a national celebration in the Netherlands and raise money for a gift of ‘the Dutch people’ to the celebrating nation. 47 The Dutch festivities were not specifically aimed at drawing together different sections of the Dutch population. Despite all the regional, religious and political diversity the majority of the Dutch at the time felt united as one nation, even more so since they had recently been liberated from German occupation.48 So there must have been another motive to honour Van Riebeeck’s landing in South Africa 300 years earlier. 45 The Festival in Pictures, 48. See also: De Leeuwarder Courant, 22 March 1952. 46 The total attendance of the festival, based on publications in the Afrikaner daily Die Burger of 15-21 March 1952, is estimated to have been 887,648 people. See: Witz, Apartheid’s Festival, 186. 47 The Dutch Van Riebeeck Committee consisted of seventeen men. Following the former administration of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), these gentlemen called themselves the ‘Lords Seventeen’ (Heeren XVII). They represented institutions that had direct relations with South Africa. Amongst others J. Keunig, who as director of the Dutch Bank of South Africa and President of the Dutch-South African Association (NZAV), took up the function of chairman of the Committee. The deputy chairman, the historian Professor Dr P.J. Winter, was secretary of the NZAV and editor of the monthly of the NZAV. See: W. Veerman, ‘De Jan van Riebeeckfeesten in 1952 te Culemborg: een nationaal en international gebeuren op lokaal niveau, met vèrstrekkende gevolgen’, De drie steden: historisch tijdschrift voor Tiel, Buren en Culemborg 20 (1999), 39. 48 However, Dutch men and women who had been part of the National Socialist movement or those who had collaborated with the German authorities were shut out from that national community, while the few survivors of the Shoah and some of the resistance fighters had trouble getting back to post-war ‘normality’. Amongst them were many who would leave the country.

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The Dutch celebrations were fuelled by a strong urge to stimulate post-war emigration, as indeed the devastating war had caused shortages of housing, electricity, food and other basic necessities. Also the rising international tensions between the ‘capitalist West’ and the ‘communist East’ caused growing fears about a Third World War in Europe. Many Dutch, whether or not in the company of their families, exchanged their homes and the European continent for a new life overseas in one of the settler societies. 49 Since 1950 this migration movement was actively supported by a nationally coordinated emigration policy, which had its peak results in 1952.50 The f igure of Van Riebeeck offered an excellent opportunity to promote Dutch emigration to South Africa; a country that was explicitly presented as a similar, Dutch-speaking, white man’s world. In brochures and during information meetings for prospective emigrants to South Africa Van Riebeeck was introduced as ‘the first migrant’ from the Netherlands who settled in South Africa.51 The framing of Van Riebeeck as a Dutchman provided both for Dutch immigrants in South Africa as for the people who stayed behind in the Netherlands a possibility to imagine and experience a transnational community connecting both countries. In that respect the Van Riebeeck celebrations present us with an interesting performance of ‘long-distance nationalism’, as Anderson calls it in his Spectre of Comparisons.52 After the 1951 sealing of the cultural treaty between the Netherlands and South Africa with repeated references to ‘stamverwantschap’ between the two countries, the Dutch government felt the need to engage thoroughly in the preparations of the national celebrations of Van Riebeeck’s arrival in South Africa. At the request of the Netherlands Committee, the Ministry of Education, Arts and Science in January 1952 called upon the school boards to use the Van Riebeeck celebrations ‘to draw the attention of the schoolchildren to the history and the emergence of South Africa, […] where its Dutch origin is kept and consciously cultivated’.53 The Dutch government also participated in the issuing of special Jan van Riebeeck postal stamps 49 Henkes, ‘Warm welkom’. 50 M. van Faassen, ‘Min of meer misbaar: naoorlogse emigratie vanuit Nederland’, in: S. Poldervaart, H. Willems and J.W. Schilt (eds), Van hot naar her: Nederlandse migratie vroeger, nu en morgen (Amsterdam, 2001), 50-67. 51 ‘Gathering with emigrants met emigranten in Krasnapolsky 6 april 1949’, MZA 26 (May 1949), 78. 52 B. Anderson, The Spectre of Comparisons: Nationalims, Southeast Asia and the World (London/ New York, 1998), ch. 3. 53 ‘Van Riebeeckherdenking op scholen’, in the Protestant newspaper De Heerenveensche Koerier, 15 January 1952. See also national Catholic newspaper De Tijd, 15 January 1952.

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Figure 9.3  Replica of the Culemborg town square, built by Dutch immigrants, at the Van Riebeeck festival in Cape Town in april 1952.

Source: The festival in Pictures/Die Fees in Beeld.

with additional charge. The extra revenue was intended as a gift from ‘the Dutch people’ to South Africa: a statue of Maria de la Quellerie, the wife of Van Riebeeck who accompanied him on his arrival and stay in the Cape.54 Extra earnings also came from the sale of a Van Riebeeck memorial medal, beaten into silver and bronze with the slogan ‘Give, in order that the Dutch people has given’ (‘Geeft, opdat het Nederlandse volk gegeven zal hebben’).55 The South African government for its part also spent part of the additional income derived from the release of a special postal stamp of a bronze bust of Jan van Riebeeck, destined for the church square of his hometown, Culemborg, in the Netherlands.56 This small town on the Lek River was chosen as the centre for the Dutch celebrations. As in Cape Town, the port of Culemborg would 54 MZA 29 (February 1952), 24-25, and (March 1952), 30. 55 One side showed Van Riebeeck and his wife, on the other side the image of the town hall of Culemborg was accompanied by the text ‘the old fleet that sails the wide sea between Netherlands and Table Mountain’. MZA 29 (February 1952), 24-25. 56 MZA 29 (February 1952), 23-24.

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accommodate a reenactment of the landing of Jan van Riebeeck with his family and his crew. In addition, the Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam organized an exhibition South Africa 300 Years as a counterpart to the exhibition on the achievements of ‘modern’ South Africa at the festival site in Cape Town.57 Between the Netherlands and South Africa, there was an immediate, cultural transfer of celebratory repertoires. The Dutch Committee, which was well-informed about the preparations in South Africa, adopted many elements of the South African celebrations and in doing so emphasized the cultural similarities between the two nations. The release of similar Van Riebeeck postage stamps in South Africa as well as in the Netherlands was an articulation of common, transnational grounds; the more so because the exchange of letters was still the main vehicle for regular contact overseas. Besides this tangible symbol of communality in addition to mutual correspondence, exchanging gifts by both governments on behalf of ‘the people’ formed a crucial ritual to express mutual friendship and commitment in the transnational domain. These mutual gifts were not limited to the aforementioned statues. The municipality of Culemborg offered Cape Town a painting of the interior of the reformed Barbara Church where Van Riebeeck had been baptized; in turn Culemborg was given a donation for the new carillon of that same church.58 And there were many more material and immaterial exchanges on this occasion that expressed and strengthened the Dutch-South African communality. Two plaques were simultaneously unveiled in memory of Van Riebeeck and his wife in the ports of Rotterdam and Cape Town, and a famous Dutch silversmith donated a silver replica of the Van Riebeeck ship, the Dromedaris, to the South African ambassador.59 Ships and seaports stood for mobility and symbolized the interconnectedness of Europe – and more specifically the Netherlands – and South Africa. These were recurring themes in the commemoration rituals around Van Riebeeck; also in a competition for building ship models that the Dutch and South African Van Riebeeck Committees had jointly organized.60

57 Femke Knoop, ‘Jan van Riebeeck: symbool van de natie? De Jan van Riebeeck-herdenking van 1952’ (paper, University of Groningen, February 2008). See also MZA, 29 (January 1952), 8-9; and accounts of the opening of the exposition by the South African ambassador in national in regional newspapers like the Leeuwarder Courant, the Nieuwblad van het Noorden and De Tijd on 2 March 1952. 58 MZA, 29 (January 1952), 8-9. 59 The Social Democratic newspaper Het Vrije Volk, 29 March 1952; De Tijd, 31 March 1952; the Protestant Gereformeerde Gezinsblad, 1 April 1952, and the regional daily Nieuwsblad van het Noorden, 2 April 1952. 60 Het Vrije Volk, 2 April 1951.

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In the margins of all the festivities in the Netherlands some information seeped through about the protests which took place at the time of the Van Riebeeck celebration in South Africa. In various newspapers and also in the NZAV-monthly Zuid-Afrika one could find brief references to the announced protests against the Apartheid policy during the planned festivities.61 It was known that the official start of the Van Riebeeck celebrations on 6 April 1952 coincided with the beginning of the Defiance Campaign against Unjust Laws by the African National Congress (ANC). In the Dutch media, however, there was hardly any interest in this campaign against the policy of Apartheid. The meetings were downplayed and the sporadic small reports about the South African protests could be overseen easily.62 Afterwards the editor of the monthly Zuid-Afrika stated that the Van Riebeeck Tercentenary in Cape Town had passed ‘without dissonance’ (zonder wanklank): there had been no hint of the announced strikes and protests. In so far as any attempts were made to demonstrate against the government, these had failed thanks to ‘the vigilance of the police’ and because of ‘the lack of enthusiasm among the people’.63 A few small-scale and barely noticed protests against the Van Riebeeck celebrations took place in the Netherlands itself. On 10 January 1952, the Communist newspaper De Waarheid printed an account of the discussion in the City Council of Amsterdam. Along with some of the Social Democratic representatives, the Communists voted against the participation of a delegation of the City Council to the Van Riebeeck commemorations in Cape Town because of racial discrimination in South Africa.64 The Van Riebeeck festivities in Amsterdam on the other hand, did not gave rise to explicit criticisms from the side of the communists or socialists.65 The rumour that the exhibition at the Royal Tropical Institute led to small-scale protests of Surinamese-Dutch students, could not be confirmed.66 61 The MZA mentioned the protests by students at Rhodes University in Grahamstown against the Van Riebeeck Festival because of ‘racial discrimination and anti-British spirit’. MZA 28 (October 1951); MZA 28 (November 1951); and MZA 29 (February 1952), 24-25. For newpapers, see Van Ledden, Jan van Riebeeck, 78-79, where he refers to the critically engaged newspaper Het Parool, the Catholic daily De Tijd and the liberal Nieuw Rotterdamse Courant. See also: De Tijd, 16 January 1952. 62 The Utrechtsch Nieuwsblad, Leeuwarder Courant, Het Vrije Volk, 7 April 1952; the Heerenveensche Koerier, 8 April 1952. They refer to a total of more than 16,000 protesters in Johannesburg, Durban and Port Elizabeth. 63 ‘Na de feesten’ MZA 29 (May 1952), 74. 64 De Waarheid, 10 January 1952. 65 Knoop, ‘Jan van Riebeeck’. 66 Femke Knoop had contact with a former member of the Surinamese student organization and she conducted research in relevant newspapers and Amsterdam police reports. In Suriname

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Participation of Dutch newcomers in the Van Riebeeck festivities How did Dutch migrants in South Africa experience the Van Riebeeck Tercentenary? Their experiences were interwoven with the meanings ascribed to these celebrations both in the Netherlands and South Africa. The assumption that the Dutch and the Afrikaners were ‘stamverwant’ and the fact that they were often welcomed into a white, nationalist network contributed to the neglect or dismissal of the aforementioned protests. Their arrival fitted seamlessly into the aim of strengthening a ‘white man’s country’ and they were encouraged by the South African as well as by the Dutch authorities to participate in the national celebrations. Typical in that respect is the conduct of the Dutch ambassador Van den Berg, who addressed ‘the Dutch and former Dutch in South Africa’ to contribute to the Dutch gift for South Africa’s 300th anniversary ‘as a token of appreciation for what their new homeland means to them’. Thus they could express the enduring ‘stamverwantschap’ between ‘the old mother country and the new fatherland’.67 Dutch immigrants in South Africa kept their end up. Sixty per cent of the craftsmen that had built the stadium, the exhibition halls and the Luna Park in Cape Town, would be of Dutch origin, the correspondent of the Dutch daily De Telegraaf reported proudly.68 A collective of Dutch building contractors ensured that the festival was enriched with a replica of the Culemborg market. ‘Old Dutch houses’ were erected around a square where one could enjoy an ‘old Dutch fair’ with the sound of a traditional barrel organ that had travelled by air from Amsterdam. Also, a ‘village pump’ and ‘poffertjes stall’ were present. In the mock town hall an exhibition about the reclamation of the Zuiderzee was set up.69 Both sea vessels and the ‘battle against the sea’ were recurring topoi in the contributions of Dutch immigrants participating in the South African festivities.70 The same goes the Van Riebeeck festivities were taken up by the Catholic newspaper De Surinamer. The paper paid attention to the heroic role of Van Riebeeck and of the Afrikaners in South Africa. Ironically, the Grote Trek of the Afrikaners to get away from the British authorities (and their anti-slavery laws) in the nineteenth century was compared with the freedom struggle of the Maroons in Suriname, who had run away from slavery. Although a single paragraph was added that the South African government did not properly tackle ‘racial discrimination’. 67 MZA 29 (February 1952), 24-25. 68 De Telegraaf, 11 March, 1952. 69 ‘Valckenier’, De Nederlandse Post van Zuid-Afrika, 15 November 1951, cited in: MZA 29 (January 1952), 7-8. See also: De Tijd, 15 February 1952, and 4 April 1952. 70 B. Henkes, ‘Volendammer dracht in de Kalahari. Transnationaal erfgoed van een gedeeld familieleven in Zuid-Afrika’, in: Ena Jansen et al. (eds), My ma se ma se ma se ma: Zuid-Afrikaanse families in verhalen (Amsterdam, 2008), 29-41.

