German Spirit Research Articles

Through the prism of aesthetics. Napoleonic myth in the works of Goethe and Nietzsche

The reception of Napoleon in Germany was carried out under the sign of an aesthetic myth. The aesthetic myth is understood as a set of theories, concepts and texts of culture based on the idea of transforming the world through artistic creativity. Starting with romanticism, the aesthetic myth determines the specifics of the German discourse of culture. Under the sign of the aesthetic myth in Germany, the image of the French emperor is also comprehended. J.W.Goethe sees in Napoleon the embodiment of genius, the secret of which he is trying to unravel. Goethe sees in Napoleon a demonic personality, “the quintessence of humanity”, a genius, a natural phenomenon. Another aesthetic category through which the image of Napoleon is comprehended is the sublime. According to Goethe, the loftiness of Napoleon manifests itself not only during his political rise, but also during his fall. Another aesthetic category through which the image of Napoleon is comprehended is the sublime. The greatness of Napoleon is manifested, according to Goethe, not only in his military and political triumph, but in his tragic fall. Nietzsche sees in Napoleon the historical anticipation of the coming superman. The political activity of Napoleon is comprehended as an analogue and continuation of German art, the reincarnation of the ancient German spirit that overcomes the modern German decadence. In contrast to Bismarck’s nationalist empire, Napoleon’s all-European empire was founded on the principles of cosmopolitanism, which, in Nietzsche’s view, corresponds to the universalist nature of the German spirit.

“Slavic” or “Germanic Spirit”? Examples of the Ideologisation of Arcades in Research on Architecture in the 19th and 20th centuries

Travelling across present-day Poland, it is only exceptionally possible to come across a specific type of historic urban and rural houses with a ground-level section open on three sides and supported on columns or posts. Yet still in the first half of the 20th century, in some areas of Europe this type of a house was commonly found, and already a century earlier it had intrigued researchers investigating among other things, its origins of development. Within the current borders of Poland, arcaded houses are found in greater concentration in territories that in the past belonged to different political organisms and thus their research was conducted with the adoption of different optics. It is noteworthy that arcades were easily subjected to various more or less conscious manipulations in order to justify their native character, sometimes understood as belonging to particular peoples, regions, nations or even races. The paper provides hypothesis that arcades are a construction element extremely liable to ideologisation. In order to illustrate this problem, the paper presents methods of interpreting the origin of arcades in former East and West Prussia, Silesia, Lesser Poland and Lublin Province in the period from almost the beginning of the 19th century, when researchers started to be interested in this element, until 1939 when Erich Kulke’s book was published, which was the clearest result of arcades’ ideologisation. These interpretations were divided into a few main groups, which made it possible to compare the narratives and to show how the same arguments could lead to different conclusions. Unique issues, characteristic only of particular regions, were also identified. Ultimately, an attempt was made to answer the question of what influenced the liablity of arcades to ideologisation. Since the authors of the research, often architects, promoted the preservation and use of arcades referring to old patterns in new developments, the question was also asked whether such developments actually occurred.

Emancipation and Constitutional Patriotism: The Centralverein and the Weimar Republican Order

Abstract The article explores the conceptualization of Jewish emancipation and the republican order of state by activists of the Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith (Centralverein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens, CV) in the Weimar years. It argues that activists adopted a liberal conception of constitutional patriotism and involved themselves in a republican nation-building project that went substantially beyond its traditional tasks of defence (Abwehr) and enlightenment (Aufklärung) against antisemitism. This entailed rallying fellow republicans to the defence of the order of state, advocating for the spirit of the constitution and rule of law and actively participating in the development of the republican society. In doing so, the CV rethought what it meant to be ‘German’ and came to understand it in a distinctively republican form, arguing that identification with the constitution and the republican ideals were the truest expression of Germanness. As ‘German’ came to be understood as the free expression of the people’s spirit and will, Jews’ belonging to Germany was seen as the result of a teleological process of the materialization of the ‘German spirit’, manifested in the republic. The article therefore reads the history of the Centralverein during the Weimar Republic not only in regard to its role for the Jewish community but crucially as one of the liberal movements that aimed to develop and defend the German republic.

