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European History and Cultural Transfer

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Matthias Middell
Matthias Middell*
Affiliation:
Centre for Advanced Studies, University of Leipzig
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Extract

The European community that is in the process of being created is still searching for its history. For a few years now, the publishing market, which has been attempting - under the heading of ‘European history’ - to construct a shared past for a present that we now have in common, has been mushrooming. This communal experience is indisputably gaining ground (though more slowly and controversially than some well-known optimists hoped): it is promoted by freedom of movement within the European Union, by the effect of tourism, which some time ago ceased being reserved only for the elite, by the availability everywhere of products that, a few years back, typically represented a certain type of national styles of consumption, and finally by the unifying influence of the media. To the extent that closer relations between the inhabitants of the ‘old world’ run in parallel with the attempt to create institutions to regulate these common goods, and to protect against movements of people from other areas with their own sets of values, a combination of powerful ingredients is in place that leads one to anticipate a strengthening of ‘European’ identity. It is well known in research into identity that history plays an important part in its construction. And indeed historians from European countries have set themselves the task of jointly putting together a school textbook in which presentations that might otherwise focus on national character and be likely to offend neighbours will be harmonized. Others are looking at ways of celebrating memory (places of memory) that are intended to stimulate European rather than national memory. In addition, German and French historians met a while ago, in the little place of Genshagen near Berlin, with the intention of identifying events that would be suitable for European celebrations, in that they would not be connected with events that one of the participants might be ashamed of, or refer directly to a victory of one over another. But to anyone who studies the history of the two neighbours separated only by the Rhine, it quickly becomes clear that there is not a lot of space left in the calendar for activities that would found a common tradition.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 48 , Issue 189 , March 2000 , pp. 23 - 30
Copyright
Copyright © ICPHS 2000

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References

Notes

1. Because of the paradoxical attraction the effects of globalization and the obsession with ‘fortress Europe' clearly has for the defenders of strategies for demarcating borders.

2. It is impossible to review here all the literature for and against, simply in order to convince a few Eurosceptics. But the very intensity of the debate demonstrates that apathy is not the problem. G.M. Breakwell and E. Lyons (eds., 1996), Changing European Identities: Social psychological analyses of social change (Oxford); M. Martin (ed., 1998), Ethnic and National Consciousness in Europe (Florence).

3. See J. Caudan (1998), Mémoire et identité (Paris).

4. Alongside the series entitled ‘Construire l'Europe', under the editorial direction of Jacques Le Goff and published in several European countries (the German version is published by C.H. Beck in Munich), an ambitious project for a ‘European history' published in Frankfurt in paperback by Fischer and edited by Wolfgang Benz is aiming to comprise around a hundred volumes, which is particularly significant in the field of German studies.

5. There is plenty of evidence in the work of young historians: J. Paulmann (1998), ‘Vergleich und inter kultureller Transfer. Zwei Forschungsansätze zur europäischen Geschichte des 18. bis 20. Jahrhunderts' ['Comparison and intercultural transfer. Two lines of research in European history from the eighteenth to the twentieth century'], Historische Zeitschrift, vol. 267, no. 3, pp. 649-685; H. Kaeble (1999), Der historische Vergleich. Eine Einführung zum 19. und 20. Jahrhundert ['Historical comparison. An introduction to the nineteenth and twentieth century'] (Frankfurt-am-Main and New York), pp. 161 et seq.

6. The simple fact of comparing will no longer do; comparative scholars are trying to transmit the quite natural optimism that stems from comparison and is a result of the power of achievement linking peoples together, in short a claim to a better ‘historiography' that can be of interest to a qualified minority only: see, among others, H.-G. Haupt and J. Kocka (eds., 1996), Geschichte und Vergleich, Ansätze und Ergebnisse international vergleichender Geschichtsschreibung ['History and comparison. Methods and results of a com parative international writing of history'] (Frankfurt-am-Main and New York); in a more self-critical vein, T. Welskopp (1995), ‘Stolperstein auf dem önigsweg. Methodenkritische Anmerkungen zum internationalen Vergleich in der Gesellschaftsgeschichte' ['Stumbling block on the royal road. Critical remarks on method in international comparison in social history'], in Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 35, pp. 339-367; for a radical critique of the methodological blind spots of classical comparison resulting from causal sociological expla nations, see M. Espagne (1994), ‘Sur les limites du comparatisme en histoire culturelle' ['On the limits of the comparative approach in cultural history'], in Genèses. Sciences sociales et Histoire 17, pp. 112-121.