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for the painters of the Golden Age, ‘who symbolized the Netherlands’ on one of the floats that participated in the pageant in the newly built Van Riebeeck Stadium – and in an exposition in Cape Town.71 All these representations pointed at Dutch creative craftsmanship and emphasized the potential of the Dutch newcomers for South African society, while at the same time the land of origin was honoured with these references to the glorious past of the Dutch nation. Through the expositions and the processions, the participants and the onlookers of Dutch descent could come to celebrate their Dutchness and at the same time identify themselves as ‘citizens of South Africa’.72 Outside Cape Town too Dutch newcomers were attracted by the Van Riebeeck celebration. Dutch craftsmen were involved in the construction of one of the seven stagecoaches that drove to Cape Town from the north of South Africa. On their way down south they passed different regions and cities in order to involve the local population in the national festivities.73 One of these coaches passed through the town of Upington in the Western Cape. Some pictures of Dutch immigrant families show how they contributed to the local festivities. In the pictures we see a group of children and (young) adults in Volendam costume on a replica ship named ‘Future’ (Toekomst). It turns out to be a float which is part of a larger pageant in the streets of Upington. A Dutch virgin, dressed in white with a red-white-and-blue sash, figures as the blond centrepiece in front of a Dutch windmill. More than half a century later she remembers how the Volendam costumes were made by her mother and other Dutch women while their men had built the float.74 Dutch newcomers in Cape Town, Upington and elsewhere decided to take part in the celebrations of the Van Riebeeck Tercentenary that were set up primarily for South African nation-building. With their own floats they gave these celebrations a transnational twist. Like Jan van Riebeeck they had come from Europe by ship to South Africa. In Upington their ship was named ‘Future’ (Toekomst) and their float was adorned with a telling caption in Dutch: ‘A people that lives, builds towards its future’75 – a future in South 71 MZA 28 (October 1951), 138. See also: The Festival in Pictures, 8. The caption there says that the float was spondered by the Netherlands Van Riebeeck Commitee. See also MZA 29 (January 1952), 8-9. 72 Witz, Apartheid’s Festival, 107. 73 Ibid., 216-241. See also the illustrated reports in the Nieuwsblad van het Noorden, the Heerenveensche Koerier and De Tijd, 14 February 1952. 74 Pictures belong to a private collection and the records of the conversations with some people involved are held by author. 75 ‘Een volk dat leeft bouwt aan zijn toekomst’. For Afrikaans-speaking spectators this motto was easy to understand as ‘‘n volk wat leef, bou aan sy toekoms’.

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Africa. This caption was derived from the motto with which the closing of the Afsluitdijk in 1932 and the on-going reclamation of new (Nether)land had been propagated.76 Using exactly the same motto these Dutch families presented themselves during the Van Riebeeck festivities in Upington as pioneers in a new and unexplored land: as ‘a people that lives’, and that is prepared to contribute to the future of South Africa.

Conclusion The Dutch families on their float in Upington, as well as other participants of Dutch descent in the Van Riebeeck festivities, conveyed a double message: on the one hand, they wanted to distinguish themselves as Dutch by showing the South African population the kind of spectacular performances they were capable of: through their contributions to the South African festivities in the present as well as through the achievements of their fellow countrymen in the past. On the other hand, they promoted themselves with their active participation in this national celebration as integrated citizens of South Africa. That is to say: as white citizens, who made a visible link between their origins in Europe and their future in (South) Africa. In doing so, the Dutch migrants celebrated a stamverwantschap that was in line with the nationalist discourse of whiteness. The participation of Dutch immigrants in the 1952 celebrations of the Jan van Riebeeck Tercentenary ‘echoed physical realisation of the imagined community’.77 Here a white, transnational community was created and staged by which the unbreakable bond between the Netherlands as the land of origin and South Africa as the land of destination – and between Europe and ‘white’ South Africa – was articulated and defined. Through the simultaneous and partly identical festivities, the Dutch in Europe and their (former) compatriots on the other side of the equator were confirmed and strengthened in their sense of communality with a white, Afrikaansspeaking part of the South African nation. The concurrent celebrations did not mean the same thing, but – in the words of Anderson – ‘rather they were stretching out across, and seamlessly mapping, a singular world’.78 As far as those who stayed behind considered emigration, the festivities in the 76 See the caption on the commemorative plaque at the monument on the Enclosure Dam, unveiled in 1932 77 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 145. 78 Anderson, The Spectre of Comparisons, 34.

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Netherlands were an incentive to make that small leap to a country that seemed to have so much in common. In 1952 ships were still the means of transport par excellence as they had been since 1652. At the same time, ships symbolized the intertwinement of the Dutch and the Afrikaner as one people. Thanks to the celebrations and the reenactments of Van Riebeeck’s arrival in both countries the limitations of place, as well as time were exceeded: a new dimension arose, where the stamverwanten, or the ‘Dutch/ Afrikaner (Dietse) race’ played its ‘civilizing’ role in the past and the future. Stamverwantschap was central to my approach of the imagination, doing and celebrating of a (trans)national Dutchness. Returning to Anderson’s Imagined Communities I want to stress that his approach helped me to understand how Dutch migrants – stimulated by the Dutch and South African government – negotiated their Dutchness as part of their white, civilized South African-ness. The Van Riebeeck festivities provided an entrance to understand why this stamverwantschap, as a cultural artefact ‘became “modular”, capable of being transplanted to a variety of social terrains, to merge and be merged with a corresponding wide variety of political and ideological constellations’.79

About the author Barbara Henkes is Senior Lecturer in Contemporary History at the University of Groningen, where she examines twentieth-century processes of in- and exclusion in times of political tension and violence. The intertwinement of personal memories (oral history and life writing) and collective narratives of the past is central to her research. Her PhD thesis, Heimat in Holland (on national and political identif ications of (former) German domestic servants in the Netherlands, 1920-1950), was published in Dutch (1995) and in German (1998). In 2005 she published Uit liefde voor het volk. Volkskundigen op zoek naar de Nederlandse identiteit, 1918-1948, on the growing interest and institutionalization of folklore studies and its search for Dutchness in the Netherlands. In her current research project she explores the meaning of race and ‘stamverwantschap’ within the transnational kinship networks that connect the Netherlands and South Africa in the twentieth century.

79 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 4.

10 ‘L’Oranie Cycliste, une grande famille’ Recycling Identities and the Pieds-Noirs Communitas, 1976-2016 1 Niek Pas Abstract In former French Algeria bicycle racing was an immensely popular sport amongst the Algerians and colonists (pieds-noirs) alike. When Algeria gained independence, 1962, the French left Northern Africa. Former pieds-noirs kept their memory of Algeria alive by associating with each other. This chapter explores community formation in sports (cycling) communities. For one of the last existing French Algerian sports associations, L’Amicale de l’Oranie Cycliste, the bike functions as a token of its past. How did this two-wheeled vehicle become a symbolic reference to a pays and culture that no longer exists – the province of Oranie, the city of Oran, in former western French Algeria? This case study about the bike and its representations in former colonial communities informs us about the relationship between material culture and community building. Keywords: French Algeria, road cycling, pieds-noirs, nostalgérie, imagined community

‘Opération Retrouvailles’ was quite a militaristic name2 for the relaxed and convivial gathering of former French Algerians (pieds-noirs3) in the small town of Frontvieille in southern France. On the morning of Sunday, 19 June 1977, a 1 The article is written in context of the book De Ronde van Algerije: Een cultuurgeschiedenis, which will appear at Uitgeverij Wereldbibliotheek, Amsterdam. 2 L’Oranie Cycliste (1977), 3. 3 ‘Pied-noir’ is the term used to refer to European inhabitants of French-Algeria. Contrary to what is often thought, this term only came into use in the 1950s, during the Algerian war of independence, in metropolitan France. The initially negative connotation transformed into an honorary title after the departure of Europeans from Algeria in 1962 and in the course of the

Blok, Gemma, Kuitenbrouwer, Vincent and Weeda, Claire (eds): Imagining Communities. Historical Reflections on the Process of Community Formation. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018 doi: 10.5117/9789462980037_ch10

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group of cyclists and their families gathered at the parking lot near ‘moulin de Daudet’. It was a special moment, because many of those present had lost sight of one another after the Independence of Algeria and their arrival in France in the summer of 1962. Fifteen years after their dramatic flight from the city of Oran dozens of cyclists mounted their bicycles and rode seven laps of seven kilometres around the famous windmill. This sports’ reunion was the birth of L’Amicale de l’Oranie Cycliste. For 40 years these bicycle fanatics organized similar ‘retrouvailles’. In the spring of 2016 the Oranais gathered for the last time. This contribution analyses the ways in which the l’Oranie Cycliste shaped their remembrance culture and identity. Amongst the pieds-noirs memory culture (one could even speak of a memory cult) is highly developed. There is even a term for it: nostalgérie, a contraction of the words ‘nostalgie’ and ‘Algéríe’. 4 The central question in this contribution is which place bicycle racing, and more specifically the racing bike as a material and symbolic artefact, took in the processes of remembrance, community building and identity formation. The point of departure for this exploration is Benedict Anderson’s widely praised concept of imagined communities.5 However, first two remarks are in place. Firstly, where Anderson coined his concept in the context of the nation-state, the following analysis of pied-noir memory culture touches on different geographical levels of analysis, namely subnational (French Algeria), regional (the Oranais) and local (the city of Oran). As much as the nation-state, these too can be considered to be fundaments of modern spatial organization and collective and communal identification.6 A second remark is that sport is the object of research in this contribution. Anderson has not analysed this important marker of popular culture and identity in his work on community building. None the less, in the past decade, several authors (including J.A. Maguire, K. Farquharson years it became a more general ‘neutral’ concept to refer to French colonists in Northern Africa. A more historical term that could be used is Français d’Algérie (French from Algeria). 4 This neologism dates from the fin-de-siècle, when Algeria became a popular destination for so-called ‘hibernator’ (‘hiverneurs’), tourists from north-western Europe who spent the winter there. The eldest reference to this term in the French database Gallica can be found in the newspaper Le Gaulois, 7 July 1889. 5 B. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London, 2006 [1983]). 6 The sub-nation French Algeria had a problematic relation with la Métropole. Cycling in the Oranais can be seen as an incarnation of these tensions. This situation can be compared with identity formation in the Flanders region, where cycling is very popular, too, and the tensions with the central state authorities of Belgium. See the unpublished PhD-thesis by S. Knuts, ‘Converging and Competing Courses of Identity Construction: Shaping and Imagining Society through Cycling and Bicycle Racing in Belgium before World War Two’ (dissertation, University of Leuven, 2014).

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Figure 10.1  Drinks (apéritif) at the last reunion (Rétrouvailles) in 2016.

