ACADEMIC CORPORATION AND POLITICAL POWER: ARRANGING AND CELEBRATING THE JUBILEE OF TÜBINGEN UNIVERSITY IN 1877

Abstract

The article analyzes the collaboration of political power and university in the German Empire by the example of the 400 th jubilee of Tubingen University in 1877. The jubilee is described as a tool of consolidating and uniting the academic corporation, the way of presenting its collective subjectness for which it established contacts with the state power, which contributed to the jubilee preparations but in exchange used this socially important event to strengthen its own authority. The author highlights the jubilee preparations, public speeches of professors and guests, participation of the monarch in ceremonies. He concludes that the union between political power and academic world developed in three major aspects: financial and organizational support provided to the university by the Wurttemberg government; participation of king Charles I in all the jubilee ceremonies, what allowed him to strengthen his own status using ‘the ruling power of visual behavior’ (status regis) typical for personified power, and at the same time to attach greater importance to the jubilee; presentation of the university history that was closely connected to the history of Wurttemberg and the monarchy to show their common destiny.