7. N.B. Dirks, G. Eleys and S.B. Ortner (eds., 1994), Culture-Power-History. A Reader in Contemporary Social Theory (Princeton); C. Conrad and M. Kessel (eds., 1998), Kultur und Geschichte ['Culture and history'], Stuttgart; T. Mergel and T. Welskopp (eds., 1997), Geschichte zwischen Kultur und Gesellschaft. Beiträge zur Theoriedebatte ['History between culture and society. Contributions to the theoretical debate'] (Munich).

8. See B. Faulenbach (1980), Ideologie des deutschen Weges. Die deutsche Geschichte in der Historiographie zwischen Kaiserreich und Nationalsozialismus ['The ideology of the German way. German history in historiography between empire and National Socialism'] (Munich).

9. For an attempt to clarify the structural analogies in the argument between two approaches as different as, on the one hand, that of West Germany's social history (Gesellschaftsgeschichte), and East Germany's com parative revolutionary history (Vergleichende Revolutionsgeschichte), see M. Middell (1998), ‘Metaerzählung: Vergleichende Revolutionsgeschichte und Sonderwegsthese' ['Metanarrative: Comparative revolutionary history and the special way thesis'], in Berliner Debatte Initial, 9, no. 5, pp. 59-75.

10. See François Furet (1995), Le passé d'une illusion. Essai sur l'idée communiste au XXe siècle (Paris).

11. Summary in C. Lorenz (1997), Konstruktion der Vergangenheit. Eine Einführung in die Geschichtstheorie ['Con struction of the past. An introduction to historical theory'] (Cologne, Weimar and Vienna), pp. 231-284.

12. The debate in Germany was bogged down for a long time in a stalemate between historicism and social history, because the conservatism - both methodological and political - of neo-Rankians, roughly from 1885 to 1945-1955, encouraged polarized thinking. It is only in the last ten years that breakthroughs have painfully been made. So the energy needed to take on board the initiatives of the ‘New Historicism', and cultural history more generally, was lacking. Now at last, rediscovering the peace and openness that has long been the norm elsewhere see: J. Scholt (ed., 1997), Historismus am Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts. Eine internationale Diskussion ['Historicism at the end of the twentieth century. An international debate'] (Berlin).

13. Particularly influential is E. Said (1981), Orientalism (London).

14. Leipzig University has set up a postgraduate centre on this topic where twenty postgraduates from both West and East work. By way of a first sample of the outcomes, see Dorothea Müller (ed.), Ambivalenzen der Okzidentalisierung (Leipzig).

15. P. Novick (1993), That Noble Dream: The ‘objectivity question' and the American Historical Profession (Cam bridge); for France see, G. Noiriel (1994), La ‘crise' de l'histoire ['The “crisis” of history'] (Paris); for Germany see, C. Conrad and M. Kessel (eds., 1994), Geschichte schreiben in der Postmoderne. Beiträge zur aktuellen Diskussion ['Writing history in the postmodern age. Contributions to the current debate'] (Stuttgart).

16. Marc Bloch (1990), Aujourd'hui - Histoire comparée et sciences sociales.Texts collected and presented by H. Atsma and A. Burguière (Paris).

17. More explicitly on this point, see Michel Espagne (1994), ‘Sur les limites du comparatisme en histoire culturelle' ['On the limits of the comparative approach in cultural history'], in Genèse. Sciences sociales et histoire, no. 17, pp. 112-121.

18. Spode (1999), ‘Was ist Mentalitätsgeschichte? Struktur und Entwicklung einer Forschungstradition' ['What is a history of mentalities? Structure and development of a research tradition'], in H. Hahn (ed.), Kulturunterschiede. Interdisziplinäre Konzepte zu kollectiven Identitäten und Mentalitäten ['Cultural differences. Interdisciplinary concepts relating to shared identities and mentalities'] (Frankfurt-am-Main), pp. 9-62.

19. See in particular Transferts. Les relations interculturelles dans l'espace franco-allemand (XVIIe-XIXe siècle) ['Trans fers. Intercultural relations in the Franco-German area (seventeenth-nineteenth century)']. Texts collected and presented by M. Espagne and M. Werner (Paris, 1988); on the subsequent development of this research field, with an extended bibliography, K. Middell and M. Middell (1994), ‘Forschungen zum Kulturtransfer. Frankreich und Deutschland' ['Research on cultural transfer. France and Germany'], in Grenzgänge, no. 2, 2nd year, pp. 107-122.

20. R. Chickering (1993), Karl Lamprecht, A German Academic Life (1856-1915), (New Jersey); M. Middell (1998), ‘Méthodes de l'historiographie culturelle: Karl Lamprecht', in Revue Germanique Internationale, 10, pp. 93- 116.