Source: private collection.

and T. Marjoribanks, and D.L. Andrews) have argued that sport is a crucial site for imagining and re-imagining communities.7 How the bicycle has become an artefact in the process of imagining the communities of pieds-noirs is a fascinating question in light of their special social and geographical position in modern France. The American historian Julia Clancy-Smith argues that this group despite – or perhaps because of – its diverse ethnic and linguistic components, came close to embodying an invented or imagined subnational political and ideological identity. By the turn of the twentieth century, this entity had its own peculiar spoken patois, or dialect, a distinct political culture and literature, and thus a collective awareness of its own subjective existence.8

7 J.A. Maguire, Sport Worlds: A Sociological Perspective (Champaign, 2002), 137-138; K. Farquharon and T. Marjoribanks, ‘Transforming the Springboks: Re-imagining the South African Nation through Sport’, Social Dynamics 29:1 (2003), 27-48, here 45; D.L. Andrews, ‘The Imagined Sporting Nation’, accessed at: http://www.umdknes.com/knes287resources/Lectures/12/L121.pdf on 04-04-2016. 8 J. Clancy-Smith, ‘The “Passionate Nomad” Reconsidered: A European Woman in l’Algérie française (Isabelle Eberhardt, 1877-1904)’, in: N. Chaudhuri and M. Strobel (eds), Western Women and Imperialism: Complicity and Resistance (Bloomington, 1992), 61-78, here 76.

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The pieds-noirs formed a heterogeneous, antagonistic and potentially instable ‘imagined community’. Clancy-Smith argues that it maintained balance only through the creation of ‘the Algerian Muslim Other’.9 But to this act of othering one must add the ‘Metropolitan Other’ because, as the anthropologist Andrea L. Smith has convincingly shown in her work on pieds-noirs of Maltese descent, there were in fact ‘two different imagined communities’: both a French and a Algerian-French one.10

Colonial identity in sport During the late nineteenth century the settler colony Algeria rapidly developed into a true sporting nation. Many different disciplines were being practiced there: hunting, fencing, bull fighting, dog, donkey, horse and camel racing, skiing (in the Chréa Mountains, one hour’s drive from Algiers), swimming, yachting and various kinds of rowing and sailing, in addition to a great variety of ball sports ranging from basketball, tennis and rugby to volleyball, handball and pétanque. The most popular sports were football, boxing and also bicycle racing. Sport was an important instrument for integration and element of culture in the newly formed colonial society, which was a melting pot of different European ethnicities and classes alongside the indigenous populations. From the mid-nineteenth century onwards hundreds of thousands of settlers had crossed the Mediterranean Sea to the promised land, and in 1950 the European colony numbered approximately one million people in total. In addition to French settlers, about half of the immigrants consisted of Spaniards, Italians and Maltese. Most settlers were simple agricultural labourers, peasants and artisans. These people formed 95 per cent of the European population in Algeria and there loomed a big chasm between them and the colonial upper class, consisting of rich landowners (the colons), investors and the administrative elites. Also in another respect French Algeria was a segregated society because Europeans enjoyed a much better social position than the indigènes. The indigenous population included Arabs and Berbers (about ten million people) and a Jewish minority of approximately 100,000 people. In 1870 the latter group received French citizenship, a privilege that the authorities only granted to a small group of Muslims. 9 J. Clancy-Smith, ‘The “Passionate Nomad” Reconsidered’, 65. 10 A.L. Smith, Colonial Memory and Post-Colonial Europe: Maltese Settlers in Algeria and France (Bloomington, 2006), 179.

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Sport was one of the ‘badges of membership’ of the French Algerian nation. It structured social life, and was crucial to the social fabric of this newborn society. Particularly bicycle racing was one of the ingredients of the (symbolic) collective glue that created the imagined community of the sub-nation Algeria, and of the regional identities of the Oranais, the Algérois and the Constantinois. First and foremost it served as a marker of identity in a small circle; it was an important popular-cultural outlet for various groups of immigrants who, mostly originating from isolated rural communities in France, Spain and Italy, also lived in enclosed spaces in their new villages and European city-quarters in Africa. The cultural background of the migrants and their position in Algeria stimulated the development of local and regional identities that rivalled amongst each other – just as had been the case in the European countries of origin. The western region of the Oranais, for example, was traditionally oriented on Spain and social conventions were informal when compared to the region of the Algérois. Algiers was, as an administrative, economic and political centre, strongly influenced by the formalistic culture of Paris. The eastern region of the Constantinois, lastly, was shaped by a large influx of Italians. Moreover, the surrounding Aurès Mountains caused it to be more isolated and conservative than the other regions in Algeria. In addition to these local and regional perceptions of identity, from 1900 onwards a new layer of identity developed in Algeria in reaction to the consolidation of the colonial state and more direct influence of the government in Algiers on financial and political matters: a sub-national identity that was perceived as a ‘new African race’.11 European Algerians did not only huddle together in their own environment but also felt the need to protect and distinguish themselves from ‘métropolitains’. In the course of the 1920s and 1930s members of the indigenous Muslim population who excelled in sports, or other things, were also named ‘nord-africain’. In this way, sport in the stellar colony of Algeria was more than a conglomerate of winners and losers, competitions and matches, rankings and scoring tables. It was an important element in community formation, through gatherings and meetings, parties and assemblies, receptions and inaugurations. Moreover, important sporting events marked special moments on the annual calendar: 14 juillet, Christian holidays, village celebrations, and harvest and wine festivals. In short, sport was a crucial component of the social fabric of French Algeria. Bicycle racing was no exception.

11 D. Prochaska, Making Algeria French: Colonialism in Bône, 1870-1920 (Cambridge, 1990), 206.

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Cycling identities in French Algeria The modern bicycle was, in all probability, introduced in Algiers in the mid-1880s by British tourists who spent the winter there. During the last quarter of the nineteenth century thousands of these so-called ‘hiverneurs’ went to Northern Africa. Coastal cities such as Algiers, Bône (present-day Annaba) and Oran were popular destinations: relatively close to Britain, blessed with a pleasant climate and possessing a range of modern hotels and infrastructure. The same applied to popular winter-holiday destinations on the other side of the Mediterranean, including Menton, Cannes and Nice, but these places did not have an exotic, oriental bonus in the form of Arabic-Islamic culture, colourful Berber peoples, special flora (date palms, desert) and fauna (monkeys, dromedaries) and picturesque oasis towns like Biskra. Eugen Weber dubbed the 1890s the ‘decennium of the bicycle’ in his classic study of France in Fin de siècle.12 The way the bike conquered Algeria underlines this view. Both in the great cities – Algiers, Oran and Bône – and in smaller provincial towns such as Blida, Mascara and Orléansville, people founded bicycle clubs, British and French manufacturers established stores, and municipal councils approved financing vélodromes. The nascent bicycle culture had a strong international component. On the one hand, French Algeria depended on the import of bicycles and parts from Europe because Algeria itself lacked an industry. On the other hand, it was a popular destination for European and American bicycle tourists and racers because of the mild winter climate, good infrastructure and oriental atmosphere. In this sense bicycling transcended the binary relationship métropole-colonie. Whereas the bicycle in the 1890s was still a toy for the white, well-off bourgeoisie, after 1900 mass production and lower prices made bikes more affordable for the lower middle and working classes. Cycling developed from a noble pastime for the elites into a commercial sport of and for the masses. The elaborate system of money prizes that could be won in competitions – which was sponsored by newspapers, the business world and shopkeepers – contributed to the sport’s popularity amongst the lower classes. Bicycling also became accessible to the indigenous population; on the eve of the First World War the first Arab cyclists joined the peloton. During the interwar years bicycling grew to maturity: there were more races, both on tracks and on roads, and clubs flourished, particularly in the regions of Algérois and Oranais. Most of the clubs were mixed, with 12 E. Weber, France, fin de siècle (Cambridge, MA, 1986), 195-212.

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a ratio of – approximately – one Algerian to every four Europeans. In the mid-1930s, in the wake of the rise of Algerian nationalism, all-Arab véloclubs musulmans started to appear. At the same time the bicycle sport became more international because of the emergence of criteriums, stage races of more than one day and, in 1929, the first Tour d’Algérie Cycliste (TAC). The TAC was a sign of internationalization, a symbolic reconquête of Algeria and an expression of colonial self-consciousness (on a subnational level) vis-à-vis the metropole (national). During the 1930s these international sports contacts intensified: the European top raced in Northern Africa and vice versa; the biggest talents from Algeria built successful careers at French bicycle clubs and competed in the big tours of Europe. The years 1945 to 1954 can be seen as the ‘golden years’ of Algerian bicycling. Criteriums, such as the one sponsored by L’Écho d’Oran, turned out to be true spectacles attracting the best European riders and the Tour of Algeria was more popular than ever. To cap it all, in the years 1950-1952 a mixed cycling team from Northern Africa competed at the very highest level: the Tour de France. This prosperous period ended during the Algerian War of Independence (1954-1962), although the insurrection of the Algerian Liberation Front did not immediately led to a sur place. Depending on the security situation of the moment, cycling tours and criteriums did take place. Most of the clubs remained ethnically mixed and continued their activities, although often at a lower level. Only after 1960 did Algerian cycling become more isolated internationally, as a result of which the number of events declined. The last winner of the famous Critérium de l’Écho d’Oran, which was held in February 1960, was Irish. When the big (international) races could not be organized anymore, the sport for a while continued to be practiced in local events. For example, in February 1962 the fifth running of the Grand Prix Joinard, a regional race, took place in the Oranais.13 In March 1962, at the time of the Évian Accords that paved the way for Algerian independence, Algerian cycling came to an abrupt end. Georges Lestournaud, a young cyclist of La Roue d’Or Oranaise (ROO) was killed by the liberation front during a training ride. In reaction the regional cycling committee decided to cancel all events.14 This measure, which was originally meant to be temporary, became permanent when with Independence (5 July 1962) in sight, tens of thousands of Oranais left the country. Massacres of thousands of Europeans in Oran, during which the French army did not 13 L’Oranie Cycliste 8 (1962), 179, 2. 14 ‘Le cyclisme oranais en deuil’, l’Oranie Cycliste 8 (1962), 183, 1 and 4.

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intervene, speeded up the exodus. By the late summer of 1962 more than 700,000 Français d’Algérie had left the country.15 For many years to come, the departure from Algeria was an open wound for the pieds-noirs community. Some Français d’Algérie did not speak of re-patriation, but of ex-patriation. After all, they had left the country where they had been born and raised, ‘mon pays’ as they called it. In France, where they received anything but a warm welcome, they clung on to their Northern African identity. Up until today the pieds-noirs can be considered as a separate community within French society.16

Nostalgérie on wheels The various groups of pieds-noirs express their culture and past, and their memories of the land of origin in engaging and intense ways, which are charged with emotion. Such feelings are being kept alive within a web of organizations and institutions, publications and periodicals (such as L’Écho de l’Oranie17), memorials and rituals – all of which can be seen as lieux de mémoire. The dozens of societies that have been founded over the years, are mainly rooted in the streets, quarters, villages and towns where Français d’Algérie once lived. In addition there are ‘amicales’ that are focused on specific themes such as culture and sport.18 In this context two cycling associations were founded: one for former riders in Algiers and its environs and another by and for former riders from the Oranais. L’Amicale des Anciens Cyclistes de la Province d’Alger emerged in the early 1980s, counted about 200 ‘members’ and was active for about 20 years.19 The Amicale de l’Oranie Cycliste dates from the late 1970s and organized its 40th and last official reunion in 2016. Contrary to the Algérois, the 15 By the middle of 1963 the population of one million Europeans in Algeria had diminished to approximately 200,000. Afterwards, the numbers steadily declined further to several tens of thousands at the end of the 1960s. 16 The same went for the Algerian soldiers who fought for the French army, the harkis, and also for Algerian migrants and labourers, hundreds of thousands of whom went to France to start a life there. 17 Founded in 1964, in Nice, it was the follow-up of L’Écho d’Oran (founded in 1844). In 2010 this pieds-noirs periodical had a print run of 18,000 copies and 16,000 subscribers. Accessed at: http://echodeloranie.e-monsite.com on 30-01-2016. 18 For an overview see: www.algeriemesracines.com. 19 Carnet d’adresses: L’Amicale des Anciens Cyclistes de la Province d’Alger. This address book from the 1980s contains 191 names. Personal collection André Lourguioui. Information about this club is barely available and very fragmented.

