The сoncept of the national culture in German romanticism: Sourсes and historical background

Abstract

In Novalis’s works, the reaction of German Romanticism to the Enlightenment was civilizational: By the German world, both the French monarchy and Republic were viewed in a negative light. Thus, the Novalis’s philosophy developed the concept of national culture, which the movement “Storm and Onslaught”, led by J. G. Herder, opposed to French classicism of the 17th–18th centuries. According to Herder, the folk’s culture is formed through the psychological exploration of nature in myths and folklore, fixed in language. The “organic nature” of culture links folklore with the Middle Age and Modern poetry as the new forms of the dialogue with nature. This idea was consolidated by the figure of Faust, chosen by the Sturmers and Goethe as the hero of the “masterpiece” summarizing the national poetic path. Novalis elevated Catholicism to the cult of the earth, and the collective mind was connected with it by magic. He saw the institution of this union as an “ideal” Prussia where self-knowledge unites citizens, and the monarch unites the people and nature as an esoteric master. The French monarchy divided the people by cultivating selfishness. The prerequisites of this opinion were indicated by J. Le Goff and L. Karsavin who stated the existence of two types of cultures, which emerged as a result of the Roman conquest of Europe. For the national ones, who retained their languages and with them the connection with pre–Roman mythology and folklore, the introduced ancient norm and Christianity became forms of self-development. For the newly emerged unities west of the Rhine, they became the foundation of the cultural convention.