Translation: History (Geschichte)

J.F. Herbart is a philosopher whose ideas were very influential in many countries, including the USA, until the first quarter of the 20th century, in fields such as educational sciences, teaching methods, social psychology, teacher training, and he transferred the German spirit beyond the continents with his works on education. His writings on history teaching present the approaches of German teachers in the early 19th century as well as his own opinions. In the comments of the leading American Herbartian Charles De Garmo, the differences between German and American history teaching, the equivalents of the approaches in German education in American education, and the differences between the narrative and textbook method of teaching were described. It proposes two different approaches to history teaching by introducing different aspects of these methods. De Garmo was awarded his doctorate from the Herbartians in Germany. As the first president of the "National Herbart Society for the Scientific Study of Education", organized in 1895 "to study and investigate and discuss important problems of education", he pioneered the dissemination of Herbart's ideas in the USA. The original text of this article, which belongs to Johann Friedrich Herbart, includes the part about history teaching of his famous book "Umriß pädagogischer Vorlesungen", published in 1835, on the teaching of different branches. Kehrbach's facsimile was taken as the basis for this part of the translation from German to Turkish. In Herbart's text, the numbering in this edition is followed and added at the end of the paragraphs. The paragraphs given in italics in the sub-texts in addition to the translation presented are the translations of De Garmo’s comments added to the English translation of this Herbart’s book in 1904 under the name "Outlines of Educational Doctrine" by Alexis F. Lange. In this respect, Herbart's own writings were translated from the German original version and De Garmo's comments were translated from his English script.

Герман Коген об отношениях иудаизма и христианства

The article presents an analysis of the religious and philosophical views of Hermann Cohen, one of the most prominent German and Jewish philosophers of the late 19th – early 20th centuries, the founder of the Marburg school of neo-Kantianism. The author substantiates certain changes in these views, characteristic of two periods of his work, in the second of which, in contrast to the first, religious issues become decisive. In the first of the highlighted periods, the Marburg philosopher substantiates the idea that Judaism is a part of German culture, rejects any form of not only anti-Semitism, but also Zionism, strives to point out the obvious difference between cultural and religious assimilation, emphasizing the possibility of the existence of a single German nation based on religious differences between Christians and Jews. Cohen defends his conviction that the German spirit is strengthened precisely through the religious originality of Judaism, by the Jews defending their religious uniqueness. In the second period of his work, that is, since 1912, the Marburg philosopher is making more and more efforts to propose rational grounds for distinguishing Judaism from Christianity and to substantiate here the greater contribution of the religion of Judaism to the cultural progress of mankind. The author emphasizes that with all the features and changes in Cohen’s attitude to religion and in his assessment of the nature of the interaction between Judaism and Christianity, two main features remained dominant and unchanged. Firstly, it is devotion to one’s religious beliefs and upholding their uniqueness and dignity, and, secondly, it is the confidence in the need to unite the efforts of Judaism and Christianity in the social transformation of society on the basis of morality. The Marburg philosopher saw no contradiction between the desire for recognition of Jewish religious identity and the striving for a harmonious relationship between Judaism and Christianity.

Ex Occidente Lux. From Phenomenology of Myth to Geopolitics and Ontology and Vice Versa in the Late Works of Janko Janeff

Janko Janeff’s book Southeast Europe and the German Spirit (1938) is analyzed through the lens of a fundamental Thracian-Dionysian- Orphic myth, i.e. the birth of being or of light from non-being/nothing/ darkness. It is shown how its geopolitical and ontological/theological consequences are to be drawn accordingly to that purely phenomenological premise concerning the supposed Indo-European Renaissance on the Old Continent as per the views expressed by the author.