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long and well-documented club life of the Oranais contains a treasure trove of information about rituals of remembrance and community formation. The activities of the Amicale de l’Oranie Cycliste centred around annual reunions, the so-called ‘retrouvailles’. Over the years these meeting went through two phases. During the first 25 years there were annual single-day events, organized around a cycling race over a plotted course (Criterium) at different locations. Following this mobile, sporty and informal phase a more sedentary and formal period ensued, with the annual reunions being held at one fixed place (Sète). Moreover the events were spread out over a whole weekend and aside from the race there was also space for less intense cycle tourism. In addition, the Amicale developed into an official society with its own statutes and executive committee and an annual general meeting of the members. This strengthened the roots of the Amicale, and of the memory culture. Up until the mid-1990s the organization and financing of the annual events ran smoothly; there were more than enough former cyclists who wanted to contribute. But as the years progressed the ranks thinned out, which meant that the cost of the society’s activities weighed heavier on fewer shoulders. A more rigorous organizational structure could offer (temporary) solace. The Amicale reached a highpoint of 400 members in 1990,20 after which it steadily declined.21 What kind of elements and rituals shaped these reunions, which place did the racing bicycle and its culture hold in these events and which meaning did they have for the pieds-noirs identity, sense of community and communitas (communal belonging)? The first noticeable feature is that the meetings’ schedules were very consistent throughout the years. The bicycle races took place in the mornings, after which the midday was spent eating, catching up and reminiscing. An important symbolic moment was the minute of silence before the start of every race. The former riders used this moment to remember Georges Lestournaud, who had been killed by the FLN, and also the victims from their own circles and the people who had died in France.22 The next point on the agenda was a group photograph, whereupon the race started. The ‘randonnée’ was always a previously explored and plotted circuit of 5 to 10 kilometres that the competitors had to complete several 20 L’Oranie Cycliste (1989), 61. It is estimated that in 1962, 500 cyclists from the Oranais had a licence from the French cycling union Fédération Française du Cyclisme (FFC). 21 In 2004 the Amicale still counted 250 members: L’Oranie Cycliste (2004), 120; in 2013 officially there were 90 paying members left, but the true number probably is higher as there always has been a substantial category of ‘defaulters’: L’Oranie Cycliste (2013), 156. 22 At the reunion of 2005 the family of Lestournaud was invited. L’Oranie Cycliste (2005), 124.

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times. The veteran riders took this contest seriously, which is illustrated by the fact that the average speed of the winners topped 40 kilometres an hour. After the second reunion, in 1978, one cyclist lamented: ‘c’était pire que le Grand Prix de la ville d’Oran’, to which he added: ‘une course sauvage’. Regardless of their age – 40, 50 or 60 – once the cyclists sat on their bicycles they all felt like they were 20 again, reliving the races in the Oranais, and wanting to win. In addition, the reports of the races show how the backdrop of the landscape of southern France continuously evoked memories of how the cycle races, and life in general, had been ‘là-bas’. This is illustrated by the coverage of the 2002 reunion, which included a ride along the coastline at Sète: il est agréable de pédaler le long de notre Mare Nostrum, car la Méditerranée de notre jeunesse, celle de la Cueva del Agua [a famous stretch of coast near Oran] ou des Andalouses est la même que celle que nous avons longée pendant de nombreux kilomètres […] notre Mer.23

During the first two decades the peloton included more than 100 former cyclists, and if we include all the extra competitors the total sometimes peaked at approximately 250. Considering the planning, participation and intensity, this race could be considered to be a ‘true’ race, including a motorbike escort by the gendarmerie, the declaration of the winner, a formal ranking and a ceremony to hand out trophies and medals. Sometimes delegates of the French cycling union attended, in addition to other dignitaries, such as mayors and regional officials.24 This formula was applied successfully for 20 years, after which there was more room for a more informal association.25 In its original set-up, the race was the exclusive domain of former cyclists from the Oranais, which means people who had raced under the supervision of the Comité Regionale d’Oranie until their departure from Algeria in 1962. Their family members, children, and later on grandchildren were also allowed to compete in due course. The same applied for French cyclists who had served as conscripts in Oran sometime between 1954-1962 and 23 L’Oranie Cycliste (2002), 112. 24 It is noticable that the FFC initially was not happy with these ‘off icial’ races under the banner of the Comité Régional d’Oranie (CRO-FFC), as this regional union had been dissolved at Algerian independence in 1962. In 1982-1983 this matter resulted in a fierce polemic after which the FFC acknowledged that the logo for the pieds-noirs was part of their ‘patrimoine’. See debates in L’Oranie Cycliste 34 (1982) and 35 (1983). 25 From the twentieth meeting onwards the Amicale did not only organize a ‘randonnée cycliste’, but also a ‘ballade tranquille’. L’Oranie Cycliste (1995), 86.

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who had raced there, some of whom had been warmly welcomed into the Amicale family.26 The ranking of the races, however, was strictly meant for the former cyclists from Oranais who in this way protected their culture, their bicycle subculture, and as such (re)confirmed their sport’s community. Initially, the ranking schedules consistently mentioned the competitors with the name of their former club in Oranais, followed by their place of residence in France. The competitive element was also embedded in other rituals, including the awarding of medals of honour as well as in speeches of the president of the Amicale, Jules Dumesges. He was the ‘patron’ of the club, not in least because of his deep involvement in the cycling life of the Oranais. From 1942 up until Algerian independence this former rider chaired the regional cyclist union of the Oranais, and in 1954 he was founder and editor of the periodical L’Oranie Cycliste. The eldest members of the Amicale, who were his peers, considered Dumesges a friend – for the generation that was born between 1930 and 1940 he was a ‘father figure’ of sports. When he became too old to attend the ‘retrouvailles’, others read out his speeches. The reactions after his death, in 1997 at the age of 95, were illustrative of his great significance for the members of the Amicale: ‘Je suis triste car lorsqu’un “de chez nous” s’en va, c’est une partie de nous-même qui disparaît’ and ‘J’ai gardé de lui l’image d’un Président, d’un Patron, d’un Parent. Je ne l’oublierai jamais!’27 The first reunion after his death started with a memorial service at his grave.28 The whole frame of reference of the meetings of the Amicale consisted of an atmosphere of ‘back then’ and ‘over there’: races, photos, competitors, rankings, medals and speeches. The clothing also referred to nostalgérie and from the second reunion onwards tricot shirts were available with the words ‘Anciens d’Oranie’, a slogan that appeared on other paraphernalia, including stickers. Of course the Amicale could not do without a periodical, the title of which was quickly found: L’Oranie Cycliste, a name that emphasized the continuity of the information bulletin before and after 1962. ‘L’Oranie Cycliste a repris son deuxième souffle’, Dumesges declared at the 1978 reunion.29 The title page contained a picture of the ‘Vierge d’Oran’, the statute of Mary on top of the Church of Santa Crux Mountain that was close to the city of Oran. This image had great historical and iconic value: the story went that the statute had saved the city from a cholera epidemic in 1849 and from 26 27 28 29

‘Les cyclistes… militaires du contingent’, L’Oranie Cycliste (2006), 127. L’Oranie Cycliste (1998), 95. L’Oranie Cycliste (1998), 96. L’Oranie Cycliste (1978), 12.

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Figure 10.2  Last issue of the magazine L’Oranie Cycliste April 19th 1962.

Source: private collection.

that year onwards the people of the Oranais worshiped it during an annual pilgrimage. Before Algerian independence the Virgin had been transferred to a place near Nîmes, which was then baptised Santa Cruz. In 1981 and 2000 the cycling race of the Amicale finished at the feet of this place of pilgrimage. The annual retrouvailles of the former Oranais were inward looking, meant to legitimize their own identity and were closely connected to their sense of communitas. Outsiders, like former cyclists from other regions

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of French Algeria, such as Algiers, were not frequently admitted to the reunions, in fact only during jubilee meetings and in the jubilee year 2000.30 René Alonzo, a former cyclist from Algiers, was invited to compete in the thirteenth gathering. In the report of that race he was described as ‘une curiosité dans ce classement’.31 Although this was a tongue-in-cheek remark, it reveals the attitude of the members of Amicale towards outsiders. A proposal to organize the 1992 race together with the ‘cousins Algérois’ was rejected after a long internal discussion.32 A similar debate, late 1998, led to the same conclusion.33 French Algeria had ceased to exist in 1962 but that did not change the (sports) rivalry between the regions of the Oranais and the Algérois. How did the Amicale relate to two other social groups that had participated in bicycle racing in colonial Algeria: indigenous Algerians and women? The issue of women’s cycling ‘là-bas’ had been discussed in the Amicale in 1984: ‘Un seul regret, l’Oranie Cycliste ne parle jamais de l’équipe féminine qui était si brillante à Oran […] alors qui communiquera des informations concernant les anciennes cyclistes?’34 Despite these sentiments, women were absent in the peloton for many years. The same went for articles about women’s racing in L’Oranie Cycliste.35 Only in 1991 did women first join the peloton, and these were the daughters of members. For that matter, the members of the Oranais Amicale were very proud of the successes of the young generations from the community in French cycling, including women. For example, they paid much attention to the exploits of track racer Clara Sanchez (born in 1983), who was one of the best in the world in her sport. Sanchez dedicated her first world title, won in 2004 in the keirin, a form of motor-paced cycle racing, to her grandfather Antoine, who was born in the Oranais. In this way she emphasized her solidarity with the Amicale as a cycling family.36 In return the club offered her, on the same occasion, a framed photograph of her grandfather racing on his bicycle in Algeria.37 30 For the 10th ed.: Gérard Guercy (L’Oranie Cycliste (1986), 47), for the twentieth: Gérard Guercy and Marcel Zélasco (L’Oranie Cycliste (1996), 88), and in 2000 Marcel Molinès, Marcel Zélasco, Vincent Soler and Norbert Massipe, and the French Moroccan René Remangeon (L’Oranie Cycliste (2000), 104). 31 L’Oranie Cycliste (1989), 61. 32 L’Oranie Cycliste (1992), 72. 33 L’Oranie Cycliste (1998), 98. 34 L’Oranie Cycliste (1984), 41. 35 Only in the last volumes of L’Oranie Cycliste a section appeared in which the wives of the cyclists looked back on the history of cycling in French Algeria and the role they played. 36 L’Oranie Cyliste (2004), 120. 37 L’Oranie Cycliste (2004), 122.

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Contacts with indigenous Algerians who had been a part of the bicycle community in the Oranais up until 1962, seemed logical but in the course of the years proved to be rather complicated. A historic overview of indigenous cyclists in an issue of L’Oranie Cycliste from 2005, ended with the words: ‘Tous ces nord africains sont restés nos amis.’38 In fact, the club did stay in touch with a few Algerians, including Kader Merabet, throughout the years. Some of them subscribed to L’Oranie Cycliste and they keenly stayed informed about developments in the pieds-noirs cycling community. Merabet considered the Amicale as one big family, as he wrote in his New Year’s greetings to the club in 2003: ‘Meilleurs voeux à l’ensemble des Anciens d’Oranie que je considère comme une grande famille. La vie est ainsi. Ici il y a encore beaucoup de points de repère.’39 In addition to these sort of reflections, Merabet and other former Algerian members of the Oranais cycling community corresponded with several members of the Amicale, paid their respects when locally famous cyclists died, and occasionally contributed to the annual prize ceremonies (medals, trophies) for the benefit of the reunion. However, they never participated in the actual retrouvailles.40 After the start of the new millennium their voices in L’Oranie Cycliste gradually weakened and, eventually, disappeared in the last issues of this periodical. Likewise, the Amicale never organized a formal trip to Oran to cycle there in the context of a competition or otherwise. From the 1980s piedsnoirs did go on holiday to Algeria individually. They were received by their former cycle friends who acted as guides. Together they went to the places where they had grown up, lived and played sports, and they visited other former cyclists and they watched bicycle races. Members of the Amicale reported about these meetings in L’Oranie Cycliste and these articles are very emotional. 41 On several occasions people from Oran asked the club to send an official delegation to have more formal meetings and even races, but that never happened. In 1987 the regional cyclist union in Oranais approached the Amicale to send a team to the Tour de l’Ouest Oranien. The Algerians offered to pay for all the costs for travelling and accommodation. This request was ignored. 42 In 2005 there was another plan for a trip to Oran, this time completely organized by an organization of pieds-noirs. This initiative also failed: ‘finalement, pour diverses raisons, rares ont été 38 39 40 41 42

‘Refaisons l’histoire… Les Nord-Africains en Oranie’, L’Oranie Cycliste (2005), 125. L’Oranie Cycliste (2003), 114. It is not clear whether they were not invited or that they declined the invitation. L’Oranie Cycliste (1984), 42. L’Oranie Cycliste (1987), 53.