21. See M. Middell, Von der Wechselseitigkeit der Kulturen im Austausch. Das Konzept des Kulturtransfers in verschiedenen Forschungskontexten ['On the reciprocity of cultures in the process of exchange. The concept of cultural transfer in various research contexts'], in K. Langer and B. Michels (eds.), Metropolen in Ostmitteleuropa (Stuttgart and Loos), pp. 81 et seq.

22. M. Espagne and W. Greiling (1996), ‘Introduction', in Espagne and Greiling (eds.), Frankreichfreunde. Mittler des französisch-deutschen Kulturtransfers (1750-1850) ['Friends of France. Mediators of French-German cul tural transfer (1750-1850)'] (Leipzig), p. 10 (Deutsch-Französische Kulturbibliothek, vol. 7).

23. See the many examples in the book just mentioned, or the series, also edited by Espagne and Werner (1990-1997), Philologiques (Paris, Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l'Homme), 4 vols. See also M. Espagne (1993), Le paradigme de l'étranger. Les chaires de littérature étrangère au XIXe siècle ['The foreigner paradigm. Chairs in foreign literature in the nineteenth century'] (Paris: Bibliothèque Franco-allemande).

24. T. Höpel and K. Middell (eds., 1997), Réfugiés und Emigrés. Migration zwischen Frankreich und Deutschland im 18. Jahrhundert ['Refugees and émigrés. Migration between France and Germany in the eighteenth century'] (Leipzig); also the research report K. Middell and M. Middell (1998), ‘Migration als Forschungsfeld' ['Mi gration as a research field'], in Grenzgänge. Beiträge zu einer modernen Romanistik, no. 9, 5th year, pp. 6-23.

25. F. Barbier (1995), L'empire du livre. Le livre imprimé et la construction de l'Allemagne contemporaine ['Empire of the book. The printed book and the building of contemporary Germany'], 1, pp. 815-1914 (Paris: Bibliothèque Franco-allemande).

26. M. Werner (1995), ‘Usages de l'échelle dans la recherche sur les transferts culturels' ['Uses of scale in research on cultural transfer'], in M. Espagne and M. Middell with the collaboration of J. Grandjonc (ed.), Transferts culturels et région. L'exemple de la Saxe (Aix-en-Provence), Cahiers d'Etudes Germaniques no. 28, pp. 39-54

27. Apart from the book previously mentioned, see also M. Espagne and M. Middell (eds., 1993, 1999), Von der Elbe bis an die Seine. Kulturtransfer zwischen Saxen und Frankreich im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert ['From the Elbe to the Seine. Cultural transfer between Saxony and France in the eighteenth and nineteenth century'] (Leip zig); K. Middell (1995), ‘La Saxe et la France; pour une histoire régionale interculturelle' ['Saxony and France: towards an intercultural regional history'], in Revue Germanique Internationale, 4, pp. 201-214.

28. J. Retallack (1998), ‘Society and politics in Saxony in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries', in Archiv für Sozialgeschichte, 38, pp. 396-457.

29. H. Zwahr, T. Topfstedt and J. Bentele (eds., 1999), Leipzigs Messen 1497-1997 ['Leipzigs fairs 1497-1997'] (Cologne, Weimar and Vienna), 2 vols., particularly the contributions by G. Gayot and S. Sammler.

30. C. Lebeau demonstrates this in great detail in ‘Beispiel eines Kulturtransfers zwischen Frankreich und Sachsen: Die neue Regierungskunst in Sachsen zur Zeit des Rétablissements, 1762-1768' [An example of cultural transfer between France and Saxony: The new official art in Saxony at the time of the Rétablissement, 1762-1768], in Espagne and Middell, op. cit., pp. 124-139.

31. W. Greiling and M. Middell (1997), ‘Frankreich-Berichterstattung in Zeitungen: Kursachen und Thüringen zur Zeit der Französischen Revolution' ['Newspaper reporting on France: Kursachen and Thüringen at the time of the French Revolution'], in H.-J. Lüsebrink and R. Reichardt (eds.), Kulturtransfer im Epochenbruch. Frankreich-Deutschland 1770 bis 1815 (Leipzig), Deutsch-Französische Kulturbibliothek, vol. 9, pp. 197-238.

32. See the result of the many research proposals on which the author has continued to make progress throughout the last fifteen years: Michel Espagne (1999), Transferts culturels franco-allemands ['Franco-German cultural transfers'] (Paris).