Goethes Weimar und die Französische Revolution: Dokumente der Krisenjahre (review)

Abstract

W. Daniel Wilson, ed., Goethes Weimar und die Franzosische Revolution: Dokumente der Krisenjahre. Cologne: Bohlau Verlag, 2004. 746 pp. With this volume, W. Daniel Wilson provides an extensive collection of documents from Weimar and Jena in the years 1792-93, most of which had been previously unpublished, as well as a detailed introduction of about 75 pages discussing the events that motivated the documents and the attitudes expressed in them. The documents furnish a concrete basis for a revision of our image of Weimar during the period and their introduction into critical discourse can help dispel widespread and problematic assumptions such as the relative political quiescence of Saxony-Weimar and Goethe's moral impeccability. Although German Studies in recent decades has assumed that the French Revolution played a formative role in Weimar Classicism, it has also seen Weimar as an island in the storm, free from serious political discontent or resistance. While recognizing Hans Tummler's tremendous achievements, Wilson also gives him major credit for this skewed image of Weimar. Tummler's work tends to leave out references to internal political problems and to emphasize Carl August's activities in Ausenpolitik im Dienste des Reichsgedankens as Art Vorganger Bismarcks und Hitlers (5). In a short supplemental article in the appendix, Wilson generalizes this tendency with an example from a more recent Goethe scholar's work (Helma Dahl), showing how even scholars of the highest caliber can have sympathies for Goethe that cause them to misread the documents (703). Wilson's selection of documents illustrates just how much the French Revolution affected the opinions and anxieties of all classes in Weimar and how it motivated the actions of Carl August's ministers and subjects. Weimar wasn't populated by passive, satisfied citizens, but was full of aufmupfige Bauern, hungernde Textilarbeiter, randalierende Studenten, eingeschuchterte Professoren, oder kritische Intellektuelle. As Wilson argues, the documents he provides in this edition demonstrate das Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach eine dynamische politische Kultur besas, in der viele Untertanen alles andere als passiv und zufrieden waren (6). In the titled sections of the introduction (Studentenunruhen und Aushohlung der Autonomic der Universitat and Denunzianten und Spione,' for example), Wilson explains in more detail some of the issues that the Weimar government faced and how it responded. He devotes 18 pages to the various problems that the government had with student groups at the University of Jena, showing how these events were more important than previously acknowledged and how they related to the French Revolution. The documents show that state authorities such as Voigt, Schnaus, and Goethe perceived the events as the result of France's example, and acted on the basis of that understanding. Their perspective exaggerated the direct influence of the Revolution; on the other hand, the students were clearly influenced by the spirit of the times, referring in their documents to concepts such as inalienable rights. …