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les personnes intéressées […] au point que le projet a été abandonné. Un seul regret: qu’une telle initiative nous ait divisés. Pas d’autre commentaire.’43 Although this commentary was rather short it says a lot. ‘Back to Oran’ – as a ‘cyclist’, and not as a tourist – was still a very sensitive issue, even though about half a century had passed since independence. In addition to the bicycle rituals, drinking and eating, and also cultural events in the afternoons and evenings of the reunions were important ways in which the Amicale built up its identity and communitas based on cycling. During copious luncheons and dinners the attendants dished up memories about their past exploits on the bicycle, which is shown in this report from 1981: ‘L’après-midi vit les discussions habituelles. Ah, combien de Saint-Anne, de Sidi-Bakti, de Kristel, de routes des Crêtes ont été regrimpées ce 14 juin, combien de courses ont été recourues.’44 Also from a culinary perspective the meetings were reminiscent of the culture ‘là-bas’ with ‘classic’ treats like anisette (anise liquor) and typical pieds-noirs patisserie like mouna (a variety of brioches) and rollicos (mud pies). The afternoons were filled with walks, tombolas, film showings of the (cycling) life in the Oranais, presentations of ‘honorary medals’ to certain members of the Amicale. When the meetings were stretched to a whole weekend, the Saturday was always closed ‘aux pas de danse, grâce aux “morceaux choisis comme là-bas”’, 45 with classic songs from the pieds-noirs repertoire including chansons like ‘Adieu mon pays’, or ‘Les filles de mon pays’ by the popular singer Enrico Macias. As years passed the initial focus of the reunions of the Amicale, the cycling race, lost in importance. During the 2002 reunion, for example, there were more people participating in the non-competitive ‘wide tyre tour’ on the Saturday than in the race on Sunday (respectively 38 and 31). That year most former cyclists preferred the cool shade of the trees at their holiday park, Le Lazaret: Oui, c’est vrai le peloton diminue, et ils sont bien plus nombreux ceux qui préfèrent les parties de boules […] ou de tchatche [chatter – N.P.] à l’ombre des arbres en sirotant le pastis qui a remplacé notre anisette […] tout en attendant ceux qui pédalent encore gaillardement. 46

43 ‘Voyage à Oran’, L’Oranie Cycliste (2006), 127. 44 L’Oranie Cycliste (1981), 28. The places that are mentioned in this quote are in the direct surroundings of Oran. 45 L’Oranie Cycliste (2004), 120. 46 L’Oranie Cycliste (2002), 112.

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On the one hand, the Amicale less actively participated in cycling itself, but on the other hand it became more geared towards keeping the memory alive, by publishing information and articles about the cycling past in Oran and the surrounding region. In the sedimentary phase, from 2000 onwards, the reflection on that past increased and the editor of L’Oranie Cycliste encouraged the members of the club to write about their own (cycling) experiences in French Algeria. In 2002 this resulted in a special section in the periodical: ‘Refaisons l’histoire’. In rotation, the (last of the) former cyclists from the Oranais drew up their stories and anecdotes. Where in previous years they had relived their cycling lives on the roads of the metropole, they now were, by persuasion, urged by the editorial board to relive their own histories, or to put it more literary: to remake them (refaire). Some things did not change throughout the years, such as the sense of family that was at the heart of the reunions. The Amicale d’Oranie operated as a big family, a family that had refounded itself after the exodus of 1962. President Dumesges emphasized this feeling in one of his first speeches, at the second reunion: Si en grand nombre sont ceux qui se sont déjà retrouvés en 1977, on peut dire que sans avoir peur de se tromper, que nombreux sont encore aujourd’hui ceux qui pour la première fois reprennent contact à Fontvieille avec la grande famille cycliste d’Oranie, cette famille qui regroupe les anciens coureurs, leurs épouses, leurs enfants et petits enfants, les dirigeants de clubs, les membres du CRO-FFC et de très nombreux amis.47

In this process of ‘imagining the community’ the L’Oranie Cycliste took centre stage. The bulletin was, literally, a material bearer of the community, but it also imagined it in its contents, through both the written articles and – in later issues – photo sections. In a certain sense this periodical can be considered to be a family magazine. Each number contains an overview of rites de passage, such as deaths, births and marriages, or reports of special achievements of children and grandchildren – in school or on the bicycle. After the start of the new millennium some argued to bring the paper publication up to date and to supplement it with a digital version. At the 26th meeting, in Sète in 2002, the website www.oraniecycliste.net was launched. This website became a repository of the memory of the Amicale, with an online archive, and many references to the past, such as articles and memoires, newspaper cuttings and rankings from the years before 47 L’Oranie Cycliste (1978), 12.

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1962. In addition all issues of both the first and the second series of L’Oranie Cycliste can be found here. The website enabled a ‘grand public’ to learn about the ‘la mémoire du cyclisme d’Oranie’. 48 This ‘media-switch’ reflects a paradoxical development: whereas in the years between 1977 and 2001 the bulletin was only sent to members, which meant that it effectively only had an internal function, in recent years the website has made the club and its activities visible to an external public. The physical community of ‘anciens’ has slowly disappeared from the peloton of time and also the official reunions came to an end in 2016, but as a digital community, the Amicale is more vibrant than ever.

Conclusion This article has analysed the meanings of the cycling sport for the memory culture and identity of the former European residents in French Algeria. The point of departure has been Benedict Anderson’s concept of imagined communities. In dialogue with Anderson, this contribution has argued for other levels of analysis (the sub-national, regional and local alongside the national frame) and it has pointed out the importance of sport (and more specifically: cycling) as an object of research. It has shown that why and how specific sports disciplines – cycling – and specific objects – the bicycle – can be considered as vehicles for imagining identity – the Oranais in former French Algeria – thereby helping to constitute an acute sense of communal belonging (communitas) of the pieds-noirs after their arrival in France in 1962. In short, cycling was a metonym for Oranais identity, as it came to represent sport and life in the region. With their bicycles the Amicale recreated a sense of community of ‘over there’. The reunions (‘retrouvailles’) it organized for 40 years were important moments of communitas. These annual meetings are to be considered, in a way, as moments of communal (regional) healing and recovery. Cycling acts as an unifying agent, but it also stresses difference, a marker of boundaries: the Oranais were different from the Algerois and also certain groups, such as women and indigenous Algerians, although not completely shunned, remained in the margins of the club. The annual reunions had a f ixed schedule, with accompanying symbols and codes, at different location each year. These were meetings for and of the community, aimed at the experience of the moment. This mode of operation was not only limiting, however; it 48 L’Oranie Cycliste (2004), 122.

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also offered flexibility. In the course of the years, with the Oranais becoming older and dying off, the ceremonies were changed. The ‘retrouvailles’ became more sedentary – each year on the same location – gradually outsiders were invited, the members’ reflections on their past were recorded on paper and via the Internet they became visible to the outside world. Although the meetings were adjusted to some extent, one thing did not change: the bicycle was the central, federative element of the meetings. It did not matter that the legs of the last former cyclists became increasingly stiff and the tours increasingly shortened. The bicycle was the point of gravity of the Amicale, physically during the randonnées, and metaphorically during the diners when the former cyclists shared stories and anecdotes and during the long evenings when they reminisced about the old days in French Algeria. Therefore the bicycle was not a neutral object or simply a material artefact. On the contrary, the (racing) bicycle functioned as a symbol and a sign that forged a direct connection with a universe of memories of and emotions about life ‘là-bas’.

About the author Niek Pas is Assistant Professor in Contemporary History at the University of Amsterdam. He holds an MA in French and MA in History (Utrecht University); DEA, Institut d’Études Politiques (Paris); and a PhD in History (Utrecht University). He specializes in contemporary French history, decolonization of the French Empire (notably the Maghreb), Algeria and the interplay of media and politics in France. He is the author of several books, such as Imaazje! De verbeelding van Provo (1965-1967) (Wereldbibliotheek, 2003); Les Pays-Bas et la guerre d’Algérie (Éditions Barzakh, 2013); and Macron en de nieuwe Franse revolutie. De eerste honderd dagen (Wereldbibliotheek, 2017). His current research project is entitled ‘Cycling Identities: Le Tour d’Algérie’. The project’s target is to study cycling as an identity marker in Algeria, in both colonial and post-colonial settings. Research is being done in Algerian and French archives, including an oral history project.

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Remembering and Imagining the National Past Public Service Television Drama and the Construction of a Flemish Nation, 1953-1989 Alexander Dhoest

Abstract This chapter argues that the conception of the nation as an imagined community is particularly productive to analyse twentieth-century broadcasting. Public service broadcasting (PSB) explicitly aimed to provide viewers with images of their nation and its culture, as a nationalized, public institution stimulating national coherence on a symbolical level. This chapter takes the example of Flanders, a region with growing national ambitions from the 1950s. From 1953, public service broadcaster NIR (later BRT, BRTN and now VRT) provided representations of this assumedly old and homogeneous ‘nation’, drama series presenting vivid and popular narratives about ‘our’ region, people and history. Nostalgia marked these productions, a bitter-sweet commemoration of the poor yet simple and sociable life in Flemish villages of the f irst half of the twentieth century. Keywords: public service broadcasting, national identity, period drama, representation, nostalgia

Television plays a major role in shaping ideas about ‘the nation’. As a mass medium, it can and does address a large and varied segment of the national population, entering their lives on an everyday basis in the privacy of their homes. For this reason, in the mid-twentieth century the development of the new medium was closely guarded and regulated by governments. Across Europe, the model of public service broadcasting (PSB) was adopted, explicitly linking broadcasting institutions to national aspirations and

Blok, Gemma, Kuitenbrouwer, Vincent and Weeda, Claire (eds): Imagining Communities. Historical Reflections on the Process of Community Formation. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018 doi: 10.5117/9789462980037_ch11

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policies. Television was conceived as a national medium in its organization, its programmes and its audience.1 This chapter explores connections between television as an institution and the nation as an imagined community, focusing in particular on the case of Flanders, the northern, Dutch-speaking part of Belgium. The central question it addresses is: how did public television in Flanders contribute to the construction of a ‘national’ Flemish imagined community? While it is not a nation-state, Flanders has national aspirations which from the 1950s were supported – albeit implicitly – by the fast-growing medium of television. Providing images of the nation, television literally contributed to the ‘imagining’ of the nation, creating a set of widely shared representations of and discourses about Flanders. One key dimension in these representations was the establishment of connections with the ‘national’ past, creating a sense of shared history.

Television and the nation One key notion in the work of Benedict Anderson on the nation concerns the role of the press, as part of print-capitalism, in creating imagined communities of readers, primarily through the ‘mass ceremony’ of reading the same newspaper at the same time as one‘s compatriots.2 In this line of thought, identification with the nation does not as much depend on what the newspapers write as on their formal organization as a mass medium. In a similar vein, Ernest Gellner stated that modern media helped to spread nationalist ideas, not so much through their content as through their abstract, centralized and standardized organization, which invited the audience to consider themselves as members of a national community.3 These ideas have been applied to broadcasting by several authors, who stress the power of radio and television to ‘unite the nation’ by providing shared experiences and rituals of simultaneous consumption. 4 European PSB organizations, in particular, were conceived as institutions explicitly 1 S. de Leeuw et al., ‘TV Nations or Global Medium? European Television between National Institution and Window on the World’, in: J. Bignell and A. Fickers (eds), A European Television History (Malden, 2008), 127-153. 2 B. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, rev. ed. (London, 1991), 35. 3 E. Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Oxford, 1983), 126-127. 4 N. Abercrombie, Television and Society (Cambridge, 1997); P. Scannell, ‘Public Service Broadcasting and Modern Public Life’, in: P. Scannell, P. Schlesinger and C. Sparks (eds), Culture and Power: A Media, Culture and Society Reader (London, 1992), 317-348.