Study on Genealogy of Human Soul and Animal Voice in Modern Western Intellectual History

본 연구는 ‘동물의 죽음과 목소리’에 대해 서구 지성사가 가졌던 매혹, 문제의식들과 그 한계들, 그리고 윤리적 아포리아를 해결하기 위한 노력들을 계보학적으로 정리하고 논하려 한다. 이를 위해 이 문제를 상세하게 다룬 아감벤의 초기 저서인 『언어와 죽음』(Language and Death)을 해제하면서 이 책에서 주로 언급하는 헤겔(Georg Hegel)과 하이데거(Martin Heidegger)의 철학을 비판적으로 점검하려 한다. 그리고 동물과 목소리와 인간의 생명과 죽음을 다룬 이들 철학자의 관념론을 해체한 자끄 데리다(Jacque Derrida)와 가야트리아 스피박(Gayatri Spivak)의 접근법들을 비교 분석하고 비판적으로 해석하려 한다. 마지막으로 아감벤의 최근 저서이자 이 모든 논쟁들의 근원에 대한 새로운 접근법을 보인 『열린 공간』(The Open)을 해제하려 한다. 존재의 부정성에 대한 근대 서구 사상의 매혹과 그 안에 숨겨진 윤리적 문제를 계보학적으로 다루는 이 연구는 앞으로 있을 연구들의 토대를 세우는 기초연구로서 앞으로 있을 연구들의 초석이 될 것이라 기대한다.This essay purports to investigate the genealogy of inclusive exclusion between human soul and animal voice through Western intellectual history. In the Western intellectual tradition, humanity has been distinguished from animality, which genealogically begun with Aristotle who called human political animal (zoon politikon). The essay starts the genealogical deconstruction by critically perusing Giorgio Agamben’s Language and Death in which Agamben disinters the hidden core of Western intellectual secret: the voice of a dying animal. Agamben unfolds and deconstructs how both Hegel and Heidegger, despite their efforts to reveal ontological superiority of human language as full speech and Dasein, get immersed in the inquiries of ethos of voice and animality in the place of language and humanity. Pronouns such as ‘Da’ of Dasein and ‘This’ in Hegelian philosophy inevitably indicate the negativity of humanity. The essay in turn expounds how dialectics of voice and language as well as animality and humanity unveils the hidden supplementary relations in Heidegger’s division of environment for animals and world for Dasein by deconstructing Heidegger’s Fundamental Concept of Metaphysics. After following Derrida’s deconstruction of Heidegger’s division of animal and Dasein as well as his falling prey to German spirit and Spivak’s further deconstruction of Derrida’s deconstruction from Indian perspective, the essay moves to Agamben’s another book, The Open, where he collocates above-mentioned deconstructions on Western intellectual tradition. In The Open, Agmaben proposes the standstill of dialectics to render all anthropological machines inoperative utilizing Walter Benjamin’s theological-political ideas.

Hegelian Hamann: Attempt at Reconstruction

The present article deals with G. W. F. Hegel's review of J. G. Hamann's works, using «Socratic memorabilia», Hamann's debut piece, as a case in point. It is demostrated that along with penetrating analysis and delineation of the main trends of Hamann's thought Hegel views his teaching through the lens of his own philosophical system. This factor significantly affects his interpretation of select theses of Hamann. Reconstruction of Hamannian thought in Hegel’s review presupposes his treatment first and foremost as that of a chain in dialectical development of the German spirit.

Хайдеггер I и Хайдеггер II: о микропарадигмах в историко-философской науке

The study aims to shed light onto the circumstances which prompted M. Heidegger to change direction of his philosophical enquiry in the early 30s of the XX century. The authors determine the need for transition from dividing M. Heidegger’s creative work into the early and the late periods to considering periodisation of M. Heidegger’s creative work according to themes of his writings. Heidegger I works out a project dedicated to preserving and transforming the German spirit, while Heidegger II focuses on ultimate ontological issues. Scientific novelty of the research lies in the fact that the above-mentioned turning point in M. Heidegger’s philosophy is considered with regard to the worldview of the thinker himself, on the basis of the tasks he set himself. As a result, certainty is achieved regarding understanding of the philosopher’s reasons for changing direction of his philosophical enquiry, in particular, impossibility of implementing a university reform in political climate of Germany in the early 1930s.

