From Bökendorf To Berlin: Private Careers, Public Sphere, And How The Past Changed In Jacob Grimm’s Lifetime

Abstract

The years 1801-1806 form a turbulent watershed in European cultural history. The events of the Napoleonic wars followed each other in rapid succession and threw western Europe into a five-year-long constitutional rollercoaster ride. After the Battle of Hohenlinden (9 December 1800), Napoleon obtained from the defeated Holy Roman Empire all territories on the left bank of the Rhine, thereby realizing a French geopolitical dream that he had inherited from Louis XIV and Danton. From the convivial meetings at Bokendorf to the Prussian Academy, from the hobbyhorse collecting of folklore to the ambitious agenda of Germanistik, the Jacob Grimms mark the rise of philology as an academic discipline and profession. Hagen and Grimm form a different kind of connection: that of rivalry. When Jacob Grimm made it to Berlin in 1841, he had gone through a chequered career. Keywords: Bokendorf; Berlin; Germanistik; Holy Roman Empire; Jacob Grimm; Napoleonic war; Prussian Academy