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aimed at contributing to national unity.5 Often, these institutions had a broadcasting monopoly, which restricted viewer options and stimulated the consumption of and identification with the same ‘national’ programmes. Viewers were more or less coerced into watching the same programmes and thus into sharing their viewing experiences, which, according to John Ellis, constituted ‘the nation‘s private life’.6 In this sense, the viewers literally constituted a ‘community’ of viewers, sharing the experience of simultaneous viewing which created a horizontal sense of shared time. However, as pointed out among others by Philip Schlesinger, programme content also matters.7 This is most clearly the case in programming explicitly addressing the nation, ‘programmes of national unity’ about royalty and national festivities. 8 In Belgium as elsewhere, coronations, royal marriages and national celebrations are televised and shared across the nation. Beside those broadcasts, which more or less explicitly address the nation, there are also programmes which manage to unite the nation more implicitly. As pointed out by Jérôme Bourdon, in European television there are many implicit references to the nation, for instance, through the use of the national language and the presence of national celebrities.9 Cardiff and Scannell also refer to contemporary, popular programmes such as soap operas, which can equally present the nation as a unified community.10 According to Morley and Robins, such programmes implicitly address viewers as a nation of families, adding: The ‘magic carpet’ of broadcasting technologies has played a fundamental role in promoting national unity at a symbolic level, linking individuals and their families to the centres of national life, offering the audience an image of itself and of the nation as a knowable community, a wider public world beyond the routines of a narrow existence, to which these technologies give symbolic access.11 5 H. Newcomb, ‘National Identity/National Industry: Television in the New Media Contexts’, in G. Bechelloni and M. Buonanno (eds), Television Fiction and Identities: America, Europe, Nations (Napoli, 1997), 3-19, here at 4. 6 J. Ellis, Seeing Things: Television in the Age of Uncertainty (London, 2000), 46-47. 7 P. Schlesinger, Media, State and Nation: Political Violence and Collective Identities (London, 1991). 8 D. Cardiff and P. Scannell, ‘Broadcasting and National Unity’, in: J. Curran et al. (eds), Impacts and Influences: Essays on Media Power in the Twentieth Century (London, 1987), 156-173. 9 J. Bourdon, ‘Le Programme de télévision et l’identité nationale’, Médiapouvoirs 28 (1992), 5-13. 10 Cardiff and Scannell, ‘Broadcasting and National Unity’, 171. 11 D. Morley and K. Robins, ‘Spaces of Identity: Communications Technologies and the Reconfiguration of Europe’, Screen 30 (1989), 31.

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Waisbord equally situates the key contribution of television to the nation in the everyday: ‘The power of the media lies in making national feelings normal on an everyday basis.’12 He situates this power on three levels: regularly making available cultural forms identified with the nation, providing opportunities for shared media experiences, and institutionalizing national cultures. Building upon Anderson‘s notion of the nation as an imagined community, in relation to television it is important to consider the key role of images and representations in this process. Stuart Hall states that national identity is formed through a system of cultural representation: ‘National cultures construct identities by producing meanings about “the nation” with which we can identify; these are contained in the stories which are told about it, memories which connect its present with its past, and images which are constructed of it.’13 Hall goes on to enumerate some of the representational strategies which are often used in such a cultural, discursive construction of nationhood. First, there is the narrative of the nation as it is told in national histories, literature, media and popular culture. These provide stories, images, landscapes, scenarios, historical events, national symbols and rituals which represent shared national experiences. Second, there is a discursive emphasis on shared origins, continuity, tradition and timelessness, representing national identity as primordial. A third and related discursive strategy is the invention of traditions, fairly recent traditions which appear or claim to be old, as discussed by Hobsbawm and Ranger.14 Fourth, national narratives often refer to foundational myths, stories locating the origin of the nation in an old, mythic past. Finally, national identity is also often (but not always) connected to the idea of a pure, original people.15 Through these discursive processes, the nation is presented as a unified, homogeneous and unique entity with a long history. Most of these discursive strategies are based on the creation of connections with the past, linking the present nation with its former glories and thus creating a vertical sense of shared time.

12 S. Waisbord, ‘Media and the Reinvention of the Nation’, in: J, Downing et al. (eds), The Sage Handbook of Media Studies (Thousand Oaks, 2004), 386. 13 S. Hall, ‘The Question of Cultural Identity’, in: S. Hall, D. Held and T. McGrew (eds), Modernity and Its Futures (Cambridge, 1992), 293. 14 E. Hobsbawm and T. Ranger (eds), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge, 1983). 15 Hall, ‘The Question of Cultural Identity’, 293-295.

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‘National’ Flemish television From its foundation in 1953, Belgian television was divided into a Dutch- and a French-language channel. Both belonged to the national Belgian Institute for Radio (NIR/INR), but they worked separately and gradually gained independence, to become two completely separate institutions in 1977.16 So, unlike most other European nation-states, Belgium did not start out with a single television channel addressing the whole nation. Instead, two – and increasingly more – channels addressed the Flemish- and French-speaking viewers separately. Interestingly, the launch and expansion of television coincided with a period of Flemish emancipation, culminating in a series of state reforms transforming Belgium from a unitary into a federal state. From the 1950s, Flanders became stronger and eventually dominant within the Belgian context, within the cultural, political, economic and demographic spheres. The broadcasting company was one of the first cultural institutions to be legally divided in 1960, even before the official establishment of the language border in 1963. Until the launch of the first commercial broadcaster VTM in 1989, public service broadcaster BRT had a monopoly in Flanders, and this is the period that will be discussed in this chapter. Because of the PSB monopoly, in this period most viewers were ‘forced’ to watch the same programmes – although, from the 1970s, cable gave them the opportunity to also watch foreign channels, which many did, in particular preferring the more entertaining Dutch channels.17 Within the Flemish community, watching television was a (Flemish, not Belgian) ‘national’ ritual, the most popular programmes reaching over two million viewers in a population of about five million at the time. Certainly before the spread of cable, television had the potential to create a Flemish (not Belgian) imagined community, purely based on its organization as the sole television channel available to all Flemish viewers. Moreover, many programmes also inherently (through their content) but also implicitly contributed to the formation of the Flemish nation as an imagined community, as will be developed below. 16 F. Saeys, ‘Statuut, organisatie en financiering van de openbare televisieomroep in Vlaanderen’, in: A. Dhoest and H. Van den Bulck (eds), Publieke televisie in Vlaanderen: Een geschiedenis (Gent, 2007), 30. 17 By 1988, Dutch channels made up 25 per cent of the Flemish viewing volume, as opposed to only 2 per cent for the French-language Belgian channel RTBF, which clearly shows that there was no ‘Belgian’ but only a Flemish viewing community, strongly affiliated with the Dutch one. Joke Bauwens, ‘De openbare televisie en haar kijkers: oude liefde roest niet’, in: A. Dhoest and H. Van den Bulck (eds), Publieke televisie in Vlaanderen: Een geschiedenis (Gent, 2007), 91-126.

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As elsewhere, and particularly inspired by the BBC, Flemish PSB was strongly driven by ‘enlightenment’ ideals. Informing and educating the viewers were the prime objectives, combined with a strong sense of cultural nationalism.18 Broadcasters aimed to both spread and to contribute to Flemish cultural heritage, including ‘high culture’ and ‘folk culture’. To this end, they produced programmes about architecture, painting and writers but also about Flemish folklore and popular music. In line with Hall’s argumentation, the past took central stage in these programmes, aiming to instruct Flemish viewers about their rich cultural heritage.

TV drama and Flemish identity The drama department was a key player in this respect, as it was part of the cultural directorate. The heads of drama and their close collaborators were ‘enlightened intellectuals’ with a background in literature, theatre and education and it was their explicit aim to stimulate Flemish culture. For instance, in the 1960s and 1970s poet Hubert Van Herreweghen was head of drama, while his 1980s successor, Frans Puttemans, was a language teacher. They belonged to a cultural and intellectual middle class, which aimed to culturally elevate the Flemish population by making them acquainted with their cultural heritage.19 While medieval ‘high’ culture (mostly painting and architecture) figures prominently in most discourses about Flemish identity, it was virtually absent from drama productions of this period, which tended to focus on more recent and more popular forms of art. However, visually many serials had strong high-cultural connotations in their use of ‘picturesque’ images. More significantly, they referred to Flemish art through the adaptation of literary ‘classics’. Reviewing the serial drama output of the monopoly years, about half (15 out of 32) of the productions were literary adaptations. For ideological as well as dramaturgical and practical reasons, middlebrow and ‘heimat’ writers were preferred, leading to a host of serials set in the recent Flemish past, focusing on rural life and ‘common people’.20 By referring to a more established art form, these serials increased their 18 H. Van den Bulck, ‘Public Service Television and National Identity as a Project of Modernity: The Example of Flemish Television’, Media, Culture & Society 23 (2001), 53-69. 19 A. Dhoest, ‘Negotiating Images of the Nation: The Production of Flemish TV Drama, 1953-1989’, Media, Culture & Society 26 (2004), 393-408. 20 Beside referring to a crucial period in the Flemish national imagination, these serials were relatively easy and cheap to make as they were based on literature driven by strong storylines and set in the recent past. See A. Dhoest, ‘Reconstructing Flanders: The Representation of the

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cultural legitimacy. Generally speaking, the adapted literature was not politically nationalist, nor did it explicitly address national identity. However, it systematically referred to the same period and historical experiences. Indeed, the focus on literature was closely connected to a focus on Flemish history: almost two-thirds (19 out of 32) of the serial productions in this period were set in the past. Most programmes were situated in the first half of the twentieth century, a period that was presented as an important episode in the shared national past. Particular historical experiences were commemorated: the world wars and collaboration, industrialization and urbanization, the centrality of the church in everyday life but also the diminishing power of Catholicism and the rise of socialism. While these periods and themes are relevant to Belgium as a whole, the focus was solely on Flanders as these historical settings mostly provided a background for lavishing attention on everyday life in rural Flanders. Although very few productions explicitly dealt with actual historical events and protagonists, these productions created a rather coherent picture of Flemish daily life in the past. Recurrent themes were Flemish poverty, tensions between landowners and poor labourers, and the struggles of rural life: within and between families, between classes, between conservative and progressive forces, between Catholicism and socialism. The tone could be both serious and critical of the harshness and injustices of life in the past, but also humorous and nostalgic, glorifying the simplicity and good nature of life in the past.21 The most frequently adapted author was Ernest Claes, a Flemish-minded narrator with a preference for folk anecdotes. Not only was he involved in the Flemish Movement, his work also addressed the rise of Flemish nationalism as a reaction to the dominance of the French language.22 The adaptation of this kind of literature is significant. While there was indeed a strong tradition of regional, almost folkloric Flemish writing and literary production, many authors were writing about other periods and milieus. The fact that most of the televised works belonged to the literary canon does not render their selection neutral. Indeed, the canon in the analysed period reflected the pro-Flemish and Catholic beliefs of the cultural and intellectual middle class, which was also employed in broadcasting. By adapting these particular novels, television producers inscribed the serials in a tradition of cultural Nation in Flemish Period Drama’, Communications: The European Journal of Communication Research 28 (2003), 253-274. 21 A. Dhoest, ‘Peasants in Clogs: Imagining Flanders in Television Fiction’, Studies in Popular Culture 23 (2001), 11-24. 22 M. de Goeyse and A. Keersmaekers, ‘Ernest Claes’, in: B. de Wever, Nieuwe encyclopedie van de Vlaamse Beweging (Tielt, 1998), 728-729.

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nationalism. These serials not only capitalized on the popularity of this genre of literature but also made it known to an even broader audience, thus creating a sense of shared culture. Besides adapting similar literary sources, the period serials also created a shared sense of culture by focusing on popular folklore. The locations were mostly rural villages, with the farmhouse, the village green, the café and the church as recurring settings. The idealized countryside with its narrow roads winding through the open fields often provided the décor. The costumes consisted mostly of shabby working clothes, men often wearing clogs, caps and braces, women wearing long skirts with white aprons and headscarves. Their professions, too, could have fitted perfectly in a folkloric museum: apart from farmers and agricultural labourers, these included many traditional trades. Typical folk customs were shown, such as the procession of the brass band and the village dance. Clearly, in relation to culture the serials of this period presented a homogenized image of Flanders. They prioritize a particular (rural, working class) cultural experience, which they reconstruct through adaptation of a particular genre of literature. Thus, these serials celebrated the shared heritage and they reconstructed the Flemish cultural roots. These were situated in folk culture, which supposedly kept traditional customs alive throughout centuries of ‘oppression’. This attention to folkloric culture fits within a wider tendency in nationalism, which considers the peasantry as the guardians of old national habits.23 Connected to this particular representation of the Flemish past, is the representation of a Flemish ‘people’ with a particular national character. As mentioned before, the focus was on common people: rural and village inhabitants, farmers and manual labourers. Besides figuring prominently, working-class characters were also often characterized in similar ways. Thus, types were created, which both referred to and defined national character. The rural population was generally represented positively as simple, industrious, pious, virtuous, poor but happy, in contrast with the arrogant, lazy and decadent higher classes. In particular, two masculine types often took the stage. On the one hand, there was the silent, stubborn and industrious farmer, referring to the stereotype of the silent, hardworking, stubborn Fleming.24 And then there 23 P. Burke, ‘We, the People: Popular Culture and Popular Identity in Modern Europe’, in: S. Lash and J. Friedman (eds), Modernity and Identity (Oxford, 1992), 293-308. 24 M. Janssens, ‘Het vette en het vrome: Vlaanderens imago in Europese spiegels’, Onze Alma Mater 54 (2000), 175-192; R. Senelle, Kronieken van de Vlaamse staatswording: Over de identiteit van het Vlaming-zijn (Tielt, 1999).