Shakespeare as German Author ed. by John McCarthy

Reviewed by: Shakespeare as German Author ed. by John McCarthy Peter Höyng John McCarthy, ed. Shakespeare as German Author. Amsterdam: Brill, 2018. 242 pp. This is an important bilingual work on Shakespeare reception in the Germanspeaking world, and a significant addition to Roger Paulin's The Critical Reception of Shakespeare in Germany 1682–1914 (2003), his edited essay collection Shakespeare im 18. Jahrhundert (2007), as well as Hans-Jürgen Blinn's Shakespeare-Rezeption: Die Diskussion um Shakespeare in Deutschland (1982), the latter mainly providing documentary resources. In light of these three previous contributions, John McCarthy's Shakespeare as German Author stands out in regards to the time span it covers (focusing on the late eighteenth to mid-nineteenth century), its thematic focus on literary and theater reception, and its emphasis on theories of translation and cultural transfer. At nearly a third of the book, McCarthy's contribution serves not only as an introduction, but a crucial chapter in its own right. His meticulous research on the making of Shakespeare as a German "writer alongside Goethe and Schiller in full accord with the German spirit" is presented through the discussion of three texts by Christoph Martin Wieland, Johann Joachim Eschenburg, and Georg Gottfried Gervinus. These texts are the "primary markers" for introducing Shakespeare into German-speaking culture in the years 1750–1850. McCarthy's chronological overview of the German-speaking Shakespeare reception will be of great value for both newcomers and those well-versed in the topic, since all three texts have long been overlooked by scholars despite their valuable theoretical reflections on the aesthetic issues that Shakespeare's plays presented at the time. Another strength of McCarthy's essay is that he broadens his evaluation of Shakespeare's reception history by incorporating two frameworks: cultural transfer, which also takes into account theoretical considerations of translation, and "communicative communities." McCarthy's essay alone makes the volume worthwhile and, as a whole, this book will be indispensable for anyone interested in researching Shakespeare translations in the Age of Goethe. Till Kinzel's essay, "Johann Joachim Eschenburgs Shakespeare zwischen Regelpoetik und Genieästhetik," rightly opens the book's chronological trajectory. After all, Eschenburg's thirteen-volume collection of Shakespeares theatralische Werke (1775–82) completed "Wieland's project of translating all of Shakespeare's plays." Kinzel's well-written and well-researched essay takes its main cue from Eschenburg's Über W. Shakespeare (1787), "the first scholarly monograph on the poet written in German," and situates Eschenburg's theoretical interest in literary criticism within a larger network of friends (among them Lessing) and foes on Shakespeare plays. Kinzel treats Eschenburg's mediating position as a paradigm for how Shakespeare presented a litmus test for the poetological discourse of the Enlightenment. Monika Nenon's essay first shows Wieland as a translator of Hamlet (1766) before comparing two theatrical adaptations of Wieland's work: the one by Franz von Heufeld in Vienna (1772), and the other by Friedrich Ludwig Schröder in Hamburg (1777). Most fascinating are her examples for Wieland's adaptive translation, followed by Heufeld's later edits, and Schröder's appropriation not of Wieland but of Heufeld (!). While Nenon's essay is not guided by a larger theoretical framework, it is an important showcase of how theatrical confinements and moral taste came to bear on adaptations of Hamlet. Lisa Beesley's contribution compares two translations of the same work: Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream by Christoph Martin Wieland, Ein St. [End Page 374] Johannis Nachts-Traum (1766) and August Wilhelm von Schlegels Der Sommernachtstraum (1797). Beesley's appraisal is especially persuasive because she does not attempt to prove one translator superior to the other but brings them into dialogue and thereby follows Wieland's notion of translation as a collaborative project. Beesly's examples of comparative deletions and puns are both informative and instructive. Regrettably, the author provides no further context as to why Wieland used for his translation the Catholic holiday "St. Johannis" instead of "Sommernacht" as Schlegel did. Astrid Dröse's first-rate article, "Der Weimarer Macbeth (1800/1801) im Licht der Kulturtransfer-Forschung," makes explicit what her cocontributors have so far done implicitly, for she...