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was also the alternative representation of the more rebellious and self-willed, obstinate freedom fighter. Together, these recurrent types formed a prototypical image of the Flemish. The serials narrated a nostalgic meta-story, situating the roots of Flemish emancipation among the brave rural population of the past. Their obstinate, rebellious nature, so the story goes, enabled the Flemish to resist foreign domination and to remain faithful to their roots during centuries of occupation, while their industrious nature allowed them to overcome poverty and to transform Flanders into a prosperous region.25 This was an implicit narrative, but the strong discursive patterns in the representation of Flanders undoubtedly contributed to a particular image of the nation. A final factor that deserves particular attention is that of language. As in other nations across Europe and in line with the importance of national languages as discussed by Anderson, language has always been a key issue in Flemish nationalism.26 From its rise in the nineteenth century, the so-called ‘Flemish Movement’ was primarily preoccupied with preserving and stimulating Flemish language and literature. What complicated matters is the fact that Flemish was not standardized at the time of Belgian independence in 1830, so there was no single ‘language’ to preserve. After a lot of debate the Dutch language standard was adopted.27 This implies that one of the central symbols of the emerging Flemish nation was governed by ‘foreign’ norms, which led to a lot of resistance and partly explains why Flemish dialects continued to thrive. This ambiguity was also visible on television in its monopoly years. On the one hand, the public broadcaster felt a strong responsibility to spread standard Dutch. 28 On the other hand, however, particularly in drama productions, this led to a degree of artificiality, so many historical dramas actually used dialect or at least more colloquial Flemish variants of Dutch. Thus, in serials, the (educational) task to teach the viewers standard Dutch often came second to the (equally educational) will to familiarize the viewers with their cultural roots, the ‘old’ Flanders and its dialects. On the whole, drama of this period created a specific kind of ‘TV Flemish’, a language 25 A. Dhoest, ‘National Identity as Normality: Representation and Typing in Flemish Television Fiction’, InterSections: The Journal of Global Communications and Culture 1 (2001), 15-26. 26 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 67-80. 27 K. Deprez, ‘De taal van de Vlamingen’, in: K. Deprez and L.Vos (eds), Nationalisme in België: Identiteiten in beweging 1780-2000 (Antwerpen, 1999), 103-116; L. Wils, Waarom Vlaanderen Nederlands spreekt (Leuven, 2001). 28 L. Van Poecke and H. Van den Bulck, ‘De toekomst van nationale taal, identiteit en cultuur in het licht van de toenemende transnationalisering van de mediacultuur’, in: Wilfried Dumon et al. (eds), Scenario’s voor de toekomst (Leuven, 1993), 113-133.

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varying between cleaned-up dialects and a quite literary standard Dutch with a strong Flemish influence. Just as the serials constructed a selective image of folk culture in a specific period of the Flemish past, they invented a folk language that did not reflect real language use, but that did suggest the existence of a national language community.

Wij, Heren van Zichem To illustrate the arguments developed above, it is useful to take a closer look at a particular show epitomizing these tendencies. In 1969, the BRT started broadcasting Wij, Heren van Zichem (We, the lords of Zichem), a 26-episode serial based on the work of novelist Ernest Claes. It was to become one of the most successful and cherished drama productions ever. Director and screenwriter Maurits Balfoort combined characters and storylines from different novels by Ernest Claes into an overarching narrative about the life of the proud people (‘lords’) of Zichem, a village in the 1920s. Claes was both popular and respected at the time, a good storyteller with an eye for ‘couleur locale’ and memorable characters like the young lad ‘de Witte’ and the formidable nun Moeder Cent. Wij, Heren van Zichem presents a rich world of contrasting characters and issues. It shows the pure country life but also its poverty and the hardships suffered. It praises the strength of simple land workers but also their struggles with the powers that be, the land owners and the omnipresent Catholic Church. The characters are mostly industrious farmers and manual labourers, whose everyday cares provide the dramatic material. Thus, one of the central storylines involves the battle between farmer Coene and his arch-enemy, the village baron. Wij, Heren van Zichem shows the clash between higher and lower classes, between Catholics, socialists and liberals, between religion and superstition, between old customs and modernization. It also explicitly addresses the clash between the Francophone upper classes and the Flemish movement striving for the acceptance of the Dutch language, through the story of farmer’s son Herman Coene. He is forced to speak French as a student, and violation of this regulation is sanctioned. Humiliated, he turns into a Flemish nationalist. During a ceremony celebrating the Belgian national holiday, he cries out ‘In Flanders Flemish!’, after which he is expelled from college. The ‘Flemish language’ is strongly present in this serial, most characters speaking a regional dialect, with the exception of the upper-class baron and the village dignitaries, who speak standard Dutch.

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Wij, Heren van Zichem partakes in the promotion of Flemish culture not by references to high culture, but by adapting middle-brow literary writing about folk culture from the past. It is folkloric in its attention to period outfits, settings, interiors and customs. For instance, Jef the Blacksmith is a colourful character in Wij, Heren van Zichem, as is Wannes Raps, the poacher. Visually, it glorifies the Flemish landscape and villages, churches and farmsteads. Thus, the first shot shows a farmer son slowly travelling through a picturesque landscape by horse and cart. It is simultaneously nostalgic and critical in its portrayal of the past and the ‘common’ Flemish people. On the one hand, the past is represented as a simpler time. Thus, in a book on the serial, director and screenwriter Balfoort states: The pay for the hard labour in the country was worse than for work in the city factories, but it had the advantage of taking place in the open air. Because of that, the agricultural worker was usually healthier, stronger, more independent and livelier than his fellow-sufferer in the dingy city slums.29

On the other hand, the past is also portrayed critically by commemorating past social injustices. However, this critical tone is counterpoised by the humorous, slightly condescending portrayal of the simple rural population. The audience loved Wij, Heren van Zichem, with estimates of 3,120,000 viewers in a population of about 6 million and ratings up to 78 per cent.30 Some of the actors became local heroes, in particular Luc Philips, who played village priest Pastoor Munte. Added to that is the appeal of nostalgia, Wij, Heren van Zichem returning to a simpler and communal past at a time when modernization was rapidly changing Flanders. It also repeated the myth of the Flemish ‘underdog’, the hard-working and resistant ‘common man’. In this way, the serial clearly contributed to the creation of discourses about Flemish identity which accompanied the process of national emancipation.

29 ‘Het zware labeur op het land werd slechter betaald dan de arbeid in de fabrieken van de stad, maar dit had het voordeel, dat het in de open vrije natuur geschiedde. Daardoor was de landarbeider doorgaans gezonder, sterker, onafhankelijker en levenslustiger dan zijn lotgenoot, de fabrieksarbeider in de gore achterbuurten van de stad’. M. Balfoort,’Wij, Heren van Zichem’, naar de vertellingen van Ernest Claes (Antwerpen s.d.), 7. 30 BRT, Enkele algemene vaststellingen en ontwikkelingen van het kijk- en luisteronderzoek (Brussel, 1969), 3.

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The audience as an imagined community So far, this chapter has provided a concrete illustration of the way in which twentieth-century television contributed to the construction of nations as imagined communities. By focusing on a particular case, it moved from the abstract to the concrete. Still, one could say that this account remains rather speculative. Although the discursive patterns in the drama output of public broadcaster BRT between 1953 and 1989 are relatively clear, one should be cautious in assuming that these textual patterns straightforwardly translated into viewer identification. Put differently: TV drama may have represented an imagined community, but did viewers feel part of it? Documentation about viewing processes in this period is scarce and indications of viewer involvement with the drama discussed above are nonexistent. Analysis of the press responses indicates that reviewers were quite critical about these dramas but did appreciate their ‘typically Flemish’ character, which to them led to recognition.31 For instance, the newspaper De Standaard described the village priest in Wij, Heren van Zichem as ‘a man who fathoms people’s little games with his clever eyes and typically Flemish – and therefore not very delicate – humour’, and the blacksmith represents Flemish harshness, for he is a ‘man who, like a real Flemish lout, says things as they are’.32 The press considers these folkloric serials as prototypical Flemish TV drama and states that viewers prefer ‘our own’, ‘typically Flemish’ serials like Wij, Heren van Zichem: ‘This kind of typically Flemish TV serial actually answers a real need among most viewers.’33 However, this still does not answer the question whether regular viewers identified with this drama. To explore this issue, I conducted oral history research into viewer memories about these dramas.34 Although it is impossible to reconstruct the original appreciation in its historical context, oral history does allow for an exploration of the degrees and ways in which these dramas entered the collective memory of Flemish viewers. This research was based on 40 in-depth interviews with viewers over 60 years of age, who were at least ten years old at the time television broadcasts started in 1953. Talking about television in their younger years, it becomes clear 31 A. Dhoest, ‘Quality and/as National Identity: Press Discourse on Flemish Period TV Drama’, European Journal of Cultural Studies 7 (2004), 305-324. 32 De Standaard, 25 February 1969. 33 Vlaams Weekblad, 25 January 1969. 34 A. Dhoest, ‘“Everybody Liked It”: Collective Memories of Early Flemish Television Fiction’, Particip@tions, Journal of Audience and Reception Studies 3 (2006); A. Dhoest, ‘Identifying with the Nation: Viewer Memories of Flemish TV Fiction’, European Journal of Cultural Studies 10 (2007), 55-73.

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how many programmes were forgotten but certain key programmes were remembered by most. One of these programmes was Wij, Heren van Zichem, which was spontaneously mentioned by half of the respondents and which was vividly remembered by all of them when asked about it. Their memories were predominantly positive, many commenting on the great characters and good acting. Key words in these memories were recognition, ordinariness and realism, the serial representing a world many viewers had known themselves or through their parents’ and grandparents’ stories. For instance, a 68-year-old male factory worker said: ‘That real old farmer life, those small villages and that kind of life, it was well represented. Really correctly, like in our young years, as we had lived it.’ Recognition, in this case, is closely linked to nostalgia of the ‘simple’, ‘more natural’ country life. For instance, a 79-year-old teacher says she has fond memories of the ‘natural, ‘ordinary’ and ‘real’ life in Zichem, adding: It was more rural. Perhaps not for people from the city, but for people from the countryside that’s a memory which makes you say: Ah yes, the communal life of the past. It doesn’t happen anymore. Nowadays everyone is stuck in their own little house, but back then you co-existed with the neighbours. People were all living together and I think that’s missing nowadays.

This account is representative of the overall nostalgic memories of a serial that was itself nostalgically looking back upon the past. Based on this reception research, it becomes clear that television in Flanders created a national community of viewers, at least in the period of monopolistic broadcasting. There were hardly any alternatives, and public broadcasting deliberately aimed to unite national viewership. Few fiction programmes explicitly addressed the nation or national identity, but Flemish viewers preferred and watched domestic fiction in great numbers, which was aimed at making them acquainted with Flemish culture, as production information indicates.35 In the interviews, they stress realism, recognition and ‘Flemishness’ as reasons why they liked domestic serials, which is in line with the press criticism. This preference also confirms Straubhaar’s thesis about the importance of ‘cultural proximity’ in television viewing, a ‘seemingly common attraction audiences feel for cultural products, such as television or music, that are close in cultural content and style to the audience’s own culture’.36 35 A. Dhoest, ‘Negotiating Images of the Nation’, 393-408. 36 J. Straubhaar, World Television: From Global to Local (Thousand Oaks, 2007).

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Analysis of the interviews shows strong discursive patterns and recurrences, the viewers saying they liked the same serials (mostly popular historical serials) for the same reasons. The centrality of period drama in their memories reflects the dominance of this genre in terms of output, but it also points at its symbolic centrality. As opposed to more internationally defined genres such as soaps or sitcoms, period drama is very much perceived as one’s ‘own’. This is not surprising, as it is a genre that often aims to represent the national past. While nostalgia taints the positive viewer memories, it does not deduce from their central position in cultural imagination. Quite to the opposite, one may argue that nostalgia forms the very core of national identities, which commonly display a strong orientation towards an idealized shared history. As the viewers most fondly remember popular period serials, a double nostalgia is operating: nostalgic memories of fiction that was itself nostalgically representing the shared past. At least for this generation, these serials have become part of collective memory, which led to the creation of a national ‘mnemonic’ community.

Conclusion The account above has argued that television drama, particularly in the monopoly years of PSB, has been instrumental in creating a particular representation of the Flemish nation, which in turn may have helped to constitute an imagined community of viewers. Combining Benedict Anderson‘s notion of the ‘imagined community’ with Stuart Hall’s focus on the role of images and representations in the discursive construction of the nation, it showed how television helped to imagine the Flemish nation. Historical reception research based on oral history interviews supports this thesis, showing how viewers fondly remember particular dramas in similar ways. At least for the generation who grew up with Flemish television in its monopoly years, drama created shared memories which contributed to the sense of a collective, national past. While this past is not explicitly framed in a nationalistic way, it does illustrate the power of television to create imagined communities of viewers. As indicated throughout the account, two dimensions of shared time coincide in this process. On the one hand, viewers watched the same programmes at the same time, which created a horizontal dimension of simultaneity. On the other hand, the programmes they watched linked them to a shared past, creating a vertical dimension of collective history.

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About the author Alexander Dhoest is Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Antwerp, where he specializes in television studies as well as the role of media in identity construction. He has published widely on these issues, in edited volumes and journals such as Media, Culture and Society, the European Journal of Communication and the European Journal of Cultural Studies.

Index Adam 33, 38 Africans, Africa 41, 43, 45, 50-52, 56, 57, 115 Afrikaners 29, 173, 175-176, 180-181, 184, 192 Alcuin 35 Algerians, Algeria 15, 144, 156, 197-204, 206-210, 212 Americas 42-43, 139-140 Amerindians 41, 43, 49-52, 56-57 Amharic Ethiopians 29 Amsterdam 45-48, 67, 70, 190-192 Anderson, Benedict 7-17, 19, 22, 25, 42, 61, 63-64, 75, 100-101, 114, 116, 131-132, 134-140, 143, 145-147, 150-152, 155, 159, 161, 170-172, 174-175, 179, 188, 194-195, 198, 213, 216, 218, 223, 228 A Life Beyond Boundaries 8 Imagined Communities 7-10, 12-13, 15-18, 21-22, 42, 59, 63-64, 100, 114-115, 131-132, 134-135, 137-140, 145, 147, 149-152, 173-174, 179, 195, 198, 200, 213, 216, 226, 228 The Spectre of Comparisons 10, 114, 188 Under Three Flags 10, 14, 131, 137-138, 145-147 Anglo-Normans 21, 24, 30 Anglo-Saxons 21, 24-25, 30, 35-36 Antigua 44 Augustine 69 Austria 60, 69 Austro-Ottoman War 74 Baldwin of Valle Darii 32 Bandung 120-121, 123-124, 126-127, 129 Barbados 44 Bartók, Béla 79-80, 90-91, 95 Battle of Boyne 71 Fleurus 60 of Namen 60, 71 of the River Boyne 60 Bavaria 74 Beard, George 105-106 Bede 35 Belgrade 65 Belgian Institute for Radio 219 Benjamin, Walter 22, 140, 150 Berlin 93, 145 Berlioz, Hector 13, 94 Body politic 9, 39 Boethius 69 Brasillach, Robert 149-151, 153-163, 166-172 Brazil 43-44, 65 Bretons 32 British, Britain (see also English/England) 21, 24, 29-30, 33-36, 43, 69, 71, 74, 102, 107, 115, 118, 120, 123-124, 128, 141-142, 179-181, 184, 202 British India 142

Cape of Good Hope 44, 177 Caribbean 12, 41 Céline, Louis-Ferdinand 169 Chosen Peoples 13, 21, 24-25, 29, 33-36, 38, 39, 72 Christ Church, Canterbury 32 Christianity 9, 13, 25, 28-29, 39, 48, 54-55, 60-61, 63, 65-74, 170, 180, 184 Catholicism 68, 70-73, 117, 161, 221, 224 Protestantism 13, 68, 70-73, 117, 180, 182, 185 Cicero 69 Claes, Ernest 224 Cologne 74 Colonialism 10, 15, 113, 135 Communal guilt 21, 28, 38-39 Communism 14, 117, 137, 144-146, 149, 154, 156-157, 188 Crusades 29 Culemborg 189-190, 192 Dordrecht 67 Drieu la Rochelle, Pierre 169 Dumesges, Jules 207, 212 Duke of Alba 72 Dutch Republic 41-50, 53, 55-57, 60, 63-64, 69, 72, 74 Dutch East Indies 13-14, 113, 142 Emotions 8, 11, 15-18, 60, 63, 73, 94, 100, 106, 110, 112-113, 122, 125-127, 129, 157-160, 163, 170, 204, 210, 214 Emotional practices 17-19 English, England (see also British, Britain) 31, 35, 37-38, 43, 53-54, 60, 64, 66, 71, 82, 86, 88, 102, 108, 156, 185 Enlightenment 65, 150, 220 Erasmus 65-66, 69 Ethiopians 33 Europeans, Europe 9-10, 12-13, 17, 21, 23, 41-47, 49-53, 55, 57, 59-61, 63, 65-75, 115-119, 123, 132, 134, 137-139, 143-145, 148, 153-158, 162, 166, 170-171, 179, 183-184, 188, 190, 193-194, 200-203, 213, 215-217, 219, 223 Fascism 14, 19, 146, 149, 151, 154-158, 160-163, 167, 169 First World War 14, 118-120, 128, 132, 138, 153, 202 Flushing 47 Francesco Guicciardini 69 François van Bergen 68-70 François Halma 60-61, 70 Franks 25, 29 French, France 15-16, 19, 23, 32-33, 37, 47, 54, 56, 60, 65-66, 69-74, 82, 155, 157-158, 163, 168-170, 185, 197-199, 201-207, 213 Fulford, George Taylor 101-102, 104

232  Galenic medicine 32 Gellner, Ernest 8, 216 Gender relations/images 107-108, 158-159 Georgian Armenians 29 Gerald of Wales 31 German principalities 60, 69 Germany 82, 135, 150, 155-157, 159, 161-162, 168-169, 175, 181, 185 Gildas 33-35 Gouda 70 Greek Orthodox 29 Groningen 67 Gypsies see Roma people Hague, the 67, 199, 123-125 Hatta, Mohammad 133, 143-144 Hendrik Hasmoor 70 Henri d’Andeli 32 Henry II, king of England 31-32 Herodotus 69 Herreweghen, Hubert van 220 Heutsz, Governor-General G.B. 116 Holland 12, 43-45, 124-125, 128 Hungarian, Hungary 77-82, 86-87, 89-90, 92-96 Iceland 64 Imperialism 115, 144, 146 India 65, 80-81, 134, 137, 144-145 Indonesian, Indonesia 13, 144-148 Innocent III, pope 37 Ireland 66, 69 Islam 60, 63, 67, 117-118, 142, 202 Israel 34 Istanbul 60, 70 Jacques de Vitry 31 James ii, king of England 72 Jerusalem 70 Jews 43, 45, 54-55 Johan Snep 71-73 John Lackland, king of England 37 John of Salisbury 32 Juliana, princess of the Netherlands 18, 121 Justinian 69 Latin America 10 Leiden 67, 132, 138 London 37, 124, 145 Liszt, Franz 79, 85, 88-94 Louis VII, king of France 32 Louis XIV, king of France 66, 68-70, 73 Malraux, André 14, 19, 149, 151, 153-156, 158-159, 163, 166-167, 170-172 Mantuan 69 Maximilien de Béthune 65 McLuhan, Marshall 114

IMAGINING COMMUNITIES

Media 11, 18, 61, 64, 114, 119, 124-125, 181, 191, 213, 216, 218 Memory 15-16, 21, 24, 29, 87, 89, 95, 126, 175, 183, 190, 197-198, 205, 212-213, 226-228 Middelburg 41, 45-46, 56, 67-68, 70, 75 Middle Ages 23, 25-26, 30, 33, 61 Mononutu, Arnold 138, 144 Montaigne 66 Münster 72 Muslims see Islam 61 Namen 60, 71-72 Nationalism 8-11, 13-14, 18, 42, 64, 77-78, 88, 90-91, 95, 100-101, 117, 128, 131, 133-135, 137-140, 146-147, 151, 174-175, 180, 203, 220-223 Long-distance nationalism (LDN) 14, 131-132, 134-137, 146-147, 188 Neurasthenia 97-98, 100-101, 104-111 New Israelites 29, 35 Norman Conquest of England 31, 35-36 Normans 31, 35-36 North America 65 Nuremberg 156, 160, 170 Opland 54 Origo gentis-myths 24 Oran 198, 212 Ottoman Empire 60-61, 65, 68-69, 74 Ovid 79 Para 54 Paradise 38 Paramaribo 53-54 Paris 32, 79, 93-94, 96, 143-147, 201 Patent medicines 13, 97, 101 Patria 12, 39 Peace of Ryswick 59-60, 63, 66-69, 71-74 of Karlowitz 74 of Münster 67 of Nijmegen 67 Perhimpoenan Indonesia 131, 133-137 Peru 65 Peter of Celle 32 Picts 34 Pieds-Noirs 197-200, 204-205, 210-211, 213 Pierre Riga 32 Pieter Nuyts 67 Pieter Rabus 71 Pink Pills 13, 17, 97-112 Print Capitalism 9, 21-23, 30, 42, 114, 134, 139, 141, 151, 216 Culture 64 Media 9, 12-13, 41-43, 53, 57 Technology 9, 64 Puttemans, Frans 220

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Religious calendar 22, 24, 26, 36 Renaissance 65, 86, 162, 167 Revolution Hungarian 93 Russian 119 Richard Fitz Nigel 31 Riebeeck, Jan van (celebrations) 14-16, 173, 177-179, 184-194 Rituals 11-14, 21-22, 17-18, 21-22, 24-27, 29-31, 33, 36, 39-40, 97, 101, 149, 151, 159-160, 163-164, 167, 171, 190, 204-205, 207, 211, 216, 218 Romanian, Romania 81-83, 89-90, 92, 94-95 Roma people 78-83, 88, 92, 95 Romanticism 15, 18, 77, 88-91, 96, 160, 169-170, 180 Rome 34, 169 Rotterdam 70-71, 75, 105, 190 Rousseau 66 Russians, Russia 29, 80, 94-95, 119 Saxons 34-35 Scots, Scotland 29, 69 Second Anglo-Dutch War 43 Second World War 111, 127, 149, 182 Sentiments see emotions Sermons 11-12, 21, 40, 64, 67 Siege of Vienna 61 Slaves/enslaved 49, 51-52, 89-90, 179 Socialism 221 South Africa 175-177, 179-194 Space (concept) 28, 140 Spain 43, 60, 64, 74 Spanish Civil War 149-150, 153-154, 162-163, 170 States of Zeeland 42, 50, 52, 55-57 States-General 47, 71 Stephen Langton 36-39

Sweden 64 Suriname 12, 16-17, 41-57 Surino 54 Third Anglo-Dutch War 50 Tibullus 69 Time (concepts of) 9, 12-15, 17, 21-30, 33, 36, 39-40, 63, 131-132, 140, 149-155, 159-162, 164, 166-167, 170-171, 217-218, 228 Tour d’Algérie Cycliste 203 Torarica 53-54 Turks 60-61, 65, 67-70, 73-74 United Provinces, Dutch 42, 46, 48 United States 97, 174 Upington, South-Africa 173, 178, 193-194 Utrecht 75, 132 Vexin 32 Virtues and vices 24, 28-29 Vives 65-66 Vortigern 35 War of the Spanish Succession 74 Wassailing, English drinking ritual 12, 30-31, 33, 36, 38-39 West India Company (WIC) 43-44, 50 Wilhelmina, Queen of the Netherlands 116, 121 William III, King of England, Scotland and Ireland/Stadtholder 66, 68-73 William of Malmesbury 35 William of Orange 72 Wulfstan 35 Zeeland, province of 12, 41-47, 49-50, 55, 68, 71 Zierikzee 71