“Wake up Germany!”: the Development of the German National Idea in Literature and Journalism of the Thirty Years War (1618—1648)

In the 17th century a new round of development of the national idea began in the German lands of the Holy Roman Empire. It was due to influence of the Thirty Years' War (1618—1648). Poets and writers of the Baroque era became the “wake-ups” of the nation. They were perceived the Thirty Years' War as a national disaster that affected all Germans without exception. The poets from the era of the Thirty Years War have constantly called their native lands “our Fatherland is Germany” and contracted their poorer situation with a number of positive moral features, which, in their opinion, constituted a “German national character” or a “German spirit”. Writers used as a historical basis for their constructions and relied on the well-known ideas about Germany and the Germans formulated in Tacitus' Germany. German poets claimed that the Germans were “God's chosen people” (this phrase became a leitmotif in many literary monuments of the era) and the German nation is “the most daring, most noble and most ancient nation under the sun” — as Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen wrote.

Physical Education and School Sport of the German Minority in Poland in the Interwar Period of the 20th Century

In the interwar period of the 20th century, 30% of the total population of Poland was comprised of national minorities. Among them, the German minority of 740 thousand people played a very prominent role. The Germans lived mainly in the western parts of Poland: Pomeranian, Poznań and Silesian voivodeships, as well as in the district of Lodz. The German community was wealthy and influential thanks to the economic traditions and support provided by the German state. In order to stop the process of polonization, the Germans established and developed numerous forms of economic, cultural and social activity. They were very active in the area of physical culture. Their activities included taking great care of the development of physical education and sport in German schools at both primary and secondary education level. Physical education classes were taught and school sports competitions were organized. Physical education was one of the most popular school subjects and was intended to preserve the “German spirit” among pupils. The majority of German schools had a curriculum in place that included two hours of physical education per week and some of them even four hours of PE classes per week. The best teaching staff and sports facilities were to be found in private schools, especially secondary schools, where physical education and school sports enjoyed a very prominent status.

Worldly community and community of blood in the star of redemption: A critical approach from Helmuth Plessner’s anthropology

This work offers a critical approach to Franz Rosenzweig?s conception of community in The Star of Redemption based on Helmuth Plessner?s political anthropology. First, it presents Plessner?s critique of social radicalism and of the apoliticism of the German spirit, and its parallelism with the Jewish spirit. Second, it delves into the passage from Hegel und der Staat to The Star in a communitarian key. Third, it dwells on the difference between community of blood and community of faith in Rosenzweig, together with his theological-political translation into the distinction between the eternal people and the peoples of the world. Last, as a conclusion, it makes manifest the apoliticism of the Rosenzweigian proposal, and therefore, its incapacity to give an answer to the political problem in Weimar, of which its catastrophic consequences Rosenzweig did not know.

Od Zamku Berlińskiego do Forum Humboldtów: paradygmat konfliktu w niemieckiej historii

The lecture concerns the Berlin Palace (Stadtschloss) and presents a view of its long history, starting with its construction in the Baroque style by an artist of the Polish origin, Andreas Schlüter, up to its contemporary reconstruction with a new institutional function (Humboldt Forum). The ten sections of the text not only present architectural and artistic history of this residence but also pivotal historical events and contexts which affected the dimensions and meaning of its functioning. The palace, entangled into German history but also reflecting it, especially as regards the 19th and 20th centuries, becomes both a starting point for an evaluation of this history and posing questions about the future. Along with the ferociously debated, present-day reconstruction and its museum function, it also seems to be a psychogram of diverse stages of the condition of German spirit.

Vom Berliner Schloss zum Humboldt Forum: ein Paradigma Deutscher Konfliktgeschichte

The lecture concerns the Berlin Palace (Stadtschloss) and presents a view of its long history, starting with its construction in the Baroque style by an artist of the Polish origin, Andreas Schlüter, up to its contemporary reconstruction with a new institutional function (Humboldt Forum). The ten sections of the text not only present architectural and artistic history of this residence but also pivotal historical events and contexts which affected the dimensions and meaning of its functioning. The Palace, entangled into German history but also reflecting it, especially as regards the 19th and 20th centuries, becomes both a starting point for an evaluation of this history and posing questions about the future. Along with the ferociously debated, present-day reconstruction and its museum function, it also seems to be a psychogram of diverse stages of the condition of German spirit.

Stephen Edred Flowers, The Northern Dawn: A History of the Reawakening of the Germanic Spirit. Vol. 1, From the Twilight of the Gods to the Sun at Midnight

Stephen Edred Flowers, The Northern Dawn: A History of the Reawakening of the Germanic Spirit. Vol. 1, From the Twilight of the Gods to the Sun at Midnight

All is not Vanity: William James versus Ernest Renan

Na obra de James, há uma reação explícita contra a falsidade e a vaidade como o tom moral dominante. O modo como James julga Renan em particular, e o espírito latino em geral, está relacionado a uma identificação inicial com o espírito germânico através de um contexto protestante. Dentro dessa estrutura, nós veremos que por meio da figura de Carlyle, James opõe-se à moral objetiva da obra para com a sensibilidade gnóstica interior de Renan. Visto que há uma conexão óbvia entre Carlyle e o Calvinismo, o componente da ética protestante na proposta de James torna-se manifesta. Consequentemente, o propósito deste artigo é mostrar que o humor extenuante, como uma característica de coragem e virilidade, possui um tom protestante.

Stephen Edred Flowers, The Northern Dawn: A History of the Reawakening of the Germanic Spirit, Volume 1, revised edition

Stephen Edred Flowers, The Northern Dawn: A History of the Reawakening of the Germanic Spirit, Volume 1, revised edition

“German Industriousness, German Spirit, German Energy, and German Persistence”: Habsburg Cultural Politics and the Moravian Design Museum

Galleries and museums were key to the development of the public sphere in nineteenth-century Europe and America; museums of design and applied arts had an additional mission, namely, to promote economic competitiveness by improving the quality of design. This story is well known in relation to museums in London, Vienna, Berlin, and Paris. But what role did museums outside of the capital cities play? This article analyzes the growth of museums of design in Bohemia and Moravia in the late nineteenth century, focusing on the Moravian Design Museum in Brno. It considers what happened when ideas about museums and their public purposes encountered the forces of municipal politics. Rudolf Eitelberger (1817–85) founded the Austrian Museum for Art and Industry in Vienna as a means of disseminating a shared idea of aesthetic and cultural value, but how successful was this idea in gaining acceptance outside of Vienna?

„O aryjskie chrześcijaństwo” – próba syntezy chrześcijaństwa i rasistowskiego nacjonalizmu w polemikach dziewiętnasto- i dwudziestowiecznych autorów niemieckich

Since the days of activity of Paul De Lagarde (1827–1891) all over the united Germany there were raised voices calling for unification of Christianity with the German spirit by completion of the Lutheran revolution and purification of the Christian faith from Semitic elements. According to biological anti-Semites, the pressing problem was the issue of racial identity of Jesus. Making use of the findings of German oriental studies and using the arguments that belonged to the branch of biological anthropology, the German ideologues postulated some theses that allowed for a grotesque fusion of racist ideology and Luthera nism. In their opinion, it was mainly the Aryan blood that Jesus had in his veins. It was believed that Jesus might have been a descendant of either pre-Israelian communities of the Promised Land, or the Assyrians who conquered these territory in the 8th BC.